We installed the system for a customer and like you, it was our first time and a real learning experience not without its first time startup problems. well done for getting it sorted as I can absolutely appreciate whats involved guys!!!! You can see photos on our socials of the small footprint install we completed. #Trimporters
Yeah you are having this issue as the solution is taking path of least resistance and you will get uneven heating and air pockets. Heatso has in one of their diagrams I saw somewhere that each unit should be in series and not parallel as you have it. Like you have to go into heat exchanger then out and into heater and then out and into radiant system (which needs another valve) and then back to res tank. This is streamlined and makes it easy for the pump to know where to direct the flow.
We were going to do exactly this, but saw from others that the heat reduces each time it passes through, so the device at the end of the loop receives the least heat and means it isn't as effectively warmed, so we chose this method instead. Each have the own problems I guess 🤷♀️
You need to add valves on the heat exchanger and the heat matrix as they have less flow restriction than the underfloor loop, the water will just take the path of least resistance. That will allow you to balance the flow between each of the 3 heat outputs. This is the same way it is done on domestic radiators (in the UK at least).
Did you forego an inlet back into the glycol tank? The plastic one looked like it had two ports, whereas the metal one appears to only have an outlet. Trying to plan my system, and I'm having a hard time finding an affordable tank with a properly sized inlet and outlet to have the glycol return to the tank.
If you were to run just the underfloor, without the air matrix, it's not enough heat, especially for the winter. It heats up the floor, but that's not enough to heat the actual air volume in the van. Since our main mattress is on the floor, we've tested just having the underfloor on at night and although the mattress and blankets stay toasty warm, the air is too cold - you'd need both running. Luckily, the heat from our furnace is enough to run the air matrix and the underfloor without either loosing heat 👍
Ah okay good to know as I’m having an evo top webasto at 6kw and I was wondering if it’s enough I will try my underfloor set up first and see but if not I will add a air diesel heater
Good you out the blue valve in. You should also not close it all the way as it will strain the pump. You want to keep piping size and amount of solution approx the same throughout so if you reduce down to half inch like I did for my radiant, have the bypass valve open enough for a little of the extra solution to flow so it doesn’t creat back pressure on pump.
Reducing the piping from 19mm down to 9mm for the underfloor is quite a reduction, but we figured with the glycol also passing through the heat exchanger and air matrix where it doesn't reduce, this should help the pumps lifespan and the strain on it. But this blue valve seriously helped the pump
After all the discussion about 1 pipe vs 2 pipe, that valve you added essentially converts your system back to a 1 pipe system. I think you will find you need to do similar valving to get the heat exchanger to work properly too. The problem is that the water has multiple paths and will flow mostly through the path with the least resistance (which is just that short section you replaced with the valve). Also, you only need one valve to turn the underfloor heating on and off. Either one will work. You can leave the other valve open all the time, or just remove it. A water circuit needs an entrance and an exit to flow, blocking just one of those will stop the flow.
Not entirely, the heat exchanger and air matrix are still piped in parallel, not in series. We don't see a problem with the heat exchanger, all the pipes on the air matrix and heat exchanger are hot which implies there is flow, and since the air matrix works just fine and that's plumbed the same way as the heat exchanger, we don't see a problem at the moment. The problem with the floor came from the reduction of the pipe diameter from 19mm to 9mm, the heat exchanger has the same sized pipe as the rest of the highway so there should be no resistance. 🙂
I've got a question for you two, related to the air matrix and the associated controller. (FYI I have all the same gear, I'm currently in the process of puzzling out how everything gets connected up wiring-wise.) The Webasto controller obviously connects to the PWM gadget via the yellow wire - both of those get their own power via those pairs of wires - and the PWM gadget connects to the air matrix with the black and either red or orange wires. And the Webasto controller has the temperature sensor connected as well, and on "auto" will very the fan speeds on the air matrix based on the measured room temp. But - does the Webasto controller have any connection to the main furnace? If you have the air matrix set to try and maintain a certain temperature, can that controller keep the furnace on and heating the coolant to maintain hot coolant flowing through the air matrix? I'm seeing absolutely zero connection between the two systems in my research. My worry is on a cold night, when I'd want the warm air flowing, that the furnace controller will shut down the furnace and hence, disable air heating. Thanks!
