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Applications for waste heat

Posted: 22 Oct 2018, 21:22
by newbiebry
I’ve been thinking recently about additional cooling and got to thinking about useful applications for heat from the cooling system. Has anyone on here attempted a project to convert some of it into useful energy?

The obvious application is extra space heating with another heater in the back (like the caravelle).

I’m thinking maybe water heating using a calorifier (something like this https://www.tek-tanks.com/shop/product/ ... s-cwb21-v3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). Or maybe even a drying cupboard for wet coats/ boots/ towels.

Any thoughts?



1985 1.9 DG Bilbo’s hightop

Re: Applications for waste heat

Posted: 22 Oct 2018, 22:09
by Winchweight
Thinking along those lines too. We had a secondary heater under the back seat (ex-Caravelle), but as we didn’t use it, we swapped it out for an Eberspacher. But we still have the old pipes under the bed which get lovely and hot. So 8mthought one day we might do the same thing.

Re: Applications for waste heat

Posted: 23 Oct 2018, 19:54
by silverbullet
A drying locker is a great idea, but you need to vent out the humid air and feed in dry(er) fresh air...unless you want your van to rust even faster!

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Re: Applications for waste heat

Posted: 02 Dec 2018, 13:51
by TheDocmeister
Ford Transits sometimes came with 5L Eberspacher calorifiers fitted - BT used them a lot iirc. They're a small black water cylinder with a single coil inside for heating. Works reasonably well - I had experience of one in a friend's Transit conversion, always hot water there when we parked up even if not a huge amount. They turn up on Ebay - pretty sure at much less than your link above, but possibly worth a shot to prove the theory.