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Amps On a Narrowboat


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Hi there,

I am in the process of buying a narrow boat, sail away hull. I have been trying to do many calculations to figure out all of the electrics in the boat. Please tell me if i have got any of the following wrong as im finding that i'm a little stuck.

The residential mooring i am planning on using has a 16 amp pylon for a power supply.

I have been looking at an Alde 3020 for the heating system attached to a 40l Calorifier for the hot water. The Alde system uses around 1000w which is around 4.3 amps, the Calorifier has a 1kw heating element in it so that's another 4.3 amps. Would you need to use the heating element or would the alde heat provide enough to heat the water on its own.

I also have been looking at a standard fridge to cut down on the cost. These at their max they are 750w so that's another 3.3 amps. Then with a microwave oven using 1850w in use max so thats 8 amps.

In total that's around 20 amps. That's not including all of the little things in the boat. The main thing i am asking is

a) Has anyone got an alde and does it use less current than my calculations.

2) Would i have to use the heating element to heat the hot water up all the time or is the adle enough.

3) are the pylons at the CRT residential moorings defiantly 16amp

 

Thankyou in advance. For extra information. I am getting a 50ft Sail-away to live in the centre of Birmingham

 

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The Alde 3020 appears to have a 1/2/3 kw electric heater, so why would you need this and an immersion heater in the calorifier as well? Unless you have a travelpower either can only be used when you are on shoreline hookup, so why do you need both?

Most boaters manage with a gas/oil/ solid fuel only boiler plus an immersion for use when on a shoreline.

Edited by David Mack
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2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

The Alde 3020 appears to have a 1/2/3 kw electric heater, so why would you need this and an immersion heater in the calorifier as well? Unless you have a travelpower either can only be used when you are on shoreline hookup, so why do you need both?

Most boaters manage with a gas/oil/ solid fuel only boiler plus an immersion for use when on a shoreline.

Since the alde is designed to be used in RV's and the like. The amount of water it heats up itself is small. I was just wondering if the alde had enough power to heat up the boat as well as the water in the Calorifier.

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The 3020 runs on lpg too, which will heat water and central heating. Two electric elements are fitted one of 2kw and one of 1kw, any combo of the elements will heat water but enough for central heating at the same time I'm not certain, maybe on the 3kw setting.

Edited by bizzard
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13 minutes ago, bizzard said:

The 3020 runs on lpg too, which will heat water and central heating. Two electric elements are fitted one of 2kw and one of 1kw, any combo of the elements will heat water but enough for central heating at the same time I'm not certain, maybe on the 3kw setting.

So for the 3kw setting. If we go by current = Watts / Voltage. We go for 3,000/240 which is 12.5 amps. Is this right?

 

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The 3010/3020 is an excellent lpg boiler.  Mine has run faultlessly for ten years, and is far more efficient than the old 2928 Comfort boilers which most people think of when talking about Alde boilers.  However if I was on a hookup with a calorifier with immersion heater, there wouldn't be any point in using the 3020 element to heat water in the boiler and transferring it to the calorifer unless you wanted to heat a small rad at the same time, e.g. in the bathroom.

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1 minute ago, dor said:

The 3010/3020 is an excellent lpg boiler.  Mine has run faultlessly for ten years, and is far more efficient than the old 2928 Comfort boilers which most people think of when talking about Alde boilers.  However if I was on a hookup with a calorifier with immersion heater, there wouldn't be any point in using the 3020 element to heat water in the boiler and transferring it to the calorifer unless you wanted to heat a small rad at the same time, e.g. in the bathroom.

I was going to try to use it for the central heating on the boat. So there would probably be 3 radiators over the boat. Am I just asking for too much from the system.

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Is that 1000 watts the electrical consumption or the heating power from the gas? It seem a bit low to em for the gas heat output but rather high for the basic electrical consumption of boiler electronics & circulating pump. might be an idea to check. I would expect the Alde, apart from the heating elements to run at 12V DC. The battery charger will take care of that though.

The microwave - is that the cooking power or actual consumption. If its the cooking power written on the front you should double it in the absence of better data.

