Can you ask Seaward?


"Scout" wrote in message
oups.com..
..
Uninstalling and analyzing this heater is a good thing.
Further
inspection may just exonerate the design. If you look
closely at the
bottom tubes in this picture,
http://sports.webshots.com/photo/291...97509592UoBucA
you'll notice that they enter the tank through two very
loose sleeves.
Check out the ample clearance between the coil ends and
the sleeves
they pass through. I need to find a way to determine if
what appears to
be an exageration of sloppy pipe fitting is in fact a
clever design
intended to drain any chemicals away from contact with
fresh water
should the tubing leak for any reason. It is possible that
the design
is a tube inside a tube, with the outter tube being an
non-pressure
path out of the unit. If that's the case, I can see why
the hot water
heat is so slow to come up to temperature, but the added
safety feature
would be worth the wait.
As an experiment, I'm thinking of suspending the tank with
the tank
face parallel to the floor, so that any drop of water in
the tank will
drip from the boiler drain. Then, I would feed a stream of
water into
the sleeve and see if it eventually begins to flow from
the other side.
If it does, and if it never flows from the boiler drain,
then I can
conclude that there exists an isolating compartment, which
is vented to
atmosphere, between the anti-freeze filled tubing the
fresh water tank.

If I find that to be true, I'll connect to the engine
again without
losing sleep.
Scout



Jeff wrote:
I think Seaward made two versions, SS and Aluminum.

I have a galvanic isolator, and use the non-toxic
anti-freeze.

Scout wrote:
How many here have a hot water heater that works with
the engine's
coolant system as a heat source?

It is a very thin line separating that toxic material
from your drinking
water supply. The closed engine coolant loop may reach
15 psi when hot,
and could easily outmatch the force in the fresh water
system,
especially if you run dry or turn off your on-demand
pump for any
reason. A pin hole or a crack in the hw heat exchanger
could have deadly
results.

In my work as a boiler tech, we were never permitted
to use toxic
anti-freeze in boilers that produced domestic hot
water (summer-winter
boiler packages). I've replaced tens of those coils
due to leakage!

Just a thought, but Bart's recent comment about
galvanic isolation got
me thinking.

Maybe I'll get that RedDot heater that Ole Thom has
mentioned, remove
the anti-freeze loop from my fresh water supply, and
use those lines to
supply aux heat in the cabin.

Scout