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Hot water system?? Ionic? Grippamax

ECLM
WCF

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Hi Naomi

Sorry haven’t got any recommendations or advice on this, just wanted too ask when you want to change from lpg top diesel? I was looking at a lpg system, seeing why you want too change it?

Thanks.


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They’re all the webasto heaters underneath anyway as far as I know. The 5.2kw can struggle to get a decent raise in temperature according to some reviews, so I’d go for a 9kw even if it’s for one user... that’s what I plan to do when my budget allows..

 
I have had both Ionic’s and Grippatank heaters , I currently have a Grippatank heater it’s more user friendly in my opinion we have 2 hot pumps all the time , the Ionic’s one only has one hot pump and one cold one it returned some hot water to the tank all the time so it does heat up the tank water slowly but reduces the flow to the pole it isn’t really possible to adjust the % return to tank yourself,, the Grippatank one has a much better temperature variation where as Ionic’s is Either summer mode or winter it’s true they both use the same heater but work slightly differently I had my heater custom mad3 for what I wanted and am very pleased with it give olive4 a ring and have a chat he will give you honest non beast advice without the hard sell , 

 
Pjj said:
I have had both Ionic’s and Grippatank heaters , I currently have a Grippatank heater it’s more user friendly in my opinion we have 2 hot pumps all the time , the Ionic’s one only has one hot pump and one cold one it returned some hot water to the tank all the time so it does heat up the tank water slowly but reduces the flow to the pole it isn’t really possible to adjust the % return to tank yourself,, the Grippatank one has a much better temperature variation where as Ionic’s is Either summer mode or winter it’s true they both use the same heater but work slightly differently I had my heater custom mad3 for what I wanted and am very pleased with it give olive4 a ring and have a chat he will give you honest non beast advice without the hard sell , 
Click to expand...

Thankyou so much, yes we run 2 poles and ionic had told us about the fact it warms tank water, how long have you had the grippa?


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Pjj said:
I’ve had it 3 years and it’s working 8 hours a day 5 days a week , very pleased with it personally prefer the way it works to the Ionic’s one 
Click to expand...

That's reassuring, I've just been reading on another forum people having a lot of costly breakdowns, how often do you service it? And can you set to put water back into tank when pole isn't running?


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Naomi said:
That's reassuring, I've just been reading on another forum people having a lot of costly breakdowns, how often do you service it? And can you set to put water back into tank when pole isn't running?


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Click to expand...


You would need to consider your options very carefully and not be too taken in by salesmen and sales literature. As far as diesel heaters are concerned the suppliers usually use Webasto units. Ionics work slightly differently  so you have to very carefully weigh up the pros and cons of each system.

As with most 2 man systems the suppliers use Webasto ST90 diesel furnaces. If you do a search on the main boating forums you will see that there are numerous issues with boaters/live-a-boards using diesel heaters (Webasto are the most popular of the diesel heaters so take the most criticism.) The problem surrounds the use of red diesel.

There was a boater who threatened to take Webasto to court for selling a product not fit for purpose. I can’t remember the full details but he was complaining about regular heater failure and the cost of repairs.

Webasto took that same unit and ran it for 6 months on road diesel and found that the boiler was in perfect condition inside, where the same boiler, over the same period of time was completely chocked up with soot and carbon from using red diesel fuel causing it to fail. Webasto didn’t blame red diesel per say but blamed the quality of some of the fuel sold on boating marinas.  

Hurricane heaters were sold by Brodex at one time and they claimed their heaters worked fine on red diesel. However, an independent boat yard repairer said that they were just as bad – there weren’t many complaints about Hurricane due to the fact that there aren’t many out there to begin with.

We live on the North Coast and there is a supplier selling red diesel to the fishermen. One of the window cleaners I talk to uses red diesel in his window cleaning van. He uses a hot box with an exhaust through the roof. The top of his van is black with soot all around the vent from the boiler. No wonder it clogs the internal boiler with carbon.

(I have an Eberspacher Airtronic air heater in my van. It runs on road diesel from the van’s tank. It was nearly new when I bought it and it been in my van for 8 years. It’s never had a service and starts each time I want to use it in winter.) Webasto bought Eberspacher (Espar in the USA) out many years ago.

Tankless Gas heaters provide instant heat where a Webasto (or Eberspacher, Mukuni, Hurricane etc) doesn’t.

A Webasto is primary designed as a diesel preheater for vehicles used in cold countries and has been adapted for window cleaning. It was designed to be switched on about 30 minutes before a journey begins to heat the engine coolant up to just below normal engine running temperature. In the process it also had the electronics to switch the internal blower of the vehicles cabin on when the water got to 30 degrees C to defrost the windscreen and warm the vehicle up a bit inside.

