I am going to do the same thing. But I'll set up the system so the water pump will run anytime the heater is on and will always send the exhaust waste heat into my interior 35gal aluminum tank. Just take a shower when the water is the right temp and never run the risk of freezing tank. The water tank also has a built in engine coolant heat exchanger too if it needs a little boost.
It is better to run the water in the opposite direction to the gas flow as there will be more heat transferred across the greater temperature gradient. In this case it wouldn't matter but if you were to connect the EGR cooler direct to the outlet of the heater it would make a small difference.
Been waiting for this video. Did something similar to my webasto 90 water heater. That unit runs 9Kw so more heat to draw out the exhaust. MyEGR will boil if no water is flowing in around 1 minute. Some tips. It will work better if you put the water hoses the other way around. So your progressively heating water to the max temp you can. Also you need to point the egr down as you will be getting a fair amount of condensation now. Cooling the exhaust down enough to draw out the water as a byproduct of combustion Also the closer the egr to the heater the better Keep it up. Looking forward to part two
I thought about swapping the pipes, but was sure if my shitty pump would take the heat. I thought as well you could lag the exhaust and the cooler to keep as much of the heat in as possible.
David McLuckie I’ve lagged mine with fibreglass heat shielding all the way along. 1 to keep the heat in and 2 for safety I’m sure it helps as it’s warm to the touch. Without you would leave skin on the exhaust pipe I’m also ducting the first section bare and put an outer pipe though it and ducting my air intake along it with the aim of preheating the combustion air to run waste oil mixes. Currently working on a TD5 fuel cooler in the coolant loop to preheat the fuel. Just needs fitting Trying to get a real clean burn with say 30% waste oil and 70% kero. Starting up on kero until it’s all warm first
if your going to do that, why use a heat exchanger? Surely one could simply lay a suitable pipe through a concrete or dirt floor to transfer exhaust heat to the thermal mass in a similar way to how a Rocket Mass Heater works?
Good work. I hade a Volvo Amason from 1967 with a similar configuration for a Bhaco air heater. They dident use any pump, the heat exchanger was tilted 45 dgr for self cirkulation. Inlet conected att the lovest cold side and the outlet at the top aat the exhoust inlet to the heat exchanger. It worked out fine in swedisch vinter. They recomended if outside temperatur was below -20 dgrC mix diesel with petrol max mixture 50%
This is super awesome David. I'll set up the system so the water pump will run anytime the heater is on and will always send the exhaust waste heat into my interior 35gal aluminum tank. Just take a shower when the water is the right temp and never run the risk of freezing tank. The water tank also has a built in engine coolant heat exchanger too if it needs a little boost. It great having the tank inside because those 35 gallons act as a big heat reservoir!
I get such a kick out of you and the continuing story of "THE HEATER " I'm wondering, are they paying you to see how long a review you can do !!?? Ha,Ha, !! " THE MAD SCIENTIST !!"
Hi there, just a suggestion, reverse the water flow in the heat exchanger. the flow of heat should go against each other. this wil increde the heat transfere with somewhere about 30%, and you wil not have the coldest water contacting the warmest metall in the heatexchanger. keep up the great work, very interesting to see how these chinese heaters are inside an how they work.
Hi David , I have already done what you plan in the next video , large single tube and shell exchanger with copper coil inside So far have gotten 2 LPM on demand from 15 c to 50 c !
Outdoing yourself again mate, love it! That would work so well going into a hot water cylinder, especially one of those hydronic hot water cylinders so you could keep anti corrosive fluid in the lines.
You are a bad man , you have got me thinking and that will cost $ oh well only live half a dozen times lol . Love your experiments! Cheers from Australia
I would like to see if the efficiency could be increased by adding an intercooler/radiator as a heat exchanger to the exhaust that could be placed in front of the airflow to preheat the air. - I bet some insulation around the exhaust and the bowl would make your setup even better.
Have you considered putting a catalytic converter before the EGR cooler to get a little more heat from the unburnt fuel? It would also help with emissions.