It's complicated. You can wire everything separate, and have the webasto controller power wire connect to 12v direct, or, you can connect that port on the webasto controller to the black red cable on the eberspacher controller. Connecting the webasto controller to the red/black wire means the fan will only turn on/off when the heater turns on/off (ie the webasto controller only received power, and thus turns the pwm which turns the air matrix on, only when the heater is on). We have our webasto controller on max heat, and max fan speed 24/7, and use the easy start Pro controller to turn the heater on/off. At night the heater turns on, it takes a few minutes, then the webasto controller lights up red and on turns the air matric. After the heater goes through its cool down cycle, the air matrix has its power cut and it turns off. Bit hard to explain, we show it clearer in our pdf linked in the video description but that is a paid product, so I've done my best to explain it with words :)
@@FreedomStrider No no, not that hard to explain, that's basically what I've since learned from another friend who had gone through the whole process, what you say here mirrors what she told me, so that's a good sign :) Thank you very much!
You're right if the underfloor is closed, that the H is not needed. We've had no problem with the heat exchanger, it has always gotten its glycol flow; the problem was with the underfloor line. Because the pipe reduces from 19mm to 9mm, when we didn't have the H with the blue valve, the glycol took the path of least resistance through the heat exchanger rather than through the underfloor, so the underfloor never really got hot. The H valve cuts off the bypass and forces the glycol to go through the underfloor. 👍
Hey There! Loving the tutorial series you both have created. We are curious have you tried the hot water with just the heat exchanger? Do you feel that the water is hot enough with out a holding tank?
No we haven't plumbed our hot water system yet, so can't report on it yet 🙃 - You might want to check with Dares Drives or Courts and Meeks (not sure if they have a holding tank... but not as far as I can see)
hey guys, great work so far on the system really coming together. I installed underfloor heating via a manifold with a mixing valve in our home around a year or so ago. Is the mixing valve something that you could incorporate into your system rather than the straight ball valve at the 'H' position, that way you could set the temperature you want the floor to be at without affecting your other points in the system. you may also need another pump after the mixing valve on the ufh loop just to solve the issue you guys had for the glycol not wanting to go into the smaller pipe. Just thinking that you may want to have the ufh on but just not at 100% all the time? Usually the idea with ufh is that its on for more time at a lesser temperature. No doubt you guys have thought about this anyways yous seem to be one of the most through guys when it come to research etc! All the best, Scott
We did look at a 3 way manifold, but they were a lot more expensive than what we used, so for our budget, we thought it could be an upgrade father down the line (especially an electronic manifold) For the mixing valve, maybe, but we wanted to test the floor without anything just to see how hot it actually got. At the moment, within 30 minutes, the floor is warm and within an hour, it's radiating really well but not so hot that you can't walk on it. We can actually turn the ufh off completely by closing the red ball valves and opening the H valve. The only reason we will need a second pump is if we find out that the ufh 12mm pipe is creating too much of a restriction of flow for the heater to deal with. We haven't seen evidence of this happening yet, but it's something we are aware of and keeping a close eye on. I'm not entirely sure how to keep the ufh line on at a lower temperature for a long period of time (eg overnight) as the furnace has a single temperature, and it is either on or off, no in-between. So even with a mixing valve, there would be nothing reheating the glycol if the heater is turned off. I'm sure there's plenty of things we could do that we are missing, I'm sure they'll pop up at the right time.