Once the water in the engine reached a certain temperature the unit kicks into half heat mode and then when it reaches full temperature it starts its power down and switch off cycle which lasts 180 secs. Start up also takes time as the unit does lots of checks before it starts up. Diesels heaters need to work. If they stop and restart all the time they won’t work well for you. If you are working on a large commercial building where the cleaners are going from one window to the next then this is fine. If you have small residential jobs scattered all over then you are going to have issues. (Ionics have a different setup to some others with pros and cons to consider).

When a heater starts it draws up to 20+ amps of current in pulses over a few minutes before it settles down to about what a wfp pump draws. Window cleaners have issues with batteries failing as there aren’t many leisure batteries that will support these high power draws. (There are a few more now such as Numax who also quote CCA (cold cranking amps) on some of their leisure batteries as they have to accommodate caravan movers as well.)

You do need a separate battery for the heater IMHO and you can’t rely on a Split Charge Relay to keep it fully charged.

 These are things you need to know and understand before you decide diesel is the way to go.

The main complaints levied by window cleaners are how often the unit needs servicing, the cost of servicing and battery issues.

A diesel heater heats up an internal water core including a header tank. In that internal core is one or two water to water plate heat exchangers depending on if it’s a single or twin operator system. These heat exchangers are what draw heat from the internal core and transfer it to the water going to the brush head. Most of the suppliers incorporate a mixing valve onto the heat exchanger which is used to regulate to temperature of the water going to the brush.

If the window cleaners stop and talk, the furnace continues to heat the water until it gets to its full heat and starts the process of shutting the furnace down which takes 180 seconds. If the operators start to use the system just after it starts to power down, the furnace will still go through its cycle and after the cycle has finished will then start up again. By that time all the heat in the core will be used up and the operators will be using cold water. If they are doing small jobs then chances are this will be the norm – initial hot with cold ending.

Now Ionics use a different system. Their window cleaning pumps work 100% of the time, even when the operator switches his pole tap off. When the pole tap is switched off the pump increases the pressure in the line to above 65psi and a pressure relief valve operates and diverts that hot water back to the storage tank. What this does is keeps the furnace running and reduces stop start. The operators will always have hot water to work with.

The downside of Ionic system is that you can’t fine tune the water temperature to the brush. All Ionics gives you is a summer and winter switch that reprograms the furnace to operate at a lower temperature range.

.

 
Julian Noddy Dean said:
what about warrentys on theses things ? if your spending over 5k on a bit of kit surly you what it covered for three years? 
Click to expand...


Tbh warranties are probably not worth the paper they are written on.

If something has gone wrong then you are totally at the mercy of a service agent to repair the unit and submit the cost to the manufacturer. Unless you are standing over the repairer whilst he his checking your unit you have no idea if they are fobbing you off or not. He can make up a story knowing you haven't the knowledge to challenge him on what he says. He would rather charge you at his full labour rate and profit on spares than 'sell' his labour at a reduced cost to the manufacturer and spares at cost with no profit.

If the fault is due to the unit coking up because of poor quality fuel being used, then the warranty becomes nul and void. Regular servicing isn't included in the warranty.

 
spruce said:
You would need to consider your options very carefully and not be too taken in by salesmen and sales literature. As far as diesel heaters are concerned the suppliers usually use Webasto units. Ionics work slightly differently  so you have to very carefully weigh up the pros and cons of each system.

As with most 2 man systems the suppliers use Webasto ST90 diesel furnaces. If you do a search on the main boating forums you will see that there are numerous issues with boaters/live-a-boards using diesel heaters (Webasto are the most popular of the diesel heaters so take the most criticism.) The problem surrounds the use of red diesel.

There was a boater who threatened to take Webasto to court for selling a product not fit for purpose. I can’t remember the full details but he was complaining about regular heater failure and the cost of repairs.

Webasto took that same unit and ran it for 6 months on road diesel and found that the boiler was in perfect condition inside, where the same boiler, over the same period of time was completely chocked up with soot and carbon from using red diesel fuel causing it to fail. Webasto didn’t blame red diesel per say but blamed the quality of some of the fuel sold on boating marinas.  

Hurricane heaters were sold by Brodex at one time and they claimed their heaters worked fine on red diesel. However, an independent boat yard repairer said that they were just as bad – there weren’t many complaints about Hurricane due to the fact that there aren’t many out there to begin with.

We live on the North Coast and there is a supplier selling red diesel to the fishermen. One of the window cleaners I talk to uses red diesel in his window cleaning van. He uses a hot box with an exhaust through the roof. The top of his van is black with soot all around the vent from the boiler. No wonder it clogs the internal boiler with carbon.