That's not a good idea with diesel heaters since they can't handle any back pressure on the exhaust. It will work for a couple of weeks / months and will clog up the burning chamber till it breaks the diesel heaters
Hey, when you do the second vid, can you show what the inside of the EGR cooler looks like where the exhaust goes in? Is it a single tube or multiple tube, does it have any fins/added surface area inside? Love the videos!
Hey from the USA. I’m wondering if one could make an exhaust gas water heater from some 1 inch (close to size of the the 2.5 cm diameter exhaust) copper plumbing pipe inside of a 1-1/4 inch copper pipe with a reducing tee on each end. That would make a similar setup as the EGR we see here. One could make a copper heat exchanger as long as needed which might muffle the exhaust and generate more hot water. Copper is a better heat conductor, too. I wonder if the exhaust gas would corrode the copper?
Hey David! I tired to wrap a cooper pipe around the exhaust but doesn't heat up sufficient to bring water to a heat.. I was wondering since you like to experiment, trying to pass a copper pipe inside the exhaust, from the upper outlet until the end.. Think it would heat up more? Thanks!
Excellent as usual David. Have often wondered why manufacturers have never used exhaust gas heat recovery to make engines more efficient, especially on short journeys where engines are inefficient because they are cold?
I think it's likely that petrol engines are so thermally inefficient that they heat up fast enough on their own. Diesels on the other hand would benefit from being warmer faster. My Citroen C1 is warm after a few hundred yards. :)
The reason is simple when it comes to cars. The temperature drop causes the Filters / Catalytic Converters to not work quickly enough for the emission regulations to pass. For Diesel heaters it's even simpler. The way they operate they can't take any back pressure on the exhaust side. Cooling the exhaust fumes and giving them more restrictions in the exhaust path will cause the burning chamber of the diesel heaters to really badly clog up.
I wonder if you could make this work without the water pump---via natural circulation. Thus the warmed water rising and the colder water dropping (from a raised supply tank). Not sure if the flow rate would be fast enough (?) to be useful, but this could greatly simplify a water heating loop....if it worked.
Awesome. What is the fuel consumption if the heater? Also, since the exhaust is still hot you could get another one of those heat exchangers into the circuit for more heat. Looks like an astra part from a 1.7/1.9 cdti... memories!
You don't want to plug up the exhaust too much... and there also comes a point where the exhaust gets too cold and the water condenses out and rots the heat exchanger. In a setup like this I'm imagining you'd want to regularly run the water up to near boiling temp to keep the egr cooler dry inside the exhaust passages. This would be the biggest problem in cold weather when you start with really cold water and the temperature differential is extreme.
Cheers - very good points ! I know the outside of those coolers are stainless and mine was ancient and still shiny. No idea about the inside though... plus its designed to have car antifreeze running through it so perhaps it would need further adaptions to reliably work for a long time without rusting. Maybe shortening the exhaust would help keep it all hot enough
LOL "Whatever fuckin' Kilowatt they are..." My Diesel VW Jetta EGR Cooler crapped out on me early in the spring time and I ended up using JB weld to seal up/disable the bypass flapper valve on the thing to keep it from leaking exhaust gas / robbing performance from the motor. It's recently started to get cold in Kansas and I'm *NOT* looking forward to this winter... even as someone who has also installed a plug-in diesel water heater... It's gonna suck cold starting this thing!
What about making a radiator out of soapstone. If you got a few slabs, and just snaked the exhaust back and forth through it, it would radiate off the extra heat for hours. Could use copper tube, soapstone is easy to drill afik. Obviously not for hot water, but to capture radiant heat for living space....just an idea.
Hey brilliant idea! I was about to start a setup with hydronic for hot water and air heater but I love this and I'm definitely going to try it. You think would be efficient if instead circulating the water, just heat up on demand?? From tank through egr straight to kitchen and shower taps Many thanks from Spain
Why aren’t these installed on all cars? It seems to me that it would help gasoline engines warm to closed loop fuel delivery faster from a cold start and potentially stay there in colder weather, not to mention heating the passenger cabin faster. There would have to be a thermostat on it to close above a certain temperature to prevent overheating an engine under load...hmmm....it could even be used to warm fuel...
