Water heater

[Roger L]

My water heater is setup for coolant to heat domestic water but the coil is blocked. Still works on electric so I turned valves at engine off. I really don’t see the need to change out the water heater because I can generate hot water via electric from generator or dockside. Comments?

 

[O C Diver]

If you've managed to plug the heat exchanger in your water heater, that probably speaks volumes to the amount of crud in your engine's freshwater cooling system.

I've never heard of a heat exchanger in a water heater getting plugged. I would view that as a symptom of another problem, maybe reduced performance / wear out of your freshwater engine pump.

Btw, you can probably clear the blockage by removing the coolant hoses from the water heater and back flushing the heat exchanger with domestic water pressure. The engine coolant loop has almost no pressure, so the loop bypasses or stops flowing easily.

As mentioned above, I would consider flushing your engine's coolant system before you find that a cylinder isn't getting properly cooled.

Ted

 

[Greg QS]

How did you diagnose the coil is plugged? If you have a failure in the coil you can send Antifreeze ( the toxic kind) into you fresh water system. If its pugged there is some kind of corrosion or failure going on. Better to replace the heater so when it fails completely you don't contaminate you system, if you haven't already.

 

[PM]

That is probably a 3/4 inch soft copper line feeding hot water to your tank. Unless there is a kink I can't imagine it being plugged.If it is plugged imagine what is going on in your engine.

Get it diagnosed!

pete

 

[rslifkin]

From a functional perspective, electric only heating is fine. The coil on my water heater isn't plumbed to an engine at all.

 

[Turtle Blues]

Old Master Chief used to say "Ignoring initial indication is step 2 in the catastrophic failure analysis"

 

[psneeld]

I have usually just seen rubber or similar hoses from the engine to the water heater.

Can be part of the problem with a collapsed inner lining but the question of "how did you diagnose" is important to confirm where the blockage is.