Trying to learn more about the aqua hot system. Can you run the heating part of the Aqua Hot after filling the water lines with the pink stuff so as to have electric and diesel heat while having the aqua hot water lines protected with RV antifreeze?
I think the answer is yes. But, I turn the aquahot on burner, set the thermostats on 55, including the bathroom thermostat for the bay heat. Have not had any problem with anything freezing. Just my way of doing it.
The answer is Yes. With potable RV antifreeze in all of your cold and hot water lines you can run the AH on electric or diesel for coach heat and for heat in the bays or engine preheat.
In your FT (when you get it) the front thermostat sets temperatures for the living room and bed room. You have to turn on the front thermostat for these zones to work. The bathroom thermostat controls the third zone pump and the bathroom heat exchanger. There is a thermostat in the basement bay where the water pump is located (in mine). That thermostat also controls the third zone pump and the heat exchangers in the basement. While both the bathroom and the basement wet bay use the same zone pump the heat exchangers are controlled in the area where the thermostat is located.
Of course you have to have either the electric or diesel (or both) on to get heat. When you are driving the engine also adds heat to the AH system.
When we are getting ready to head south from MN in January the AH electric is on and thermostats in the LR and BR are set to 40 for a few days before we leave. The basement thermostat is off, nothing in the wet bay to freeze. A day or so before we leave the diesel gets turned on, thermostats go up to 65 and the engine preheat is on overnight before we leave. AH electric gets shut off. A very easy start. Wet bay thermostat gets set to high 30s. Theyre may be something in the waste tanks. Thermostats go up to mid 70s, diesel AH stays on. Coach stays warm while we drive, works great.
Our coach is a 2001. Other years might be a bit different.
Thanks for the information, seems a good idea to fully winterize however having the ability to warm the coach to work inside during the winter would be great, no need for water just heat.
There are things to do in the coach when it is cold. We put in an electric radiator on high which is enough to keep it above freezing plus the AH on electric will get it up to about 50 or a bit more. Warm enough for me to get most stuff done.
Roger, since I haven't had the opportunity to travel in the winter months, you have answered my thought on whether or not the aqua hot can be running while going down the highway. Wasn't sure. Does the generator need to be running to provide enough 110v for the aqua hot similar to running the AC while driving?
Larry
You use the A-H on diesel running down the road. A-H electric doesn't work off the inverter. I keep the A-H electric and diesel switches on most of the time.
Larry,
You will have to run the generator if you desire to run the A/H on A/C power while driving. The thing is the engine will heat the A/H while it is running under most conditions. Running the A/H on A/C while traveling seems like a waste of $.
Mike
As I understand it then, the engine will keep the A-H hot enough to use the 12v heat exchanger fans in the coach operated by the thermostats, therefore the diesel burner in the A=H should not ever kick on while driving.
Larry
Larry,
Unless you are like on the Alcan Hwy during the winter. In that case the engine heat may struggle to keep up with everything thus the diesel side would kick on. We have been force to travel with the temp in the low teens and the diesel side never kicked in while driving and we were nice and warm.
Pamela & Mike
The engine will heat the AH while driving but at most no more than the engine coolant. If it is 30 degrees that is probably going to provide enough to keep you warm. We have left MN for points warmer when it has been -30° and at the end of a long days drive it has warmed up to -18°. Ran the diesel side all day. Even if it is 10 degrees, why not. I have found that for it to effectively heat the LR set the thermostat to the mid 70s. If you have the dash heat on it can fool the nearby LR thermostat into thinking it is warm enough if it is set in the 60s.
If you have a residential refrigerator and your roof top vent is still open, it is a good thing to close it for the winter. The refrigerator space is not sealed like it is for an LP gas refrig and you will get cold air in from outside while driving. Use the sliver aluminium tape for HVAC stuff or no residue duct tape. I put in a closable vent, just slightly easier.
Thanks Roger, those temps are the reason you will never see me in Minnesota in the winter. Kansas is bad enough, but not that bad. I have no problem using the diesel for the AH. I just was uncertain on its wisdom. We still use the original fridge. Not propane bu all electric, so I assume that it would be sealed up as if it had propane. When we were full timing, we saw temps as low as -4 F. but I don't recall having any cold air drafting in. We were snug as bugs at 70 inside.
Larry
How much diesel does the Aqua hot use per hour / per day?
As I recall the AH uses about 0.4 gal per hour. Depending on outdoor temp the diesel might run 1/3 of the time. Maybe 3 gal per day. If it is 40 degrees maybe 1-2 gal per day.
I think Roger means 3 gallons/day.
Thank, Brett for catching that.
I have yet to use the aqua hot in diesel mode. Used it in 120v mode and it worked great. Since talking to Rudy, found that you need to run it monthly to keep it healthy. I put in a new fuel nozzle with the new fuel hoses, but have yet to prime them, don't have enough fuel in the tank to do so yet.