@@FreedomStrider yes that's true always something you guys can do further down the line if you feel you could benefit from it. In my home system we have a thermostat(in the underfloor heated area) that controls a zone valve which opens and then tells the boiler to fire up and turns on the secondary pump on the ufh manifold. So like your saying my boiler is always on while the thermostat is calling for heat. (although it only physically produces heat when it detects that the return line on the 'highway' is colder than the flow thats) . I take it thats the way your furnace works aswell, ie once the highway is up to temperature then it just turns off and then tops it up when needed? What type of flooring are you guys going for? we wanted an engineered wood flooring, obviously it has to be compatible for use in a ufh system but even when we found one we have to limit out floor temp to something like 27 degrees to stop the glue inside the laminated layers from melting and then causing issues. Thats where the mixing valve comes into play also as you can set it at whatever required as if its straight from the boiler it would be way too hot, i think my boiler is set to 70*c and then the mixing valve drops the ufh loop down to 45ish and then that keeps the floor temp under the 27. Bit of a minefield when your researching and installing it but once its all set up its great, best type of heating imo. anyways rambling on here, take care! Scott
@@ToddlerVan , you are correct a thermostatic mixing valve would be a good idea, i have one in my van that controls the temperature of the coolant going into the floor. I do not have an additional circulation pump, the espar one is constantly circulating coolant and only fires the boiler when the input coolant drops below a certain temperature. the mixing valve i have has a variable output temperature, and i can regulate the interior temperature by adjusting the floor temp, and the kalori blower control temp. @freedom strider, you should re orient your water heat exchanger to be vertical, the way you have it oriented, you will not be able to drain the fresh water system to winterize.
Love the rambles! 😂 That is indeed how our furnace works, and as for our flooring material, we are thinking ply and vinyl, though using high temperature adhesive to stick our vinyl down to the ply since as you said the ufh can soften the adhesive 😎
hey! great videos and super explanations thanks! little question though, did you do that video you talked about in a previous video concerning how to wire the air matrix to the furnace so that both control units could communicate and make it possible to control the fan speed with the easystart pro if i understand correctly... i'm currently doing my research to install a similar system but much more simple as i won't have the underfloor heater but only an air matrix and a heat exchanger for my shower, and in option later maybe a hot water ballon. the only thing holding me is that i wanna be sure to be able to control the installation with the easy start, by that i mean: use the external temperature sensor from the easystart pro and set a room temperatur to reach on it, and have the easystart monitoring air matrix fan as you can do it if you have an airtronic heater in combination to the hydronic s3. do you know if that's doable? thanks
I believe so. So have the external temp sonsor connected to the easy start pro, and the easy start pro connected to the furnace as per normal. Then you have the fan matrix controller hooked up to the air matrix, and instead of running the air matrix controller to your fusebox, from the furnace, there should be a small red/black wire. If you wire this up to the power supply for the air matrix controller (red/black to + and the negative can go to ground), then this means the easy start pro, when on, will turn the air matrix controller on. We always have our air matrix controller "on" but it only turns on when the furnace is turned on. You can then have the easy start pro on a temp sonsor so that when it drops below a temperature, it turns on, which turns the air matrix controller on, which will turn the air matrix on. We also have a temp sensor on our air matrix controller, so we can adjust the air matrix turning on/off via this temp sensor as well - though we've currently always left the air matrix blowing on MAX for now. Hope this helps :)
Do you use this plate heat exchanger for your shower without an additional boiler? Does this work for you? I'd love to make this system too. But am worried the capacity is not sufficient to run the hot water for several minutes
We use the plate way exchange to shower and wash dishes. The heat transfers very quickly, as soon as the heater is up to temperature (it takes 5 minutes) the water is hot and it acts exactly like an instant hot water heater, until you turn the heater off. ☺️
OMG the Espar D5E 12v pump sounds so noisy ! Is it because it's against the floor and make some vibrations ? I was expecting something less noisy than an Espar D4 airtronic heater....
