What is the BEST....High Altitude Solution for Heating?

[biotect]

Hi Barry,

Many thanks for your kind words. Different threads develop different "personalities", and it seems clear what the personality of this thread needs to be.

All best wishes,


Biotect

 

[charlesrg]

On this topic of water heater. I'm wondering if anyone found a system with heat exchange and coil while the coil runs at 24V DC.
I'm picturing running the water heater straight from the 24V Battery bank instead of having to turn on the inverter.

I researched on the brands bellow and all have only 110V/220V heat elements:

• Webasto
• Torrid
• Whale
• Kuuma
• ITR Heat
• ISOTherm
• Truma

The only one I found to have 24V DC element is the Elgena but only at 400Watts (https://www.elgena.de/products/nautic-therm?variant=14802382851)

With around 1000 watts element I could have a tank that is not to large and be able to shower in not so cold days without having to turn on the diesel coolant heater.

I understand I will need a heavy gauge wire to the heater, however I feel that is better than having the inverter as a dependency.

Moving this particular question to a new topic: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/dc-electric-water-heater-with-heat-exchanger.220006/

 

[Neil]

We have successfully run our eberspacher M10 at over 5000m. (16000 ft )

It took a few goes at firing up, it popped and banged and smoked like a pig until it was warmed up. But it was on really crap Bolivian Diesel.

It would only run on its lowest setting., turn it up and it would shut down with a bang.

But it did run

Neil

 

[Joe917]

Same Experience as Neil with out Webasto ThermoTop C, difficulty starting over about 4500m, but it did start and put out good heat. I don't see an issue for the unit in North America.

 

[Jeff Busch]

+1 on the Eberspächer/Espar for over 4300m. We met two couples with Webasto in the Atacama. Both were having issues with their heaters at altitude (one had flames exiting the exhaust pipe for a couple of very exciting minutes).

We didn't have any problems firing up our espar at 4300m el Taito or in higher altitudes.

One note, we have the B4, which is the petrol version, so we did not need a second fuel source.

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