Fractalphreak
Great information regarding the heating element being 750 watts! My wife and I were talking about the same thing. Our Phase III does not have a generator, only solar, so in the event that we are at a marina, then a 30 amp shore connection would be needed. Don’t think this should be an issue.
For your ISO Temp, do you think there would be any issues in acquiring parts if needed?
I think Raritan is out due to it’s diameter. Torrid I think is still a front runner.
Thanks again for the in depth reply.
One positive for the smaller element - when you are at a dock using shore power, especially in winter when you might want to run a dehumidifier or electric resistance heater, or a shop vac doing projects, or all of the above
, is the hot water heater might be able to stay on and not put you close to tripping the master breaker, or straining the 30 amp connections...
Interesting comment on your power availability. A thought I've had (or rather slight regret) is not thinking the gallons/element wattage/solar thing out before purchasing the 11 gallon size.
We have put together an approx 1000 w solar system for NWD. Depending on just how much power we generate during our summer cruising trips, the possibility exists that we could run the hot water tank from the inverter during peak solar input times without really draining the batteries. I wouldn't want to try that with a 1500 watt element, but 750 on our 2500 watt inverter should not be that taxing...IF I'd bought a smaller tank, say the 25 L size (6.6 gal) the time required to heat water from 70 F to 160 F drops to 1 hr 45 min from the theoretical 3 hr 15 min we need to account for with the 40 L size (10.5 gal) Not sure if solar will be able to do it; we should would like to minimize the generator if we can. Of course, as in my previous post there is room for hot water efficiencies aboard that may help our situation....
If you have a hydronic heating system I would sure look into taking advantage of that as a source of heating your water. I don't know the ins and outs of it as our diesel heat is forced air; but it sure would be nice to have hot water without having to worry about a lot of amps AC for a couple hours.
No issues for us here in WA for parts. Like Playin Hooky we deal with Sure Marine in Seattle; I believe they carry all the parts we would likely need. Knowing their customer service, if they didn't have it they'd get it quick. Usually they've already encountered whatever issues might occur and have parts and experience ready to help. (It is the type of business you can call for help and the guy who answers the phone knows exactly what you did wrong in disassembling your Webasto for cleaning and can tell you what you failed to plug back together all the way when you reassembled it!) Sure Marine has a website for online sales, and Isotherm is a worldwide company, so I'm guessing any country with a sizable boating community will have vendors for parts...