Are you going to run any of this stuff via an inverter at any time? If so divide the watts by 10, not 250 to get the current drawn from the batteries.

 

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Is that 1000 watts the electrical consumption or the heating power from the gas? It seem a bit low to em for the gas heat output but rather high for the basic electrical consumption of boiler electronics & circulating pump.

Alde website suggests it has max output of 3.2kW when running on 230V and 5.5kW on gas.

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18 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Is that 1000 watts the electrical consumption or the heating power from the gas? It seem a bit low to em for the gas heat output but rather high for the basic electrical consumption of boiler electronics & circulating pump. might be an idea to check. I would expect the Alde, apart from the heating elements to run at 12V DC. The battery charger will take care of that though.

The microwave - is that the cooking power or actual consumption. If its the cooking power written on the front you should double it in the absence of better data.

Are you going to run any of this stuff via an inverter at any time? If so divide the watts by 10, not 250 to get the current drawn from the batteries.

 

 

 

As it is a live-aboard most of the time it will run straight from the shore power as we will not move most of the time. Whilst we are moving, it will be running off gas.

The microwave, the number I have is maxed watts from the manufactures website

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A couple of widebeam boats here have the Alde 3020 boiler. On gas they will heat water and work 4 or so central heating rads. I don't think they've tried doing all this with just the electric setting, I doubt if 3 kv is sufficient to get any decent heat from radiators at the same time as heating water.  I fitted multi fuel stoves in these boats for space heating. They very rarely if ever use the Alde 3020 anymore as they were using about 2 13kg bottles plus of gas a week. They both only use the colorifier with an immersion element for just hot water or heated when the engines are running, which isn't often.

Edited by bizzard
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Seeing as no-one else answered this bit...

2 hours ago, Elliott0184 said:

3) are the pylons at the CRT residential moorings defiantly 16amp

The answer is yes, usually. 32A outlets are rare and a much bigger socket. If it's labelled as 16A then that's what it is. Try to draw 17A and it will trip. 

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1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

Is that 1000 watts the electrical consumption or the heating power from the gas? It seem a bit low to em for the gas heat output but rather high for the basic electrical consumption of boiler electronics & circulating pump. might be an idea to check. I would expect the Alde, apart from the heating elements to run at 12V DC. The battery charger will take care of that though.

The microwave - is that the cooking power or actual consumption. If its the cooking power written on the front you should double it in the absence of better data.

Are you going to run any of this stuff via an inverter at any time? If so divide the watts by 10, not 250 to get the current drawn from the batteries.

 

 

 

THe Alde 30x0 boilers have 230V electrical elements in the water jacket as well as gas.  So 5+KW when running on gas, or can just be run on the 230V supply if available.  The pump is run on 12V regardless of whether 12V or 230V is being used.

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Using electricity to create heat is the most expensive way to achieve the end goal other than burning tenners.

Doing it from hookup is okay i guess if you're minted, but not something I would contemplate. 

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On 25/08/2017 at 22:44, WotEver said:

Using electricity to create heat is the most expensive way to achieve the end goal other than burning tenners.

 

Not necessarily. Calor gas can be equally expensive per kWhr, depending on the price being paid for the leccy.

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8 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Not necessarily. Calor gas can be equally expensive per kWhr, depending on the price being paid for the leccy.

Sure if you compare the two price extremes but if you take the average price per unit from a CRT bollard and compare that against the average price for a 13kg Calor bottle you'll see that leccy is about twice the price for heating. 

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1 minute ago, WotEver said:

Sure if you compare the two price extremes but if you take the average price per unit from a CRT bollard and compare that against the average price for a 13kg Calor bottle you'll see that leccy is about twice the price for heating. 

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals.

One of the reasons I didn't want to go gas/deisel is that both me and my girlfriend both have jobs with long hours, didn't want to keep worrying about how much gas we had got left. With gas how much gas does a normal boiler burn though. If I was to go gas are there better systems than the Alde one?

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6 hours ago, WotEver said:

Sure if you compare the two price extremes but if you take the average price per unit from a CRT bollard and compare that against the average price for a 13kg Calor bottle you'll see that leccy is about twice the price for heating. 

