Tankless water heater??

[alpinecowboy]

Has anyone with onboard hotwater ever tried to hook up a mini-tankless water heater like this one:

Tankless Electric Water Heaters - Stiebel Eltron - MINI 6 - 208V/240V - 4.3kW/5.7kW

It lists "boats/rvs" as acceptable applications, so it seems like it would work just fine, but I'm not a plumber or an electrician so I thought I'd check with the collective.

I was looking at a heat exchanger but got a little turned away by it having copper sulfide or some other thing in that could kill you if you drank it... so, I was cruising for options.

 

[-Spike-]

For what? Showers require a lot more water than the bathroom sink.

Generally speaking they have very little capacity and require a lot of electricity to do the job, which means big wires, usually unavailable in the location you want to put the water heater.

 

[alpinecowboy]

Showers, washing and cooking is the goal.

Most of the setups I've seen on other rigs has the heat exchanger in the engine bay. That means big wires and room for plumbing won't be an issue. My 3B has a dual battery setup and I could always upgrade the alternator.

Capacity is certainly an issue, I need to research what the flow rate of this is vs what the standard heat exchangers.

At this point, I'm just looking to the forum folks with knowledgeto tell me what would be needed to make a system like this work in a 12V Land Cruiser (it would certainly be possible in a 24V no question).

Thanks

 

[-Spike-]

LOL, you might mention in the original post you want to put it in your truck. We don't get many truck related questions in this forum. I thought by 'heat exchanger' you meant some sort of solar rig. In that case I have no idea, no experience with 12 volt setups. If you don't get any help here you might try the camping forum.

 

[alpinecowboy]

Well, it looks like the moderators moved this post - it was originally in the 60 series tech thread because that is what I want to put it in - my 60 series wagon! Not home improvement... I didn't realize it had been moved until now... Great that you caught that.

Anyway, here is the system that I was looking at originally:
http://www.cruiseroutfitters.com/helton.html

I'm going to see if I can have this moved back to 60 series tech.

Thanks

 

[Weedhopper]

Why ? Don't you like us ???

 

[alpinecowboy]

It's not you, it's me... Kidding aside, I'm hoping that someone in the 60's section will have tried/done/failed at/succeeded in hooking one of these up. I'd really like to find a hot water setup that allows the water to be potable (i.e. no copper oxide).

 

[firetruck41]

Try to get it moved to the camping or expedition forum, you will probably get more help there, than any of the other forums.

 

[Dirtsquirt]

The electric on demand heater is not a viable option IMO

This thing is 5700 watts. so to power it properly you should have an
invert capable of 220v and 7000watts.
An inverter is approx 1700.00

This unit you are lookin at would be plenty for showering doing dishes
etc. with low flow shower head

I have installed a small one under the sink in my moms kitchen and a huge 460v 3ph unit at work..

I can tell the small 110v units work well enough for washing your hair in the sink. and i could cocievably take a less than optimum shower with it.

Just not feasible.

Not be a spoiler sport. I wanna add that it is conceivable that a 140-160a alternator set up with an adjustable voltage regulator (like and on board alternator welder) could power this as it is a resistive load and ac/dc would make no difference to it which you provided.

verdict. possible! probable depends on how much you wanna spend.

 

[cruiserjunktion]

how about a home made system?

you could put a tank on the roof with a simple 12v pump

then run a hardline from the tank run that wraps around your exhaust system for heat

have a spicket on the end of the hard line for a hose/ shower head


just a hidea


edit: you could also put a tank the outside of frame on the drivers side of the rig