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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Thu Feb 21 2002 - 22:44:44 EST
In a message dated 2/19/02 11:28:40 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:
>
> Am I being overly ambitious? Or is there an elegant solution here just
> waiting to be found?
There are problems in using an oil heater for hot water. Diesel heaters are
dirty. They take a certain warm-up time and while they are warming up they
smoke, much like a diesel engine warming up. This makes a mess on deck. I
lived with a diesel heater one winter in Charleston, SC. It put out lots of
heat but required lots of attention and made a mess on deck. The extra
plumbing and tank is more bother. It is a lot of bother just to take a
shower.
With the Paloma you turn it on, take your shower, turn it off. End of story.
No mess, no wait, no maintainence, no excess heat. No complex plumbing, it
simply goes between your pump and the rest of the boat. Done it for twenty
years. My Mom, in her Airstream days, could take a shower in one gallon with
an electric pump and so can you.
The biggest fault is that there is a delay of about 7 seconds while the
temperature of the water coming out of the shower hose settles. First it is
cool as the water in the pipe between the Paloma and the shower head comes
out, then a slug of very hot water in the heater heated by the pilot comes
out, then a slug of cold as the burner comes on and warms the heat exchanger,
then the temperature settles. You can save this water by shunting the first
ten seconds of water back to the tank if you want.
In the past the smaller Palomas vented right into the room, no flue. I think
this flue thing with a gas water heater is grossly overstated. The fire
involved is no bigger than in a gas cooking range and they are rarely
exhausted through a flue.
If I were to buy a new gas tankless water heater today it would be an
AquaStar because they are so popular in the pages of Home Power.
Norm
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