I just did a check for a propane 13kg refill at a gooutdoors.co.uk price of £25, where 1 kg of propane = 13.95 kWh gives a price of 13.8p/kWhr

Obviously bigger cylinders will work out cheaper as might other sources but we still need to factor in boiler efficiency.

How much do you pay for you CRT electricity?

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6 hours ago, Elliott0184 said:

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals.

One of the reasons I didn't want to go gas/deisel is that both me and my girlfriend both have jobs with long hours, didn't want to keep worrying about how much gas we had got left. With gas how much gas does a normal boiler burn though. If I was to go gas are there better systems than the Alde one?

Perhaps (not) I'm too much of a traditionalist and would prefer diesel for heating (including hot water). If managed properly  diesel heaters are fine.

Gas can be 'solved' by having two or even three cylinders with an automatic changeover switch between  There is (but I've not tested it) a level indicator sticker to give a reasonable indication of how much gas remains. A well insulated boat doesn't need to be kept heated 24/7  just have a time switch to warm the boat before you return home. There's bound to be an app to do the same job...

If you take the heating out of the power equation then the other appliances can be managed by you. So consider diesel heating - a full tank will last many months and its easy to measure the level with a dip stick. Most marinas (?) sell diesel fuel.

 

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5 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

Perhaps (not) I'm too much of a traditionalist and would prefer diesel for heating (including hot water). If managed properly  diesel heaters are fine.

Gas can be 'solved' by having two or even three cylinders with an automatic changeover switch between  There is (but I've not tested it) a level indicator sticker to give a reasonable indication of how much gas remains. A well insulated boat doesn't need to be kept heated 24/7  just have a time switch to warm the boat before you return home. There's bound to be an app to do the same job...

If you take the heating out of the power equation then the other appliances can be managed by you. So consider diesel heating - a full tank will last many months and its easy to measure the level with a dip stick. Most marinas (?) sell diesel fuel.

 

 

Diesel has an energy value of 10.7kWhr per litre, so is probably the cheapest form of heating you can currently get. Different marinas seem to charge wildly different prices. Perhaps there ought to be a league table?

Given you will already have a store of diesel, it does seem a no-brainer.

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27 minutes ago, Mikexx said:

 

Diesel has an energy value of 10.7kWhr per litre, so is probably the cheapest form of heating you can currently get. Different marinas seem to charge wildly different prices. Perhaps there ought to be a league table?

Given you will already have a store of diesel, it does seem a no-brainer.

Another advantage of diesel heating is that the OP can choose between an Ebbersplutter / Mikuni / Webasto  type heater which can heat the boat up quicker than a gas heater or a Wallas - and others - type stove that can do the same job but quieter.

I'm on thin ground here - but methinks the alde type heater is really designed for caravans and occasional use so perhaps not best suited to a domestic environment and do they work well with a calorifier for  hot water - showers  / bath etc.

 

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3 hours ago, Mikexx said:

 

Diesel has an energy value of 10.7kWhr per litre, so is probably the cheapest form of heating you can currently get. Different marinas seem to charge wildly different prices. Perhaps there ought to be a league table?

Given you will already have a store of diesel, it does seem a no-brainer.

There is at http://diesel.fibrefactory.co.uk/ but the data is on as good as we the users supply. I always make a point of sending an update when passing places that advertise their price.

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3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

There is at http://diesel.fibrefactory.co.uk/ but the data is on as good as we the users supply. I always make a point of sending an update when passing places that advertise their price.

For the diesel, I wasn't planning on moving the boat that much. What are the marinas like with just taking a canister for it to be filled up with diesel. Taking the whole boat to get more diesel would be annoying. 

How often would you say you would have to fill the diesel tank up.

 

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23 hours ago, WotEver said:

Seeing as no-one else answered this bit...

The answer is yes, usually. 32A outlets are rare and a much bigger socket. If it's labelled as 16A then that's what it is. Try to draw 17A and it will trip. 

Er no it wont trip immediately or even within a few minutes A 16amp mcb will easily pass 20amps for a surprisingly long time. On Parglena when washing machine, tumble dryer, batrery charger, aircon etc were all on it was not unusual to see 25amps being drawn off a 16amp supply!

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