Plumbing is one area where I haven't dabbled, whether asa home improvement or in this case a trailer build. I'm having dual water tanks custom built to fit around various components of a trailer build so my first question is how do I link them together in regards to plumbing. Second, do most of you have only one outlet coming from your tank, then you adjust the heat of that outlet or do youhave two outlets, one of which gets routed through the heat exchanger. The way my non plumbing educated mind is invisioning it is one outlet from th etank to a water pump, then split, one side going to a cold faucet, the other going to a hot faucet via a heat exchanger. Is that right or am I way off base? Alsowhat's the general consensus on the best heat exchanger as well as water pump? I'll be running approx a total of 45 gals on this trailer build.
Plumbing Help
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Martyn
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Link the tanks up with a common tube.
Single line from one tank to the pump.
T after pump to hot side and cold side.
Various pumps on the market, make sure they are in the 40psi range or have adjustable pressure settings. I'd suggest a pressure sensitive pump, one that turns on when the shower head or faucet is turned on.
You can use common fittings found at the hardware store.
Your biggest hurdle is the heat exchanger. Work well when vehicle based, presents problems when located on the trailer.
Single line from one tank to the pump.
T after pump to hot side and cold side.
Various pumps on the market, make sure they are in the 40psi range or have adjustable pressure settings. I'd suggest a pressure sensitive pump, one that turns on when the shower head or faucet is turned on.
You can use common fittings found at the hardware store.
Your biggest hurdle is the heat exchanger. Work well when vehicle based, presents problems when located on the trailer.
NeverEnough
Adventurer
Sounds like you're thinking electric, whereas most vehicle heat exchangers use diesel (Espar). Heating water with electricity is amp-intensive, so it really depends on how much water you need to heat. My trailer, which is primarily a toad for my RV (C5500 Topkick build), uses a 2gal mini-tank electric water heater for the wash basin. It is the least amp-intensive electric water heater you'll find, at about 17.5 amps, 110VAC. The "on-demand" electric heaters will require about 27 amps at 110VAC. Either means at least a 3000 watt inverter with some decent battery to back it up (I have 440ah in the trailer, along with 600watts of solar on the roof). If you've already got propane on-board for cooking, it will be your best bet for heating water. Or you can run a generator and not worry about the electric.
x2 on the two tank setup. I only have one in the trailer, but there are three in my RV. I wanted to be able to isolate them when needed, so they all have their own fill ports and vents (very important and often forgotton on custom tanks). The outlets all have a ball valve, and feed a common manifold, which then feeds the pump. After the pump you've got a backflow preventer, city water fill, pressure regulator, and hot and cold distribution via a "T". Most RV and marine pumps do best with fittings from RV or trailer supply stores, rather than the standard PEX or tubing stuff you find at Home Depot or Lowes. The same is probably true of the poly fittings on your tanks. All the rest of my fittings were sourced through standard plumbing supply houses. And I used PEX for everything but the fill hoses, rather than the traditional poly tubing.
Martyn
Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
Heat exchange water heaters usually use the vehicle cooling system to heat the water or a 12 volt electric element. Both the coolant and the primary electrical are a long way from a trailer and would need some sort of fast disconnects.
The electrical heat exchanger can be set up in the trailer, it would need 4 gauge wire run back from the main battery, a re-settable breaker and an Anderson connector. Do-able, may be better using this set up to fast charge a group 31 AGM based in the trailer pulling the power for the heat exchanger off this battery.
I wouldn't attempt a coolant based heat exchanger in a trailer, lots of potential for catastrophic failures.
We use a hot water system based on the Zodi extreme a pressure sensitive pump, and one of our shower mixer valves. Simple and it works well.
The electrical heat exchanger can be set up in the trailer, it would need 4 gauge wire run back from the main battery, a re-settable breaker and an Anderson connector. Do-able, may be better using this set up to fast charge a group 31 AGM based in the trailer pulling the power for the heat exchanger off this battery.
I wouldn't attempt a coolant based heat exchanger in a trailer, lots of potential for catastrophic failures.
We use a hot water system based on the Zodi extreme a pressure sensitive pump, and one of our shower mixer valves. Simple and it works well.
I use a 6 gallon propane RV heater in mine with a Shurflow on demand pump, again from the RV world. Of course using this requires space for the heater and pretty solid mounting. I boxed mine in with 1.5 065 box tubing. So far no problems. I agree with Martyn on the using the vehicle cooling system. Way more change for failure.
Either I worded my original questions wrong or it was misinterpreted. I have no intention of tapping into my vehicles cooling system. I intend on using a propane type heat exchanger. My reference to amp draw was that I was assuming that the propane type heat exchamger would need some electricity to ignite it and then some. Thanks for the info. Much appreciated
NeverEnough
Adventurer
I think that most propane water heaters with an electric ignition have their own fuse (usually mini ATO) in the 2-3 amp rang to protect their internal board. But you only need the juice for ignition, so as long as you have a 12VDC source with some nominal level of charge, you'll be fine.
As stated mine is run throught solar controller, Morningstar 15 digital. Upon start up it was drawing .8 amps, as the water heated it dropped to .7 and continued that until the heater shut off. But once the water is hot, it will only draw a small amount during a weekend of camping. Any type of solar will keep it operating and never putting your battery system in peril. Now in the middle of winter it might run a little more.