You can't get showered in a bowl of water, just reusing the water from a bowl will slowly increase temp, use water straight from the tap, then see what temp it gets up to.
I friggin love your videos. Is that EGR just a straight pipe through the housing? Or does it have fins on the inside heat exchanger? You should make something to attach to the end of you cut in half heater to pass water through, just a box with 2 fittings, bolted to the end of the cut open heater, and see how much it could heat water then.
David,you have not tried redex or any other cleaner in one,carbon is carbon,who knows it could save all the headache of stripping it,maybe you could do a video on it buddy
Can you make your own heat exchanger from "off the shelf" copper pipes and fittings and show the results please? I've seen people do it to pre-heat water to a shower so be interested to know if it's worth making a exchanger myself for the heater, Also be interested to see how well it does without the pump if its mounted vertically
No. For the £38 for the EGR cooler there is no way I could buy copper pipe, fittings and braze it all together and have as neat and simple a result as spending the £38.
There are many, many EGR coolers out there. But the price seems to have skyrocketed. A quick eBay search for EGR cooler would be the best option, just try and pick something that looks the easiest to modify to fit.
Well yes, but this was just a proof of concept. You're also likely to have the heater inside a vehicle and the exhaust exiting underneath, so there is a good chance the EGR would be out there are well.
Do you think its possible to use this to heat up coolant in my diesel ram Promaster (Fiat ducato) without using the pump. Trying to see if I can use this instead of the block heater because there isn't many places I can plug it into.
Definitely run the water the other direction, as someone has already suggested, it's more efficient. It's called a contra flow heat exchanger.
Finally a good use for all the defect VW egr coolers.
Fantastic idea. I already have a setup so I can blow the air from the diesel heater to a shower tent. Now I could heat the water as well.
I am going to do the same thing. But I'll set up the system so the water pump will run anytime the heater is on and will always send the exhaust waste heat into my interior 35gal aluminum tank. Just take a shower when the water is the right temp and never run the risk of freezing tank. The water tank also has a built in engine coolant heat exchanger too if it needs a little boost.
@@thomasbarlow4223 Keep the water above 60 degrees C to avoid bacteria growing inside your tank.
It is better to run the water in the opposite direction to the gas flow as there will be more heat transferred across the greater temperature gradient. In this case it wouldn't matter but if you were to connect the EGR cooler direct to the outlet of the heater it would make a small difference.
Interesting, maybe David could try that and show us how it’s done.
Been waiting for this video. Did something similar to my webasto 90 water heater. That unit runs 9Kw so more heat to draw out the exhaust. MyEGR will boil if no water is flowing in around 1 minute.
Some tips. It will work better if you put the water hoses the other way around. So your progressively heating water to the max temp you can.
Also you need to point the egr down as you will be getting a fair amount of condensation now. Cooling the exhaust down enough to draw out the water as a byproduct of combustion
Also the closer the egr to the heater the better
Keep it up. Looking forward to part two
I thought about swapping the pipes, but was sure if my shitty pump would take the heat. I thought as well you could lag the exhaust and the cooler to keep as much of the heat in as possible.
David McLuckie I’ve lagged mine with fibreglass heat shielding all the way along. 1 to keep the heat in and 2 for safety
I’m sure it helps as it’s warm to the touch. Without you would leave skin on the exhaust pipe
I’m also ducting the first section bare and put an outer pipe though it and ducting my air intake along it with the aim of preheating the combustion air to run waste oil mixes.
Currently working on a TD5 fuel cooler in the coolant loop to preheat the fuel. Just needs fitting
Trying to get a real clean burn with say 30% waste oil and 70% kero. Starting up on kero until it’s all warm first
@@DavidMcLuckie how about some gold heat wrap dave 😂
Good job with the use of an old egr as a heat exchanger. Could use it as part of an underfloor water heating system.
if your going to do that, why use a heat exchanger? Surely one could simply lay a suitable pipe through a concrete or dirt floor to transfer exhaust heat to the thermal mass in a similar way to how a Rocket Mass Heater works?
Good work.
