Identify This Water Heater..????

[Maine Sail]

So now that my fuel tank and engine are out..... I also ripped out the water heater too. I plan to rebuild it, clean it, replace the HX gasket and basically take it all apart and make sure the pressure vessel is still ok. I will also re-plumb it the way it should have been...

There are no identifying brand labels or anything other than the safety stickers on this tank to tell me who made it. I am going to assume the tank is Canadian? It measures 14 1/4" tall by 14 1/4" across and is made entirely of stainless steel including the pressure vessel/internal tank. The HX appears to be bronze or brass but I have not yet cleaned it up to determine which metal it is.

The tank is beautifully built and I would like to locate the manufacturer so I can avoid having to make my own HX gasket..

 

[Ed Schenck]

Does not look like anything that Seward, Raritan, or Isotemp has made recently. Some other companies are Torrid, Atwood, and Kuuma. When I replaced my rectangular Seward with another Seward(while the engine was out) I discovered the boat once had a round tank. The stain and gelcoat scrapes were still visible. So I wonder if there was a manufacturer back in the 70's that has gone where a lot of marine companies have gone.

P.S. I see that Vetus makes an all stainless tank. But it looks nothing like yours. Strange that there are no markings on yours. Stranger still that you are allowed to have it in the house.

 

[Maine Sail]

Stranger still that you are allowed to have it in the house.

WTWDN - What the wife doesn't know......

 

[sailingdog]

That's a really nice looking unit, especially considering its age. It has held up well, and my guess is that the manufacturer is out of business.

Does not look like anything that Seward, Raritan, or Isotemp has made recently. Some other companies are Torrid, Atwood, and Kuuma. When I replaced my rectangular Seward with another Seward(while the engine was out) I discovered the boat once had a round tank. The stain and gelcoat scrapes were still visible. So I wonder if there was a manufacturer back in the 70's that has gone where a lot of marine companies have gone.

P.S. I see that Vetus makes an all stainless tank. But it looks nothing like yours. Strange that there are no markings on yours. Stranger still that you are allowed to have it in the house.

His wife is probably away for the weekend...

 

[Richard Bryer]

Maine- you might try an email to info@hollandmarine.com
If Peter condescends to answer, he probably would know as he finished building one of the last CS36 and bought up a lot of the parts when CS went under
Holland marine website: http://www.hollandmarine.com/
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[Roger Long]

It has held up well, and my guess is that the manufacturer is out of business.

Didn't you mean to say, "It has held up well, so my guess..."

 

[sailingdog]

Unfortunately, that was the fate of many companies that made too good a product.

Didn't you mean to say, "It has held up well, so my guess..."

 

[packman]

I'm not sure, but will a UL listing carry an identifying number?

 

[Maine Sail]

She cleaned up well

She cleaned up well but after getting her apart it seems the fiberglass insulation got wet at some point and caused a bunch of crevice corrosion on the outside of the tank. The inside looks fine but I don't think I'll be re-installing this tank. It actually pressure tests fine, but, no thanks... I am actually considering JB Weld but I'm leery that it will hold 40 PSI..

Sadly this tank fits the location perfectly even though it was not the original tank. The boats apparently came with Raritan's but they were short lived, and the new ones are now to wide and tall.

I really can't believe someone else does not have this heater on their boat? The PO's cruised all over so it is possible it was never sold in the US to begin with.

Bummer.

Crevice Corrosion Due To Wet Insulation:

 

[Witzend]

What is the gauge of the metal tank wall?
What is the depth of the crevices?
Is it just localized to one or two areas?
It's difficult to tell the scale from your photos.
Maybe a good welder could patch it.

 

[Maine Sail]

What is the gauge of the metal tank wall?
What is the depth of the crevices?
Is it just localized to one or two areas?
It's difficult to tell the scale from your photos.
Maybe a good welder could patch it.

I am going to drop it at the welder to get an opinion. My guess is that some of the craters are very, very close to failure as some are quite deep. I did pressurize it to 10 PSI and she sat there for over an hour without the gauge moving so none have broken through yet. The problem was one of design in that the insulation went all the way done to the bottom cap of the heater thus wicking some moisture.

I really hate to add a new IsoTemp H2o heater to the already large project expenses this year, but hey it's a boat.... If the welder seems sketchy on the fix I'll just order a new heater tomorrow. It's a shame it is a beautiful and well built unit but stainless is prone to crevice corrosion..

 

[CarlN]

How many gallons? The Superstor Marine 6 gallon from Heat Transfer Products is the same diameter (14 1/4") but 16 1/2 high. Unlikely to be the same but interesting coincidence and might fit if you replace.

These guys are a SE Massachusetts based company that appears to primarily make super high efficiency water heaters for residential and commercial. The Superstor 12 gallon unit on my boat has been great - but only 2 years old so far. 316L tank and a lot of insulation. They claim only 17 degrees temperature loss over 35 hours. I haven't tested it that long but my morning shower is still dangerously hot when the engine was last run the previous afternoon.

http://www.htproducts.com/marinewaterheater.html

No relation the company.