Not sure why, it is not resting on the floor - it is suspended on 18mm ply - though might try some sound-deadening to dull the sound and there is going to be a false floor under the couch so hopefully things will quiet down. Plus a lot of people install them outside so that will dull the noise inside too. Actually, the air matrix is louder than the pump - and that was the quietest matrix that we could find.
The coolant flow will not be good because your out flow of the heat exchanger could be back flowing into the out flow of your under floor heating. It should go into heat exchanger out from that. Then into the in flow of your under flow heating. Then it can flow out of your under floor heating back to tank.. that way it’s only flowing in one direction through all your pipes.. And your coolant tank should be higher
We haven't noticed any problems with the flow so far. The heat exchanger return line should be swept along with the current traveling from the underfloor return line (instead of back flowing) + we have a valve on that line as well to stop backflow if the underfloor is off.
Both the fan and the heater are as silent as you can find on the market, most campers with heaters have a similar set up (noise wise). As for comfort, both noises get muffled after the furniture is built on top, so we only hear the air matrix - and that is no louder than a standard air blower in a house. If you are a light sleeper and any noise breaks your sleep then you can look into radiators or turn off your heater before you go to sleep, depending on your travel needs
Jeez, you guys made this harder than it needed to be. Anyone who's watercooled a PC can tell you that no matter how many loops you have, you want your reservoir as the highest point in the system so that you can bleed air out of the radiator(s). Seems like you could have saved some time by temporarily extending the tank connections, raising it higher, and using a transfer pump (on an electric drill) to fill the majority of your system from any of the T-junctions -- less stress on your main pump too. Bleed the air from the system and reinstall the tank.
We're sure there is a multitude of ways we could have done things differently and in hindsight, there are always ways to make things more efficient but at the end of the day, we always do what we can with the info we have at the time, and no matter how we got there, the most important thing is that it is working. 👍
@@FreedomStrider Understood and not trying to be too critical, but just pointing out some things for anyone emulating your setup. In a closed loop system, you fill the loop as much as possible, bypass the heater if necessary, and put the tank at the highest point to trap air. Glad you got it working though.
Hi, I believe all circuits should be connected in series, not parallel like you have, because the water will flow the way it finds less resistance all those Ts you have, do not ensure the water will flow both ways.. in my opinion you should remove all those Ts, and bring the water from the boiler to the plate exchanger 1st, because you want really hot water for shower, then the fan because it's the fast way to heat the van and then the underfloor. You can keep the T before the underfloor heating because in summer you may want hot water but not hot floor, and with those valves you can divert the circuit. You could also improve the layout by getting the reservoir higher, getting the pump just right under the reservoir and the plate exchanger vertical, all these tips would remove air from the circuit immediately.
Thanks for the advice, at the moment the parallel system is working just fine, everything gets warm. Due to the complexity and flexibility of our plumbing, Eberspracher advised us to go with the parallel setup. It's an experiment in progress so we'll react to any changes that need to happen 👍
Adding in the H really helped, but we needed to put a valve in the force the glycol through the rest of the system - as you said the glycol was otherwise just bypassing the rest. We managed to get it working in the end 👌
Troubleshooting your own van is priceless. Congrats on your hot floor!!
Knowing how to fix your own stuff is priceless indeed 😂
We installed the system for a customer and like you, it was our first time and a real learning experience not without its first time startup problems. well done for getting it sorted as I can absolutely appreciate whats involved guys!!!!
You can see photos on our socials of the small footprint install we completed. #Trimporters
Yeah, they are not the easiest of systems, but they offer so much versitility. 🙂
@@FreedomStrider very best of luck to you both with the rest of your conversion!
When you cut the pipe it looked like a movie clips from Area 59, when they are operating on an Alien. LOL
👽 🤣
Yeah you are having this issue as the solution is taking path of least resistance and you will get uneven heating and air pockets. Heatso has in one of their diagrams I saw somewhere that each unit should be in series and not parallel as you have it. Like you have to go into heat exchanger then out and into heater and then out and into radiant system (which needs another valve) and then back to res tank. This is streamlined and makes it easy for the pump to know where to direct the flow.