I hade a Volvo Amason from 1967 with a similar configuration for a Bhaco air heater. They dident use any pump, the heat exchanger was tilted 45 dgr for self cirkulation. Inlet conected att the lovest cold side and the outlet at the top aat the exhoust inlet to the heat exchanger. It worked out fine in swedisch vinter. They recomended if outside temperatur was below -20 dgrC mix diesel with petrol max mixture 50%
insulated pipe would be a nice touch
This is super awesome David. I'll set up the system so the water pump will run anytime the heater is on and will always send the exhaust waste heat into my interior 35gal aluminum tank. Just take a shower when the water is the right temp and never run the risk of freezing tank. The water tank also has a built in engine coolant heat exchanger too if it needs a little boost. It great having the tank inside because those 35 gallons act as a big heat reservoir!
I get such a kick out of you and the continuing story of "THE HEATER " I'm wondering, are they paying you to see how long a review you can do !!?? Ha,Ha, !! " THE MAD SCIENTIST !!"
I wish someone was paying me. But I'm having fun, and that's kind of like payment.
@@DavidMcLuckie AMEN !!
@@DavidMcLuckie Some motor homes do that also they use the heat from the engine for hot water
Hi there, just a suggestion, reverse the water flow in the heat exchanger. the flow of heat should go against each other. this wil increde the heat transfere with somewhere about 30%, and you wil not have the coldest water contacting the warmest metall in the heatexchanger. keep up the great work, very interesting to see how these chinese heaters are inside an how they work.
Hi David , I have already done what you plan in the next video , large single tube and shell exchanger with copper coil inside
So far have gotten 2 LPM on demand from 15 c to 50 c !
Outdoing yourself again mate, love it! That would work so well going into a hot water cylinder, especially one of those hydronic hot water cylinders so you could keep anti corrosive fluid in the lines.
You are a bad man , you have got me thinking and that will cost $ oh well only live half a dozen times lol . Love your experiments! Cheers from Australia
Definitely will be watching pt II. Best wishes from Northern Ireland.
You are a star for doing this. I was sure this would work and now through your talented fingers i now know. Thank you very much.
Another great & very interesting video David 👍 can’t wait for the next one...
Now that’s clever, I have the same system running through my boats engine and after an hour the water is literally boiling and that’s several gallons.
I would like to see if the efficiency could be increased by adding an intercooler/radiator as a heat exchanger to the exhaust that could be placed in front of the airflow to preheat the air.
-
I bet some insulation around the exhaust and the bowl would make your setup even better.
Have you considered putting a catalytic converter before the EGR cooler to get a little more heat from the unburnt fuel? It would also help with emissions.
That's not a good idea with diesel heaters since they can't handle any back pressure on the exhaust.
It will work for a couple of weeks / months and will clog up the burning chamber till it breaks the diesel heaters
Hey, when you do the second vid, can you show what the inside of the EGR cooler looks like where the exhaust goes in? Is it a single tube or multiple tube, does it have any fins/added surface area inside? Love the videos!
Hey from the USA. I’m wondering if one could make an exhaust gas water heater from some 1 inch (close to size of the the 2.5 cm diameter exhaust) copper plumbing pipe inside of a 1-1/4 inch copper pipe with a reducing tee on each end. That would make a similar setup as the EGR we see here. One could make a copper heat exchanger as long as needed which might muffle the exhaust and generate more hot water. Copper is a better heat conductor, too. I wonder if the exhaust gas would corrode the copper?
This deserves a Sub 👍
Clever, this has got me thinking
Nice! Cool video, look forward to the second one.
Brilliant post mate. Off to find some bits now 👍
This is brilliant. Thank you for sharing this.
Hey David! I tired to wrap a cooper pipe around the exhaust but doesn't heat up sufficient to bring water to a heat.. I was wondering since you like to experiment, trying to pass a copper pipe inside the exhaust, from the upper outlet until the end.. Think it would heat up more? Thanks!
Great idea to use this for engine block heating!
Would it work better by sticking the EGR with a shorter pipe or directly onto the diesel heater and then the exhaust pipe?
