Fitting a heater - advice welcome.

ThereAndBack

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I plan to fit a heating system to my 2 cabin Bav 37, possibly an Eberspacher.

Firstly, can anyone advise me which model or output will be best, bearing in mind that we intend to take the boat to the Med by the end of summer so will probably not need as much heat as a UK based boat would?

Secondly, are these systems complicated to assemble and fit?
I am considering buying some components from such sources as eBay, rather than paying the substantial price of a full kit.

Any advice or tips will be much appreciated.

Alan
 

fireball

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We fitted an Eber to our boat. The difficult bit was finding somewhere to fit it. Then it was a matter of getting the component parts in place. We have just the one outlet into the main cabin (only 30' .... ).

Basically the Eber (and Web) system is simple - feed in 2xair, fuel and elec ... feed out hot air and exhaust ... the controls should sort out the rest and it basically becomes another blackbox.

The bits you have to think about are:
Exhaust:
The stainless exhaust runs through the stern locker packed in a thermal blanket inside some airduct - this keeps the outside cool to the touch and was not something we thought about before putting the heater in - we should've done /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Fuel:
We're using a 2L oil can for fuel as it is only a small heater and we were not prepared to drill a hole in our fuel tank at this time. Also we had somewhere to fit the 2L tank securely .... (added benefit is we can always use Red even after Nov 2008!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif )

There is still the positioning for the air intake/output and the combustion air intake - don't forget the elec requirements - so a big cable or somewhere close to a battery is a good idea - what about isolator switch though?
 

davierobb

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Fitted propex heater and exhaust length is an issue, cant be more than 3 or four feet. If the exhaust is too long the heater wont fire up, I know from experience. Check installation instructions for specific heater before deciding on where to hide heater unit.

Also use correct skin fitting to isolate exhaust heat from hull, they seem expensive but are worth the money.
 

lw395

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If you're off to the med do you want a water heater for showers etc, eg Eber Hydronic? 22mm water pipe is much easier to get around the boat than 3in air ducts. I have a hydronic, would never buy the whole kit from uk agents again, would get just the essential through auto industry or buy used. Wiring with eber kit is poor, Volkwagen connector that corroded, crappy torpedo fuses, etc.
Worst joke is the eber timeclock which forgets everything when you start the engine or switch the battery off!
The Hydronic itself is great, if a little noisy. They do make proper silencers for them, but wasn't in the kit.
They are getting common in diesel cars now.
 

jezjez

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make sure you buy decent stuff. I know nothing about the system you're employing but nearly killed wife and self with faulty wood burner on newly purchased mab (we simpply tested it by using it and woke up half way up to the pearly gates. Thanks to the dog waking us at 5am we only ahd to spend the day in hospital), might be worth a look at Boat safety scheme (on web) for opinions on carbon monoxide if the system you're fitting has any invloved in its use.
Best of luck, stay healthy.
 

johnphilip

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I fitted a Webasto 2000 18 months ago and all very good. The recommended size for a 33 ft boat was the larger 3500 but 2KW is plenty for us and would probably heat your 37 ft except in deepest January.
Advantage of the 2000 is that the ducting is only 60 mm and enabled fitting with minimal disruption.

The most useful addition is the lagging on the duct which means that you do not waste half the heat before it reaches the cabin.
Because of the lagging the 2000 gives more useful warmth than the Eber 3.5 kw on our last boat.
You may well find there is already a secondary fuel draw pipe already fitted in the top of your fuel tank.
I fitted it one weekend and had it running by mid afternoon Sunday - then half a day to put the boat back together.
Only potential problem was that with the heater mounted close to the transom the wiring harness only just reached the switch panel where I wanted to fit it. good luck- go Webasto- far fewer grumbles than about Eber on this site.
Quay West marine did a good deal with discount for first purchase.
 

pvb

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RTFM...

The best advice is to read the installation manual carefully and follow its guidance exactly. Most Eberspacher problems we hear about on these forums can be traced to poor installation.
 

Bodach na mara

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I got a Hydronic fitted a few years ago. Great thing, but the best bit is the hot water. The guy that fitted it told me that it MUST be wired direct to the battery via its own fuse and NOT through the main switch. This would avoid the problems mentioned by lw395. The main reason for this however is that the boiler goes through a shut-down cycle that takes over 2 minutes, during which the pump and boiler fan must continue running. He had seen too many units wired through the main switch that had been running when the switch was turned off, which meant that there was no circulation to cool them when the fire went out. There are a lot of bits attached to the boiler that then melt!
 

chriscallender

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The 7 day timer for Eberspachers that is also able to display fault codes is worth its weight in gold, even if you don't use it as a timer (although thats good too).

I had an Eber that I couldn't get started for about the last 2 years, running within about 20 minutes once I knew what the fault code was. I thought it was "locked out" (and I understand the fault code reader can clear the fault memory for that too) but it was something much more simple (but impossible to see without knowing where to look).

Definitely worth the 50 notes or so I paid for it on Ebay. I suspect that most cases of the famous "lock out" are actually caused by something else, and without knowing the fault codes you're really working a bit with a blindfold on to try and figure out what.

If you buy one 2nd hand from Ebay, factor into the price that it probably needs to be stripped down and serviced, from memory I replaced the glowplug, gauze around the glowplug which had almost disintegrated and with the needed new gaskets etc to clean it all out that came to about another £50. Then the ducting/exhaust skin fittings/vent outlets, fuel plumbing etc are typically not included in the Ebay packages or are not good enough. So those bits add to the costs too...

These things definitely aren't rocket science to install/service/fix and there is pretty good information available in the various manuals from espar.com web site. But you can get pretty stuck if they won't even attempt to fire up due to some inital check failing. Parts from official sources seem to be pretty expensive, but there seem to be more and more new parts (eg fuel pumps) coming up on Ebay at more reasonable prices.

Final piece of advice : I've found this old thread pretty useful

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=pbo&Number=859963

Chris
 

Birdseye

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Just been talking to the local boatyard about the same thing. He strongly recommended a Webasto or mikuni because Ebersp... dont tell you until you've bought one that it needs road quality diesel not the red dyed gas oil we use. The resulkt in hios case has been 3 burners at £160 each in the last 5 years.

Cant confirm what he said, but I have heard similar comments elsewhere.FWIW
 
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