AH on diesel will come up to temperature in about 20 min compared to a couple hours with electric. It will get you a bit hotter water and endless supply although we have not run out using just electric even with heating the coach.
When we are home and the coach is in the barn I hook up my rubber service station exhaust hose to the exhaust pipe and run it out through a a port hole in the side door. Turn on the diesel and let it run through one cycle. Then hook the hose to the generator and run that with a load for a half hour. Once a month. If you run your AH on deisel once a month the "annual" maintenance can easily be 2 or 3 years.
Roger, the tempering valve should keep the water at the same temperature, diesel or electric. The electric cut off thermostat is higher than the diesel to keep the diesel off until needed when they both are on.
The point is not when electric comes on and off and when diesel comes on and off, it has more to do with recovery time. Say you are heating the coach and it is 35-40° out and using domestic hot water on electric. After a while the coolant temp drops, heat is still required and there is less of it available as the coolant loses heat. Electric comes on and has a long way to go to catch up. Now showers. Maybe the AH mixing valve keeps domestic hot water at 120° but only if there is enough hot water in excess of 120° to mix.
Add diesel as a heat source and the available heat goes way up. Water heats faster, heat exchangers add heat faster it all works better.
At 35-40° electric is just barely able to heat the coach to 60ish. You probably aren't getting 120° water either for a couple showers.
Our range of AH experiene starts at -30°. Below zero for a couple days. Probably different from most. Of course if it is 60° and you are in California, all bets are off.
I have never used the electric, probably should test it but we always dry camp and it would be useless there. I was only mentioning what I learned while servicing the AH accidently started to switch the thermostats before looking at the pictures I took when I removed the burner and found out the electric was higher than the diesel.
Well, now that you are retired there might be a time where you are somewhere where electricity is available. And water. Did you get you National Park Senior Pass? Corp of Engineering campgrounds usually have 50 amps and water for around $10 per night.
Got the geezer pass 4 yrs. ago. The campgrounds give me 1/2 off that we go to but still haven't stayed at a hook-up campground. After the NASCAR race at Phoenix, we will go see the Grand Canyon and The campground has 50 amp but $41.00 it will initiate our first hookup stay.
The RV campground in the Grand Canyon NP is pretty nice, one of the better ones we have seen and stayed in. The bus stops right there and takes you to all of the places you want to see. It is a 1/4 mile walk to the canyon edge. Grocery store, post office, laundry and more in the village, even closer. Have fun!
Bob, when I replaced the nozzle in my aqua hot 2 months ago, it had stamped on the nozzle that it used .35 gal/hr. When we fulltimed 2 yrs ago, it didn't run 2-3 hrs a day except when the temps got down into the teens and below.
Larry
That seems about right Larry, I have not timed it but in the 40s the diesel side runs about 20 minutes and hour, 1/3 of the time or for your nozzle 0.12 gal/hr or about 3 gal per day. If younare plugged in, less. All of this depends on how warm you want your coach and how much of it you heat. We are from "up north" and probably get along cooler than many.
You can add a switch to the dash fan so that it does not run when the LR AH heat is on. The rest of the heat exchanger fans will run longer but less frequently, the heat distribution in the LR is better, for us overall, more comfortable.
Aqua Hot Dash Blower Fan Override (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=23713.0)
Roger, what does the green switch control that is next to the front blower switch?
Something in the dash heating/cooling system went south about 8 years ago. Switching to defrost should have made the dampers to move one way to let air come out of the defrost vents. It did not. So some rewiring and a switch make the dmoers do what I need when Defrost is required.
There is always a way.
Couldn't get the aqua hot to fire up on diesel once in Nac. Took it into the shop and Alton found that the new fuel hose had a kink in it. Once relieved it fired right up. Just now turned on the heat option as it is in the high 50's here just to check it out and at first it blew cool, but warming up pretty nice right now after 20 min. Been using it for the last 2 days for showers and I have to say it is quite nice. As Rudy says, got to use it or lose it, so we are using it and liking it.
The bypass switch sounds like a good plan Roger. Will have to try that one.
Found that the heater control switch for the dash air is inop. Will have to fix that as well.
Toured Carol and Scott's coach tonight. Very fine Foretravel. Also Robert and Josie's coach. Nice. There are some pretty sweet coaches here, and I am not talking about the 1.2 million ones. Although they are pretty nice as well.
Bob
The .35 seems correct and the gen is .44. The aquahot is intermittent obviously and the gen matches the hour meter.
If I tilt the coach when fueling the VPMS is accurate enough as is the hour meter on the gen.
What's left is the aquahot fuel use.
Why be so careful? Shows if something is wrong