Excellent as usual David. Have often wondered why manufacturers have never used exhaust gas heat recovery to make engines more efficient, especially on short journeys where engines are inefficient because they are cold?
I think it's likely that petrol engines are so thermally inefficient that they heat up fast enough on their own. Diesels on the other hand would benefit from being warmer faster. My Citroen C1 is warm after a few hundred yards. :)
The reason is simple when it comes to cars.
The temperature drop causes the Filters / Catalytic Converters to not work quickly enough for the emission regulations to pass.
For Diesel heaters it's even simpler.
The way they operate they can't take any back pressure on the exhaust side.
Cooling the exhaust fumes and giving them more restrictions in the exhaust path will cause the burning chamber of the diesel heaters to really badly clog up.
I wonder if you could make this work without the water pump---via natural circulation. Thus the warmed water rising and the colder water dropping (from a raised supply tank). Not sure if the flow rate would be fast enough (?) to be useful, but this could greatly simplify a water heating loop....if it worked.
That will work. The hot water will naturally rise and be replaced by the cold water. As long as the tank is above the EGR cooler it'll keep cycling.
HHEELLLLOOOOOOOO
Great stuff!
Shorter exhaust or wrap it and change the direction of flow through the exchanger.
Great stuff as per mr McCluckie
So what your saying I can make a loop with a small heating core and get a secondary low output heater from using the egr
Awesome. What is the fuel consumption if the heater?
Also, since the exhaust is still hot you could get another one of those heat exchangers into the circuit for more heat. Looks like an astra part from a 1.7/1.9 cdti... memories!
You don't want to plug up the exhaust too much... and there also comes a point where the exhaust gets too cold and the water condenses out and rots the heat exchanger. In a setup like this I'm imagining you'd want to regularly run the water up to near boiling temp to keep the egr cooler dry inside the exhaust passages. This would be the biggest problem in cold weather when you start with really cold water and the temperature differential is extreme.
Cheers - very good points ! I know the outside of those coolers are stainless and mine was ancient and still shiny. No idea about the inside though... plus its designed to have car antifreeze running through it so perhaps it would need further adaptions to reliably work for a long time without rusting. Maybe shortening the exhaust would help keep it all hot enough
LOL "Whatever fuckin' Kilowatt they are..."
My Diesel VW Jetta EGR Cooler crapped out on me early in the spring time and I ended up using JB weld to seal up/disable the bypass flapper valve on the thing to keep it from leaking exhaust gas / robbing performance from the motor. It's recently started to get cold in Kansas and I'm *NOT* looking forward to this winter... even as someone who has also installed a plug-in diesel water heater... It's gonna suck cold starting this thing!
Brilliant idea 👍
What about making a radiator out of soapstone. If you got a few slabs, and just snaked the exhaust back and forth through it, it would radiate off the extra heat for hours. Could use copper tube, soapstone is easy to drill afik. Obviously not for hot water, but to capture radiant heat for living space....just an idea.
Nice. Like a mass storage heater.
Hey brilliant idea! I was about to start a setup with hydronic for hot water and air heater but I love this and I'm definitely going to try it.
You think would be efficient if instead circulating the water, just heat up on demand?? From tank through egr straight to kitchen and shower taps
Many thanks from Spain
Why aren’t these installed on all cars? It seems to me that it would help gasoline engines warm to closed loop fuel delivery faster from a cold start and potentially stay there in colder weather, not to mention heating the passenger cabin faster. There would have to be a thermostat on it to close above a certain temperature to prevent overheating an engine under load...hmmm....it could even be used to warm fuel...
You can't get showered in a bowl of water, just reusing the water from a bowl will slowly increase temp, use water straight from the tap, then see what temp it gets up to.
I friggin love your videos. Is that EGR just a straight pipe through the housing? Or does it have fins on the inside heat exchanger?
You should make something to attach to the end of you cut in half heater to pass water through, just a box with 2 fittings, bolted to the end of the cut open heater, and see how much it could heat water then.
That's pretty much the second video. :)
Genius!
Is this feasible to heat water and store water for a shower? I’m reading it might be best to use heat exchanger for separate water tank?
thanks for the videos!!
