Hot water options for very cold location

Hey guys,

To avoid derailing someone else's thread with a million questions....

I'm going round and round in circles here trying to decide how to solve my cold weather problems.  I've barely made any money since xmas as everything is freezing constantly... hoses, pumps, tank and can't decided the best combination of ways to deal with it.  I'm in the Highlands so it's below freezing a lot.  Last week we had 6 nights in a row at minus 10.

I have a van that I have just set up (will make a post about that at a later date, rather proud of it so far ). It has a 550L Wyedale tank, a 2 person setup running with 2 pumps and 2 controllers off one battery and a 3 ft tubular heater to try and keep the chill of and stop pumps etc freezing overnight.  I obviously need a way to keep the tank from freezing overnight as the tubular heater isn't enough on the coldest nights and method of heating the water to keep the hoses flowing when they're on the cold ground.

So here's the options I have so far and all the stuff going round in my head and I'd appreciate any thoughts helping me sort it out and reach a conclusion!

1. Higher power heater in van:

Pros:

- Stop tank and pumps etc freezing overnight

Cons:

- I don't have much space.

- Won't make any difference to anything once I'm out at work on a cold day.

- Need to somehow work out share of electricity used for work purposes.

2. Gas water heater mounted to ply panel on back door:

Pros:

- Keeps hoses from freezing while working and keep them nice and supple.

- Only heats the water I'm using.

Cons:

- Doesn't help the tank or pumps overnight.

- Costs are easier to account - Gas and equipment are 100% for work use. 

- Fire risk... When my son was a baby we were in a vehicle that went up in flames while carrying gas. The speed it all happened and the size of the explosions was terrifying.  

3. Immersion heater in tank:

Pros:

- Sorts both problems in one go and doesn't take up too much space.

- Creates a 'radiator' in the van that comes to work with me keeping some heat in the back whenever the doors are closed.

- Warmer water going through the hoses while working.

Cons:

- Heating water I don't need (excess water at end of day or whole tank if school announces a snow day for my son after I've heated the water all night). 

- Drilling a great big hole in the side of the tank. 

- Can the element causes issues with TDS?

- I'd need to run it off a 13 amp socket.... is that OK if I find a 2kw element instead of 3kw? 

- Can a Wyedale tank cope with hot/warm water?

One other question -  If I Google for "floating immersion heater", I find lots of dodgy looking ebay listings for potential fire traps with free postage from Hong Kong.  Is there such a thing in existence that would be a safe way of plugging a heater in, opening the tank lid and throwing it in for the night if it's going to be really cold?

Thanks

Sorry Becky I haven’t read your post fully yet but a simple solution to freezing would be to fit a return circuit to your tank so your pump can trickle water around and back in, moving water doesn’t freeze and it solved my overnight freezing issues before I fitted an immersion heater.


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Something that heats the water in the tank overnight is probably your best option, yes.

I am considering to use something a 220v electric water heater and run it overnight, then you don't need to make a hole in the tank, and no issues with the tank plastic handling the heat. You also get better heat distribution in your tank.

Adding a temperature controller as a safety is probably a good idea, as well as a timer to let it run for maybe max 20 minutes at a time.

If you add a second temperature controller you can switch between the two and have one set for "standby" heat at 10C to be used over the weekend.

Right - here’s my opinion
1: fitting a larger heater won’t really solve anything and the cost involved (with waste heat escaping from the van) you’d be just as well fitting an immersion heater.
2. Gas water heater - superb! My heater cost £75 and I worked every day before Christmas when it snowed, keeps the hoses warm and if your brush jets froze you have the second reel to defrost you. Safety wise - yes there is a risk, isn’t there with everything. At the end of the day just adhere to the usual safety warnings and switch the gas off between jobs and make sure it’s well ventilated and you’ll be fine. Camper vans, motor homes and caravans have this kit in and you don’t hear safety issues with them very often.
3. Immersion heater. I’m not the best to advise on this as I have had a lot of reliability issues with mine. Installation wise it’s simple and would cost around £150. Personally I’d use one now just on an anti frost function (with the water circulating in the tank on a loop circuit) that way the heater only comes on when the water temp is 5 degrees or below. As long as you have a dedicated 32a circuit you can plug it into with RCD protection you won’t have any safety issues. It’s a job for an electrician anyway. I’ve had three immersion elements fail and every time the circuit trips to isolate it. I have a wydale type tank and it’s never leaked - I’ve heated mine up to 70degrees and yes the plastic does soften slightly but that’s what the tank frame is for.
A floating immersion heater - a couple of guys have used aquarium thermostats with success, I believe they cut out some foam to make a float and made sure it was away from the sides.


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The best option for you would be a diesel webasto type heater

Have a look a grippa hydro heat from Grippa tank.

It is not cheap and will be far more expensive than the others but will do a far better job.

Gas or immersion don't have the ability to circulate the heated water through the hose and pumps when not in use at night.The hydro heat would kick in and circulate water in to the tank when the temp drops to say 1 degree.

One thing to remember is hot water freezes quicker than cold so no amount of money of any system will stop water freezing on the glass when the temp drops really low.

Cghwindowcleaning said:

The best option for you would be a diesel webasto type heater
Have a look a grippa hydro heat from Grippa tank.
 
