Heat exchanger for hot water

[Nabsim]

Rather than take the planner thread off track I am creating this thread to hopefully find a bit more info and maybe help someone else.

My van has an Eberspächer DT4 diesel fired hot air heating system, I know exactly what that is and when fitted as I have the original invoices for the work. My hot water system isn’t so obvious apart from it looking like it runs of a heat exchanger that looks a proper job (or much better DIY than I could do) and would have thought it was also Eberspächer although so far I can’t find anything like it on the net.

Does anyone else have anything like this fitted and if so can you provide any info?



It’s the black bit towards top left with ducks and pipes connected

 

[mistericeman]

Looks like as well as a calorifier someone has taken one of the blown air outlets and fabricated something from a water-cooled computer cooling units air/water heat exchanger....
Bit like these...

 

[Nabsim]

So would that longer black rubber pipe be fed of the van radiator? I was thinking it was just scavenging heat from the blown air but now you have said clarifier and I have looked at the pic again I am seeing it a little differently.

Sorry for posting this in the wrong section, hadn't realised until I just came back to it

 

[mistericeman]

Possibly something like this....

6.6kw Sahara Boat Heater 12v

To extract warm air from hot water?

 

[Nabsim]

Mine is the other way round, I have hot air from an Eberspacher D4. Its how that is transferring to the hot water I am looking at. Will be another investigation when I get to the van methinks

 

[maxi77]

Rather than take the planner thread off track I am creating this thread to hopefully find a bit more info and maybe help someone else.

My van has an Eberspächer DT4 diesel fired hot air heating system, I know exactly what that is and when fitted as I have the original invoices for the work. My hot water system isn’t so obvious apart from it looking like it runs of a heat exchanger that looks a proper job (or much better DIY than I could do) and would have thought it was also Eberspächer although so far I can’t find anything like it on the net.

Does anyone else have anything like this fitted and if so can you provide any info?

View attachment 61583

It’s the black bit towards top left with ducks and pipes connected

Looks as if it could be a marine calorifier, which uses engine cooling water to heat the domestic water. Two pipes will be connected to the engine cooling system to give a supply from near the thermostat and a return somewhere around the pipe from the bottom of the radiator back to the engine. The other two pipes are the cold supply and the hot out. Because the water gets to near engine cooling water temperature many have a thermostatic mixing valve on the output mixing cold from the inlet with the hot output to cool it to about 60 degrees. This will allow the tank to supply about 50 percent more hot water than it's capacity. Many also have the facility to fit a lowish wattage immersion heater for when on EHU. I fitted a much bigger one in my last boat and always had hot water.

 

[Scampi30]

Rather than take the planner thread off track I am creating this thread to hopefully find a bit more info and maybe help someone else.

My van has an Eberspächer DT4 diesel fired hot air heating system, I know exactly what that is and when fitted as I have the original invoices for the work. My hot water system isn’t so obvious apart from it looking like it runs of a heat exchanger that looks a proper job (or much better DIY than I could do) and would have thought it was also Eberspächer although so far I can’t find anything like it on the net.

Does anyone else have anything like this fitted and if so can you provide any info?

View attachment 61583

It’s the black bit towards top left with ducks and pipes connected

It looks like a calorifier or indirect h/w cylinder. Two of the pipes will be the flow and return from heat source the flow goes round a coil inside the cyl.and back to heat source heating domestic hot water (you will be able to tell which by holding pipes after you turn on heat source) The other two pipes (black) look like flow and return through a heat exchanger (black box) to supply hot air. All is not clear in picture but feeling pipes at start up should help you sort it out. Quite a common thing in boats.

 

[trevskoda]

Yep boat heat exchanger,not a lot of use in a van unless run of blow heater which i suspect it is not.
If it were me i would rip it out and fit a gas heater or for the general use of light washing try one of these units which can be got from breakers doe vans and run on 12v with top fill tank.

 

[Nabsim]

Seems like whatever I look at isn’t straight forwards at the moment surprise, surprise

The French bed has a huge custom mattress on it which defeats the hydraulic stays and all this is under the bed. Not a problem I will pull the mattress off next time I get in there and have a better look and track stuff back. It IS linked in with the ducting from the Eberspächer hot air heating but don’t know how effective that is. I didn’t notice an immersion heater but then again I didn’t know what to look for when I took the pics.

 

[Nabsim]

I eventually worked through this one. Is is a calorific system from Surecal. It takes heat from the engine cooling system and runs it round coils in the tank to heat the water. The black bit I wasn’t sure of is extra coils that use heat from the Eberspächer diesel air heater to heat the water and there is also an electric immersion heater.

So it looks like I have hot water if I run engine, heating or have hook up either mains or generator. May need to change if we go to warmer countries but should be fine for the UK this year

The two red tanks in that area are also part of the hot water system, I had mistakenly thought they were air tanks for the air suspension system until I had worked through everything.