(I have an Eberspacher Airtronic air heater in my van. It runs on road diesel from the van’s tank. It was nearly new when I bought it and it been in my van for 8 years. It’s never had a service and starts each time I want to use it in winter.) Webasto bought Eberspacher (Espar in the USA) out many years ago.

Tankless Gas heaters provide instant heat where a Webasto (or Eberspacher, Mukuni, Hurricane etc) doesn’t.

A Webasto is primary designed as a diesel preheater for vehicles used in cold countries and has been adapted for window cleaning. It was designed to be switched on about 30 minutes before a journey begins to heat the engine coolant up to just below normal engine running temperature. In the process it also had the electronics to switch the internal blower of the vehicles cabin on when the water got to 30 degrees C to defrost the windscreen and warm the vehicle up a bit inside.

Once the water in the engine reached a certain temperature the unit kicks into half heat mode and then when it reaches full temperature it starts its power down and switch off cycle which lasts 180 secs. Start up also takes time as the unit does lots of checks before it starts up. Diesels heaters need to work. If they stop and restart all the time they won’t work well for you. If you are working on a large commercial building where the cleaners are going from one window to the next then this is fine. If you have small residential jobs scattered all over then you are going to have issues. (Ionics have a different setup to some others with pros and cons to consider).

When a heater starts it draws up to 20+ amps of current in pulses over a few minutes before it settles down to about what a wfp pump draws. Window cleaners have issues with batteries failing as there aren’t many leisure batteries that will support these high power draws. (There are a few more now such as Numax who also quote CCA (cold cranking amps) on some of their leisure batteries as they have to accommodate caravan movers as well.)

You do need a separate battery for the heater IMHO and you can’t rely on a Split Charge Relay to keep it fully charged.

 These are things you need to know and understand before you decide diesel is the way to go.

The main complaints levied by window cleaners are how often the unit needs servicing, the cost of servicing and battery issues.

A diesel heater heats up an internal water core including a header tank. In that internal core is one or two water to water plate heat exchangers depending on if it’s a single or twin operator system. These heat exchangers are what draw heat from the internal core and transfer it to the water going to the brush head. Most of the suppliers incorporate a mixing valve onto the heat exchanger which is used to regulate to temperature of the water going to the brush.

If the window cleaners stop and talk, the furnace continues to heat the water until it gets to its full heat and starts the process of shutting the furnace down which takes 180 seconds. If the operators start to use the system just after it starts to power down, the furnace will still go through its cycle and after the cycle has finished will then start up again. By that time all the heat in the core will be used up and the operators will be using cold water. If they are doing small jobs then chances are this will be the norm – initial hot with cold ending.

Now Ionics use a different system. Their window cleaning pumps work 100% of the time, even when the operator switches his pole tap off. When the pole tap is switched off the pump increases the pressure in the line to above 65psi and a pressure relief valve operates and diverts that hot water back to the storage tank. What this does is keeps the furnace running and reduces stop start. The operators will always have hot water to work with.

The downside of Ionic system is that you can’t fine tune the water temperature to the brush. All Ionics gives you is a summer and winter switch that reprograms the furnace to operate at a lower temperature range.

.
Click to expand...
funny thing i the best heat source is the vans engine ! trouble is these company's haven't got the cash to invest in this side of things unlike the usa company hydamaster , we run there truck-mounted carpet cleaners which are stand alone units 

however in the us they do truck mounted units that are powered via the vans engine using a pto system  and the like , yes you have to leave the vans engine running ect ect but there a top bit of kit ! took them years to design it but it saves carrying a tonne of carpet cleaner in the back of you van 

 were 10 years behind the us in the carpet cleaning trade yet were tens year ahead of them in the wfp trade shame someone couldnt make the engine heat the water , guess we will just have to wait until they catch up so we can buy it off them instead of a uk company

 
Last edited by a moderator:
As @Pjj says, the ionics one is a single operator unit.

I have my heater on the work bench in the garage atm. I have all the parts to add a third heat exchanger and pump controlled by the digital temperature controller. The idea is that the 3rd pump kicks in when programmed to bleed that extra heat back to the tank using the 3rd heat exchanger when I stop to talk, which I do often.

Then there is a cleaner in Andover that has just plumbed his smaller Webasto into this Grippatank and heats the water in that. It not the most efficient way of heating water but solves many other problems.




 
Last edited by a moderator:
24 minutes ago, spruce said:

As @Pjj says, the ionics one is a single operator unit.