With an exhaust temperature over 60 could a second one be used to extract the last remaining heat in the exhaust?
Great stuff, Try some different flow rates and your be golden 👍🏻
Can the EGR cooler take the heat without water in it?
I was wondering that
Ah David you used the Ford egr I see, works well doesn't it ;) 👍
Brilliant idea but how to heat this water on summer
Brilliant 😂👍🤣🤣
Brilliant! What is the EGR from?
I'll put a link in the description.
Top Job! Very interesting.:-)
David,you have not tried redex or any other cleaner in one,carbon is carbon,who knows it could save all the headache of stripping it,maybe you could do a video on it buddy
Could try Redex or another of the EGR cleaners. I'll see what's available, maybe try a few.
The inlet has to be on the right side or not?
Can you make your own heat exchanger from "off the shelf" copper pipes and fittings and show the results please? I've seen people do it to pre-heat water to a shower so be interested to know if it's worth making a exchanger myself for the heater, Also be interested to see how well it does without the pump if its mounted vertically
No. For the £38 for the EGR cooler there is no way I could buy copper pipe, fittings and braze it all together and have as neat and simple a result as spending the £38.
The link now appears to be down. Is there anywhere else the EGR cooler is available?
There are many, many EGR coolers out there. But the price seems to have skyrocketed. A quick eBay search for EGR cooler would be the best option, just try and pick something that looks the easiest to modify to fit.
Will it get hot enough for me too cook six hot dogs in the water?
I was thinking of running the exhaust pipe through a small oil-filled radiator, have you done it, and if so what was the result
Empty of oil or full of oil?
@@DavidMcLuckie I was thinking with oil but imagine a tube through the bottom from one side to the other sealed then exhaust through that?
Could you shower directly with the heated water or will it be contaminated?
You can. The gas and water don't mix, they flow through different pipes.
Can you do this setup with 10L Please. Want to know weather to do this or get the diesel air and water heater?
Yes, very yes. I'm going to compare them all.
@@DavidMcLuckie Cool, thank you
Could you use this to hear up shower water?
You could heat and store water yes. But not as 'instant' hot water.
Clever but shouldn't it be closer to the heater with a shorter exhaust hose?
Well yes, but this was just a proof of concept. You're also likely to have the heater inside a vehicle and the exhaust exiting underneath, so there is a good chance the EGR would be out there are well.
Cool
Could this in theory run to the engines coolant system to preheat the engine / matrix?
Yes, that would be a good application for it.
does the heat exchanger affect the exhaust pressure in any way
Minimally, not enough to be detrimental.
Do you think its possible to use this to heat up coolant in my diesel ram Promaster (Fiat ducato) without using the pump. Trying to see if I can use this instead of the block heater because there isn't many places I can plug it into.
What about a 12v coolant pump?
@@DavidMcLuckie wouldnt it draw a lot of amps?
Hydronic effect may not even require a pump....
If you leave it long enough does the water boil? Or does it stabilise at a temp?
It most certainly would. It would boil in the egr cooler and come out as bursts of steam and 100c water. The bowl would stay at 100c.
@@volvo09 nah, bowl would melt at 70 lol
What if you used coolant instead of water? Would it be more efficient?
Plain water is better at heat transfer than coolant. The downside is the freezing at zero.
cool video but where can I get the pump
greeting from
Germany
That was the cheapest main pump I could find on Amazon.
👍
Can you run the heater while driving?
Yes. The water temperature will only get to waht your vehicle would operate at normally.
Will this heater run on filtered waste engine oil
It should with a little petrol/diesel added. But having seen the results of an industrial waste oil burner I think it would clog up pretty quickly.
So you've built a dw5.......eberspacher have beaten you to it
Yeah, but mine didn't cost £1200 :)
does it matter what pump you use as for water flow
One that doesn't melt in hot water.
@@DavidMcLuckie I meant like a 12v hot water shower one on ebay , also where can you mount it in or out of a camper van
21 degrees is below freezing.
I presume you are from one of the seven places that still use fahrenheit then?