We were going to do exactly this, but saw from others that the heat reduces each time it passes through, so the device at the end of the loop receives the least heat and means it isn't as effectively warmed, so we chose this method instead. Each have the own problems I guess 🤷♀️
You need to add valves on the heat exchanger and the heat matrix as they have less flow restriction than the underfloor loop, the water will just take the path of least resistance.
That will allow you to balance the flow between each of the 3 heat outputs. This is the same way it is done on domestic radiators (in the UK at least).
To get the max out the underfloor you're right, for us the underfloor was a bonus and experiment, but next time lots for valves are needed!
Well done, glad to see its now fixed :-)
We're super thrilled that it actually works!! 😀
Did you forego an inlet back into the glycol tank? The plastic one looked like it had two ports, whereas the metal one appears to only have an outlet. Trying to plan my system, and I'm having a hard time finding an affordable tank with a properly sized inlet and outlet to have the glycol return to the tank.
Great video guys well done both xxx
Thank you 🙂
hi there has the underfloor circuit actually given you satisfaction with the heat not taking the matrix heater in account just the underfloor pipes :)
If you were to run just the underfloor, without the air matrix, it's not enough heat, especially for the winter. It heats up the floor, but that's not enough to heat the actual air volume in the van. Since our main mattress is on the floor, we've tested just having the underfloor on at night and although the mattress and blankets stay toasty warm, the air is too cold - you'd need both running. Luckily, the heat from our furnace is enough to run the air matrix and the underfloor without either loosing heat 👍
Ah okay good to know as I’m having an evo top webasto at 6kw and I was wondering if it’s enough I will try my underfloor set up first and see but if not I will add a air diesel heater
By having your mattress directly on top does that not insulate it from the heat escaping also?
Well done and had no doubt you would sort it 👍😁
Got there in the end 😉
Good you out the blue valve in. You should also not close it all the way as it will strain the pump. You want to keep piping size and amount of solution approx the same throughout so if you reduce down to half inch like I did for my radiant, have the bypass valve open enough for a little of the extra solution to flow so it doesn’t creat back pressure on pump.
Reducing the piping from 19mm down to 9mm for the underfloor is quite a reduction, but we figured with the glycol also passing through the heat exchanger and air matrix where it doesn't reduce, this should help the pumps lifespan and the strain on it. But this blue valve seriously helped the pump
Hello, un grand merci pour vos explications ! j'ai un hydronic aussi à installer ! pas facile !!! ;-) merci à vous !
Xav LES MNMS FAMILY
De Rein! 👍👌
After all the discussion about 1 pipe vs 2 pipe, that valve you added essentially converts your system back to a 1 pipe system. I think you will find you need to do similar valving to get the heat exchanger to work properly too. The problem is that the water has multiple paths and will flow mostly through the path with the least resistance (which is just that short section you replaced with the valve).
Also, you only need one valve to turn the underfloor heating on and off. Either one will work. You can leave the other valve open all the time, or just remove it. A water circuit needs an entrance and an exit to flow, blocking just one of those will stop the flow.
Not entirely, the heat exchanger and air matrix are still piped in parallel, not in series. We don't see a problem with the heat exchanger, all the pipes on the air matrix and heat exchanger are hot which implies there is flow, and since the air matrix works just fine and that's plumbed the same way as the heat exchanger, we don't see a problem at the moment.
The problem with the floor came from the reduction of the pipe diameter from 19mm to 9mm, the heat exchanger has the same sized pipe as the rest of the highway so there should be no resistance. 🙂
Nice work very cool system!
Thanks :) We love it!
@@FreedomStrider yeah so modular!! With underfloor heating!!!