It is not cheap and will be far more expensive than the others but will do a far better job.
Gas or immersion don't have the ability to circulate the heated water through the hose and pumps when not in use at night.The hydro heat would kick in and circulate water in to the tank when the temp drops to say 1 degree.
 
One thing to remember is hot water freezes quicker than cold so no amount of money of any system will stop water freezing on the glass when the temp drops really low.

Click to expand...

Gas and immersions do have the ability to circulate water - fit the same thermostatic timer to the water circuit on a loop or with a pressure reducing valve - simple. It would be more complicated to fit the gas heater as it would have to have a dedicated fixed flue out of the van roof and plenty of ventilation. Don’t get me wrong I like my Webasto heater, I just think for the money and time to install the propane heater knocks it out of the park.


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You could consider running it as a seasonal business? In the highlands it’s perfectly understandable, if you’re running at a loss in winter it might just be better to pack up in the middle of november and start again in April. It’s 5 months that you could spend doing other forms of work. Having circulating water may not work in the highlands i doubt if its going as low as -10 and beyond. even circulating water will freeze at around -4 if i’m right. Really sympathise with you but i’m sure if you closed the door for a while you will find something else to occupy your time, and at least your summer business can be profitable? [emoji4] best of luck


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My first step would be to insulate your van. Whatever heat you put in, keep in. I used this:

https://www.toolstation.com/shop/Heating+%26+Insulation/d230/Foil/sd3426/YBS+General+Purpose+ThermaWrap+Insulation/p16779

and used the whole roll on the roof of the van. I also surrounded the tank in polystyrene, though if I did it again I would wrap it in this same foil insulation I think. When we had minus 8 here having it insulated I managed to keep it above 1.1 degrees with just an 80 watt tube heater mounted low down on the van.

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

My round is all year, that's what my customers want and that's what I want. I've been going year round for 4.5 years and have no plans to change that. It's just frustrating when you get a week or more at a time that you can't work, hence why I'm looking at ways to increase the range of temperatures that I can work in.

The van is well insulated. I didn't mention that because I thought it was obvious I would have done that before installing everything else. [emoji23]

Can anyone answer the specific questions I had about immersion heaters... TDS affected by the element? And whether I can use a 13 amp socket for a 2kw element? I think I'm leaning that way at the moment but don't want to cause myself other problems by doing it.

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It has to be an immersion . I know 2 lads who use em and love em . One guy fitted his own . But he is good at diy And knows what he is doing . The other guy got an electrician in .  Think he charged him £120 . My mate supplied the element . That to me is he best and safest way . Not expensive at all considering what you are getting . Regarding TDS . I have never heard the element raising the TDS .

I think you are ok with 13, amp with a 2 kw. But why not just get a proper sparky and get it done right and safe . It’s not expensive and should last years . 

As @Elliotsays, you can run a 2kw element from a 13amp plug @Beccy. But you need to ensure that you have a proper outside wall socket and that your extension cable is just long enough. You don't want excess cable coiled up on a cable drum. It also needs to be the correct size(rating) to carry that current.

You don't have to heat your water to very high temperatures with a heating element. You could get away with water heated to 25 degrees. That would still make hoses more flexible and easier to manage.

Unfortunately the downside is the same as using night storage heaters as central heating. You put them on at night not knowing how cold the weather is going to be the next day. Sometimes you waste electricity because you don't need as much heat.

Over the years we have come to reasonably accurately guestimate how much water we will use use in a particular area, so I usually fill the van for those days requirements.

Have you measured the temperature of the water out of your cold water tap. I've just checked ours and its 8 degrees (admittedly it doesn't get that cold on the North East Coast). When I checked the water in the van's tank a few years ago in the middle of winter it was 9 degrees. I have a duvet over my tank and pumps so that does act as a form of insulation. We don't heat water at the moment.

In the bike and trailer days you used to top up with water as you went and purified that water whilst cleaning windows. You could still employ the same process but fill your vans tank with hot/cold water blend from your house. (It would work better if you had gas and heated water as you filled it rather then drawing it from a hot water tank.) You would need a hot water tap outside.

When we had that very bad weather in 2011/2 we found we couldn't really work anyway, so hot water wouldn't have helped us. We couldn't get onto most of the estates and did very little for 6 weeks. We did manage a couple of Sainsbury's Locals trad but also managed to get the van stuck in the snow en route. We also tried to get out and work only to find the outside van ports had frozen on the journey to work. I deiced them and managed to get a spray of water out thinking that the warmer water in the tank would eventually clear the ice blockage. However the spray of water from the ports created a patch of black ice at the back of the van which I slipped on and bashed my head on the rear bumper.

There was once talk that the tds of hot water was higher than that of the same sample of cold water. According to the tds meter, that's correct. But as you let the same water cool back down the tds returns to the original reading. I did this experiment using a stainless steel pot and took tds reading and temperature reading at the same time. What I didn't answer is whether you would use more resin purifying warm water rather than cold. But I also found that the increased tds readings for the same cold water hot weren't that much higher than the cold was to begin with, so my gut told me that if you did use more resin purifying hot it wouldn't be that much more.