I have my heater on the work bench in the garage atm. I have all the parts to add a third heat exchanger and pump controlled by the digital temperature controller. The idea is that the 3rd pump kicks in when programmed to bleed that extra heat back to the tank using the 3rd heat exchanger when I stop to talk, which I do often.

Then there is a cleaner in Andover that has just plumbed his smaller Webasto into this Grippatank and heats the water in that. It not the most efficient way of heating water but solves many other problems.

Click to expand...

sorry to high jack this thread , but do you think were making window cleaning to much trouble with all this bull poop , heat, vision, sparkle useing resin up to 10 ,  you must have a swivel neck 6 jets in brushes ect ect ect ect 

 were all in business to make as much money as we cant, as  fast  as  we can ,the  best as we can without being a cowboys ,when  investing 5k into heat how much extra work do you have to do to see it back in your hand in cash terms after servicing it ect 

so if your running cold and doing 1k a week  you  then install heat which then  lets you do 1100 a week by the time you have took the tax and fuel off that extra 100 pounds and then the service costs you could only come out with 30 a week extra in you hand this is before any down time with the heaters going down and a trip to wear ever you bought it from 

its going to take years and years before really seeing your 5k back in your hand what the point ? in my eyes that a bad investment let alone it dieing on a job and you cant get it running again losing anther 200 pounds on a days takings make the sytem now 5200 in costing to make back 

ive blown fuses and stuck a pair of scissors out the first aid kit in the fuse holder to get me away on jobs before and done a full days work like this so a 10 pound first aid kit paid for itself many times over i just think we and suppliers talk ourselfs in to buy aload of **** we really dont need   

 
Last edited by a moderator:
spruce said:
As [mention=2439]Pjj[/mention] says, the ionics one is a single operator unit.
 
I have my heater on the work bench in the garage atm. I have all the parts to add a third heat exchanger and pump controlled by the digital temperature controller. The idea is that the 3rd pump kicks in when programmed to bleed that extra heat back to the tank using the 3rd heat exchanger when I stop to talk, which I do often.
 
Then there is a cleaner in Andover that has just plumbed his smaller Webasto into this Grippatank and heats the water in that. It not the most efficient way of heating water but solves many other problems.
 
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6RD_Hw2y6yw?feature=oembed  
[/URL]  
Click to expand...

Yes I was told by ionic that it is a one man set up, but that the hot water goes back into the tank when tap is off on first pole and so then second brush does start working with warmer water!

I am so confused about what to do! The more I look at this the more I think I may just buy a new lpg boiler!! The only issue with this is

1) they need replacing more often, although much cheaper than diesel system.

2) most importantly though is the frustration of it not kicking in by itself, turn tap off, back to van to refire the boiler easily adds an hour to the day!!!

Hate times like this, husband moans he needs more kit, that's better, tells me to sort it, and leaves it in my hands!!


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Naomi said:
Yes I was told by ionic that it is a one man set up, but that the hot water goes back into the tank when tap is off on first pole and so then second brush does start working with warmer water!

I am so confused about what to do! The more I look at this the more I think I may just buy a new lpg boiler!! The only issue with this is

1) they need replacing more often, although much cheaper than diesel system.

2) most importantly though is the frustration of it not kicking in by itself, turn tap off, back to van to refire the boiler easily adds an hour to the day!!!

Hate times like this, husband moans he needs more kit, that's better, tells me to sort it, and leaves it in my hands!!


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Click to expand...
how much more £ does he earn using hot i think you will fine its 0 i know three guys that have junked the heat

1.because it so unreliable

 2.  because apart from warm hands that made no extra money from it let alone voiding your insurance carrying a fix gas bottle about with out telling them 

3. its only any better on first cleaning and a squirt of viasol sorts that out at a cost of 0.5p  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Julian Noddy Dean said:
how much more £ does he earn using hot i think you will fine its 0 i know three guys that have junked the heat
 
1.because it so unreliable
 2.  because apart from warm hands that made no extra money from it let alone voiding your insurance carrying a fix gas bottle about with out telling them 
3. its only any better on first cleaning and a squirt of viasol sorts that out at a cost of 0.5p  
Click to expand...

I think it's more that we advertise using the fact we are the only hot water cleaners in our area, which brings a lot of customers to us


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Naomi said:
I think it's more that we advertise using the fact we are the only hot water cleaners in our area, which brings a lot of customers to us


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Click to expand...


There are a few cleaners who have installed electric geyser elements in their tanks to warm the water up. The popular one is a 3kw but that requires and electrician to install its own plug point.

A 2kw will take longer to warm the water but can be used with an ordinary household plug, socket and timer.

 

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