I've got a question for you two, related to the air matrix and the associated controller. (FYI I have all the same gear, I'm currently in the process of puzzling out how everything gets connected up wiring-wise.)
The Webasto controller obviously connects to the PWM gadget via the yellow wire - both of those get their own power via those pairs of wires - and the PWM gadget connects to the air matrix with the black and either red or orange wires. And the Webasto controller has the temperature sensor connected as well, and on "auto" will very the fan speeds on the air matrix based on the measured room temp.
But - does the Webasto controller have any connection to the main furnace? If you have the air matrix set to try and maintain a certain temperature, can that controller keep the furnace on and heating the coolant to maintain hot coolant flowing through the air matrix?
I'm seeing absolutely zero connection between the two systems in my research. My worry is on a cold night, when I'd want the warm air flowing, that the furnace controller will shut down the furnace and hence, disable air heating.
Thanks!
It's complicated. You can wire everything separate, and have the webasto controller power wire connect to 12v direct, or, you can connect that port on the webasto controller to the black red cable on the eberspacher controller. Connecting the webasto controller to the red/black wire means the fan will only turn on/off when the heater turns on/off (ie the webasto controller only received power, and thus turns the pwm which turns the air matrix on, only when the heater is on).
We have our webasto controller on max heat, and max fan speed 24/7, and use the easy start Pro controller to turn the heater on/off. At night the heater turns on, it takes a few minutes, then the webasto controller lights up red and on turns the air matric. After the heater goes through its cool down cycle, the air matrix has its power cut and it turns off.
Bit hard to explain, we show it clearer in our pdf linked in the video description but that is a paid product, so I've done my best to explain it with words :)
@@FreedomStrider No no, not that hard to explain, that's basically what I've since learned from another friend who had gone through the whole process, what you say here mirrors what she told me, so that's a good sign :)
Thank you very much!
You don't even need the "H" with the valve in it; your heat exchanger already completes the loop, even without the under-floor heat being on.
You're right if the underfloor is closed, that the H is not needed. We've had no problem with the heat exchanger, it has always gotten its glycol flow; the problem was with the underfloor line. Because the pipe reduces from 19mm to 9mm, when we didn't have the H with the blue valve, the glycol took the path of least resistance through the heat exchanger rather than through the underfloor, so the underfloor never really got hot. The H valve cuts off the bypass and forces the glycol to go through the underfloor. 👍
Hey There! Loving the tutorial series you both have created. We are curious have you tried the hot water with just the heat exchanger? Do you feel that the water is hot enough with out a holding tank?
No we haven't plumbed our hot water system yet, so can't report on it yet 🙃 - You might want to check with Dares Drives or Courts and Meeks (not sure if they have a holding tank... but not as far as I can see)
hey guys, great work so far on the system really coming together. I installed underfloor heating via a manifold with a mixing valve in our home around a year or so ago. Is the mixing valve something that you could incorporate into your system rather than the straight ball valve at the 'H' position, that way you could set the temperature you want the floor to be at without affecting your other points in the system. you may also need another pump after the mixing valve on the ufh loop just to solve the issue you guys had for the glycol not wanting to go into the smaller pipe.
Just thinking that you may want to have the ufh on but just not at 100% all the time? Usually the idea with ufh is that its on for more time at a lesser temperature. No doubt you guys have thought about this anyways yous seem to be one of the most through guys when it come to research etc!
All the best,
Scott
We did look at a 3 way manifold, but they were a lot more expensive than what we used, so for our budget, we thought it could be an upgrade father down the line (especially an electronic manifold) For the mixing valve, maybe, but we wanted to test the floor without anything just to see how hot it actually got. At the moment, within 30 minutes, the floor is warm and within an hour, it's radiating really well but not so hot that you can't walk on it.
We can actually turn the ufh off completely by closing the red ball valves and opening the H valve. The only reason we will need a second pump is if we find out that the ufh 12mm pipe is creating too much of a restriction of flow for the heater to deal with. We haven't seen evidence of this happening yet, but it's something we are aware of and keeping a close eye on.
