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Cost of an immersion heater


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If you left an immersion heater connected to shorepower to heat a 55litre calorifier......but didn't remove the water at all...but merely used the coil to feed a radiator circuit.....

 

how much elec do you think the immersion would cost per month?

 

Based on never needing to add cold water to the calorifier......just enough to fill it...once...and then keep hot.

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Depends how much heat the radiators take out of the calorifier.

 

In this situation the immersion heater, calorifier and radiators are just a means of using electricity to heat the boat, so the cost should be the same as maintaining the boat at the same temperature using electric heaters.

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If you left an immersion heater connected to shorepower to heat a 55litre calorifier......but didn't remove the water at all...but merely used the coil to feed a radiator circuit.....

 

how much elec do you think the immersion would cost per month?

 

Based on never needing to add cold water to the calorifier......just enough to fill it...once...and then keep hot.

 

A standard 3kW immersion heater would just about keep one reasonable radiator, or a couple of small ones, hot if running flat out.

3kW x 24 hours x 30 days = 2160 units, multiply that by what you are paying per unit.

 

Tim

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It would be interesting to know how much heat you can get out of a coil, remember there will be a temperature difference between tha rads and the hot water tank, so if the immersion stat is set at say 60 then your rads probably wont get above 50 C

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Most people heat their rads from the same heat source as the coils , ie. Back boiler, gas boiler Diesel boiler or engine, very few rob heat from the calorifier like you are trying to do, I dont think what you propose is very efficient.You would do better with a fan heater.

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Dean

 

On a hire boat many years ago it was possible to turn on the radiator pump and do similar to what you propose.

 

The calorifier was heated by the engine so reached approximately 80° C.

 

The radiators reached the great temperature of 'just above cold' and would not even dry out a pair of wet gloves left on one of the radiators.

 

In other words forget it, especially if heating the water with an immersion heater wink.png

 

As per post #3 if you used the immersion it would never reach 'turn off' temperature.

 

You could not fit an 3Kwimmersion heater as that would most likely be the maximum load for a shoreline.

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An Eber D5xx is about 5KW and is needed for keeping a boat toasty in winter so you would need 5KW of electricity going into your system for it to work. The only way you would gain anything would be to heat a tank on a cheap night tariff and use it during the day, but I don't think there is economy 7 available on bollards and anyway 22 litres in a calorifier wouldn't hold much heat available to use.

 

I'd use an immersion on the calorifier and a fan heater in the cabin, save hot water for using as water heat the room by electricity and control it well.

 

Solid fuel will turn out cheaper, may heat the water as well.

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We often turn on the central heating pump whilst cruising, so it transfers heat from the calorifier to the rad, for free heating. But that isusing waste engine heat, I can't see that using electricity to do the same thing necessarily is the best way of doing it.

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Immersion heater power (in kW) x cost per unit of electricity x 720 (hours in a month).

 

Most boat immersions are 1kW. I'd guess you're gonna be paying about 25p per kWhr, so that works out at £180 a month.

 

 

MtB

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The big issue is that when it's cold 1KW is nothing compared to heat losses 2Kw may assist in a small well insulated cabin but 5KW is likely to be good. HOWEVER you simply can't get 5K from a shoreline bollard, you probably can't rely on 2KW continuously. 2KW plus the usual lights and pumps could see you tripping breakers rather than being warm.

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Welcome back to the original DeanS whose ideas were even more fantastic than Bizzard's but less amusing.

My calorifier and gas 'fridge do help to keep the cabin and plumbing above freezing in the depths of winter.

 

Storing heat/power is only economical if you can buy the power at a reduced rate. Off-peak electricity is rarely, never, available to a boat.

 

Alan

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We have a 7kW coal fire, but thought I could use the spare calorifier I acquired to feed a rad in the bathroom and far bedroom...but having to run an engine for 2hrs a night to heat up water, to then pump around ...is a bit of a mission.........I'll probably achieve the same amount of internal heat simply by fitting a proper network of 12V fans through the boat bulkheads to ensure proper circulation of air.......more thought is needed on this :)

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