Why don't Motorhomes use waste heat from Engine to produce a nice hot tank of water ?

Ours has a heat exchanger that does just that.... Hot and toasty ready for arrival. Great.
 
Most modern diesel engines are pretty efficient bits of machinery.
With the quest for more mpg and faster warmup times on engine cooling, the tendancy is to fit smaller volume cooling systems which help to get the engine up to temperature faster.
Many vehicless have esbatcher type fuel heaters to augment engine warming because they generate low frictional and combustive losses. Modern engines like running at a fixed temp where possible and additional thermal losses like additional heaters have to be paid for from some where, usually as a sacrifice to efficiency.
If you need instant hot h2o when you arrive consider a 12v 30amp water heater which will give you nice hot water but 360watts of energy per hour needs to come from somewhere (ie the alternator) which requires 360w plus a bit to power it.
Somebody said energy cannot be created or destroyed - manufacturers would have us think otherwise!

Second that! Modern Diesel engines run so lean they need to be heated, when ambient temperatures are low, from an external heater to get up to operating temperature when driven with low loads (i.e. around town or sitting in traffic).
You will not notice this. Till your aux heater packs in! One of my previous cars just didn't warm up, no matter what parts I changed (thermostats etc) till I found that the 12V aux heater was blown up.

But it sounds nice to have a warm hab area when arriving :). But the gas heater won't take long to heat.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top