I'm not entirely sure how to keep the ufh line on at a lower temperature for a long period of time (eg overnight) as the furnace has a single temperature, and it is either on or off, no in-between. So even with a mixing valve, there would be nothing reheating the glycol if the heater is turned off. I'm sure there's plenty of things we could do that we are missing, I'm sure they'll pop up at the right time.
@@FreedomStrider yes that's true always something you guys can do further down the line if you feel you could benefit from it.
In my home system we have a thermostat(in the underfloor heated area) that controls a zone valve which opens and then tells the boiler to fire up and turns on the secondary pump on the ufh manifold. So like your saying my boiler is always on while the thermostat is calling for heat. (although it only physically produces heat when it detects that the return line on the 'highway' is colder than the flow thats) . I take it thats the way your furnace works aswell, ie once the highway is up to temperature then it just turns off and then tops it up when needed?
What type of flooring are you guys going for? we wanted an engineered wood flooring, obviously it has to be compatible for use in a ufh system but even when we found one we have to limit out floor temp to something like 27 degrees to stop the glue inside the laminated layers from melting and then causing issues. Thats where the mixing valve comes into play also as you can set it at whatever required as if its straight from the boiler it would be way too hot, i think my boiler is set to 70*c and then the mixing valve drops the ufh loop down to 45ish and then that keeps the floor temp under the 27.
Bit of a minefield when your researching and installing it but once its all set up its great, best type of heating imo.
anyways rambling on here, take care!
Scott
@@ToddlerVan , you are correct a thermostatic mixing valve would be a good idea, i have one in my van that controls the temperature of the coolant going into the floor. I do not have an additional circulation pump, the espar one is constantly circulating coolant and only fires the boiler when the input coolant drops below a certain temperature. the mixing valve i have has a variable output temperature, and i can regulate the interior temperature by adjusting the floor temp, and the kalori blower control temp.
@freedom strider, you should re orient your water heat exchanger to be vertical, the way you have it oriented, you will not be able to drain the fresh water system to winterize.
Love the rambles! 😂
That is indeed how our furnace works, and as for our flooring material, we are thinking ply and vinyl, though using high temperature adhesive to stick our vinyl down to the ply since as you said the ufh can soften the adhesive 😎
hey! great videos and super explanations thanks! little question though, did you do that video you talked about in a previous video concerning how to wire the air matrix to the furnace so that both control units could communicate and make it possible to control the fan speed with the easystart pro if i understand correctly...
i'm currently doing my research to install a similar system but much more simple as i won't have the underfloor heater but only an air matrix and a heat exchanger for my shower, and in option later maybe a hot water ballon.
the only thing holding me is that i wanna be sure to be able to control the installation with the easy start, by that i mean: use the external temperature sensor from the easystart pro and set a room temperatur to reach on it, and have the easystart monitoring air matrix fan as you can do it if you have an airtronic heater in combination to the hydronic s3.
do you know if that's doable?
thanks
I believe so. So have the external temp sonsor connected to the easy start pro, and the easy start pro connected to the furnace as per normal. Then you have the fan matrix controller hooked up to the air matrix, and instead of running the air matrix controller to your fusebox, from the furnace, there should be a small red/black wire. If you wire this up to the power supply for the air matrix controller (red/black to + and the negative can go to ground), then this means the easy start pro, when on, will turn the air matrix controller on. We always have our air matrix controller "on" but it only turns on when the furnace is turned on.
You can then have the easy start pro on a temp sonsor so that when it drops below a temperature, it turns on, which turns the air matrix controller on, which will turn the air matrix on. We also have a temp sensor on our air matrix controller, so we can adjust the air matrix turning on/off via this temp sensor as well - though we've currently always left the air matrix blowing on MAX for now.
