So I'm ditching my motorcycle after months of traveling for more comforts of home. While in the planning phase of a van build out, I discovered the heat exchangers used to heat water using the waste heat from your engine. I had a couple of questions about this, if anyone has experience in this, your input will be valued.
1) My preference is to heat the water while on the move, circulating it through a hot water storage tank. However, as the engine can get quite hot I suspect the water in turn would get quite hot too. Is it typical for the heat exchangers, if left circulating, would heat the water over 212°F (100°C)?
2) If so, what is a suitable material to store the water in while it is at, or close to boiling point? I saw the polypropylene tanks maximum storage temperature was 212°F. Maybe it is better to have a temperature gauge on the dash so once the desired temperature is reached, you can just turn the pump off. I always forget to turn that kind of stuff off, maybe something can cut the pump off once the desired temperature is reached?
3) Has anyone had experience storing hot water, and has any idea of how long it would stay hot for after turning the vehicle off? I figure I'd have a 15 gallon hot water tank inside the vehicle, and wrapped in decent insulation to try maximize the heat retention (however long that may be)
The intended use for this is mainly a shower system and washing up water, I'd have a small tankless water heater as a redundancy.
1) My preference is to heat the water while on the move, circulating it through a hot water storage tank. However, as the engine can get quite hot I suspect the water in turn would get quite hot too. Is it typical for the heat exchangers, if left circulating, would heat the water over 212°F (100°C)?
2) If so, what is a suitable material to store the water in while it is at, or close to boiling point? I saw the polypropylene tanks maximum storage temperature was 212°F. Maybe it is better to have a temperature gauge on the dash so once the desired temperature is reached, you can just turn the pump off. I always forget to turn that kind of stuff off, maybe something can cut the pump off once the desired temperature is reached?
3) Has anyone had experience storing hot water, and has any idea of how long it would stay hot for after turning the vehicle off? I figure I'd have a 15 gallon hot water tank inside the vehicle, and wrapped in decent insulation to try maximize the heat retention (however long that may be)
The intended use for this is mainly a shower system and washing up water, I'd have a small tankless water heater as a redundancy.