Hope this helps :)
Do you use this plate heat exchanger for your shower without an additional boiler? Does this work for you? I'd love to make this system too. But am worried the capacity is not sufficient to run the hot water for several minutes
We use the plate way exchange to shower and wash dishes. The heat transfers very quickly, as soon as the heater is up to temperature (it takes 5 minutes) the water is hot and it acts exactly like an instant hot water heater, until you turn the heater off. ☺️
OMG the Espar D5E 12v pump sounds so noisy ! Is it because it's against the floor and make some vibrations ? I was expecting something less noisy than an Espar D4 airtronic heater....
Not sure why, it is not resting on the floor - it is suspended on 18mm ply - though might try some sound-deadening to dull the sound and there is going to be a false floor under the couch so hopefully things will quiet down. Plus a lot of people install them outside so that will dull the noise inside too. Actually, the air matrix is louder than the pump - and that was the quietest matrix that we could find.
The coolant flow will not be good because your out flow of the heat exchanger could be back flowing into the out flow of your under floor heating. It should go into heat exchanger out from that. Then into the in flow of your under flow heating. Then it can flow out of your under floor heating back to tank.. that way it’s only flowing in one direction through all your pipes..
And your coolant tank should be higher
We haven't noticed any problems with the flow so far. The heat exchanger return line should be swept along with the current traveling from the underfloor return line (instead of back flowing) + we have a valve on that line as well to stop backflow if the underfloor is off.
Your system both the fan and the heater sound incredibly noisy. How can it be comfortable in your van with all that loudness?
Both the fan and the heater are as silent as you can find on the market, most campers with heaters have a similar set up (noise wise).
As for comfort, both noises get muffled after the furniture is built on top, so we only hear the air matrix - and that is no louder than a standard air blower in a house. If you are a light sleeper and any noise breaks your sleep then you can look into radiators or turn off your heater before you go to sleep, depending on your travel needs
Jeez, you guys made this harder than it needed to be. Anyone who's watercooled a PC can tell you that no matter how many loops you have, you want your reservoir as the highest point in the system so that you can bleed air out of the radiator(s). Seems like you could have saved some time by temporarily extending the tank connections, raising it higher, and using a transfer pump (on an electric drill) to fill the majority of your system from any of the T-junctions -- less stress on your main pump too. Bleed the air from the system and reinstall the tank.
We're sure there is a multitude of ways we could have done things differently and in hindsight, there are always ways to make things more efficient but at the end of the day, we always do what we can with the info we have at the time, and no matter how we got there, the most important thing is that it is working. 👍
@@FreedomStrider Understood and not trying to be too critical, but just pointing out some things for anyone emulating your setup. In a closed loop system, you fill the loop as much as possible, bypass the heater if necessary, and put the tank at the highest point to trap air. Glad you got it working though.
Hi, I believe all circuits should be connected in series, not parallel like you have, because the water will flow the way it finds less resistance all those Ts you have, do not ensure the water will flow both ways.. in my opinion you should remove all those Ts, and bring the water from the boiler to the plate exchanger 1st, because you want really hot water for shower, then the fan because it's the fast way to heat the van and then the underfloor. You can keep the T before the underfloor heating because in summer you may want hot water but not hot floor, and with those valves you can divert the circuit.
You could also improve the layout by getting the reservoir higher, getting the pump just right under the reservoir and the plate exchanger vertical, all these tips would remove air from the circuit immediately.
Thanks for the advice, at the moment the parallel system is working just fine, everything gets warm. Due to the complexity and flexibility of our plumbing, Eberspracher advised us to go with the parallel setup.
It's an experiment in progress so we'll react to any changes that need to happen 👍
I’d recommend doing away with the “H” as you call it entirely. It’s bypassing everything through that.
Adding in the H really helped, but we needed to put a valve in the force the glycol through the rest of the system - as you said the glycol was otherwise just bypassing the rest.
We managed to get it working in the end 👌