Carl

 

[Maine Sail]

How many gallons? The Superstor Marine 6 gallon from Heat Transfer Products is the same diameter (14 1/4") but 16 1/2 high. Unlikely to be the same but interesting coincidence and might fit if you replace.

These guys are a SE Massachusetts based company that appears to primarily make super high efficiency water heaters for residential and commercial. The Superstor 12 gallon unit on my boat has been great - but only 2 years old so far. 316L tank and a lot of insulation. They claim only 17 degrees temperature loss over 35 hours. I haven't tested it that long but my morning shower is still dangerously hot when the engine was last run the previous afternoon.

http://www.htproducts.com/marinewaterheater.html

No relation the company.

Carl

Carl,

Very familiar with HTP as I used to be a manufacturers rep for their tanks a long time ago. The big selling feature on the Superstor indirect fired hot water heaters was 1/2 degree an hour stand by loss. They are basically a big thermos with a coil inside. The marine unit is the same only smaller and with an added 110V element. My mother still has a Superstor prototype in her house that is now going on 31 years old. They build good stuff, far better than most of the "marine" garbage foisted upon us..

Sadly the Superstor will not fit. Bummer too cause I can get one at P&H wholesaler cost...

I have 16 3/8" to the steering pulley so a max height of 16" is what I would feel comfortable with. No one makes a round tank currently, at least that I have been able to find in about an hours worth of Bing & google searching, that will fit.

The IsoTemp SL 20 will fit fine and it's a very high quality tank. I would actually choose it over a SuperStor anyway but the SuperStor is no slouch.

 

[Bob J.]

A 10 psi pressure test is to low if you're trying to determine structural integrity of your heater. If there's anyway you could fit a superstor into the space, that would be the way to go. Best dam indirect fired water heater ever made. Being in the mechanical contracting business for 36 years before deciding to shift gears for a living, I probably know your dad...

 

[kloudie1]

Main, a couple of quick notes concerning the heater.. first !! Don’t pitch it until you’ve thought about it a bit.. If ya stop the corrosion, it won’t corrode any more.. it isn’t leaking now and you can assume that the corrosion is pretty much only on the outside.. If you are nervous about new insulation doing the same thing as the old, coat the tank with coal tar epoxy and it will not corrode further. More to consider.. To hold 125 psi, and meet ASME Pressure Vessel Code (conservative), the tank thickness necessary is only 0.048” (assuming that the tank itself is about 12.375” diameter, and made of 316 stainless) The pits themselves may be thinner because the surrounding metal helps support them. I see no evidence of bulging which would indicate a generalized weak area.. I didn’t see any pictures of the bottom.. or the weld at the bottom.. ?? if those side areas are the only places where there is corrosion, I would stop the corrosion and not do anything else.. The tank could be damaged if metal repair efforts are made.. The only kind of epoxy repair that I would consider would be to wrap the area all the way around with glass first.. (two layer, thin cloth full encirclement glass/epoxy layup) Good luck !

 

[Hermit Scott]

I'd JB weld it and be very happy with it, over some of the cheaper units that are built today. But I have a feeling you couldn't be mentally happy with that. lol
You'd be cruising along on a fine day smiling with the breeze in your hair, but inside....turmoil.

 

[CarlN]

What cruel cosmic humor requires that every problem on a 30ft long boat that weighs over 10 thousand pounds comes back to a measurement that is less than 1/2" ?

One of the reasons that I bought the Superstor heater is that they assured me that it was still made in the US. I had a friend with a very high quality well known water heater that failed in one year. We opened it up and stripped off the insulation. It was immediately obvious that the stainless tank had been welded with mild steel rods. Like so many others, it turned out that the manufacturer had recently shifted production (in this case to China). There was no way that the owner (or even the manufacturer in the US) could have seen the weld.

The manufacturer replaced it under warranty and I'm sure they got the quality control fixed - so I'm not going to name names. The lesson is not that everything from China is bad - I've gotten some great stuff from China. But when a company moves production, I like to wait several years before buying to see if the quality from the new factory is as good.


Carl

 

[kloudie1]

Carl (he said whilst slightly hijacking the thread) I had a BIG vessel (100 ft tall 20 ft diameter, 2” thick walls) built in a third world country (there was no US fabricator interested) where they tried to conceal the plain steel weld material by overlaying the welds with a stainless that matched the specification.. Amazing.. Would have made a spectacular news story had we tried to use it as intended ! (gasoline mixed with hydrogen at very high temperature and pressure!)

 

[sailingdog]

can you say



BOOM!!!!

Carl (he said whilst slightly hijacking the thread) I had a BIG vessel (100 ft tall 20 ft diameter, 2” thick walls) built in a third world country (there was no US fabricator interested) where they tried to conceal the plain steel weld material by overlaying the welds with a stainless that matched the specification.. Amazing.. Would have made a spectacular news story had we tried to use it as intended ! (gasoline mixed with hydrogen at very high temperature and pressure!)

 

[Hermit Scott]

I can't afford to have anything made in China. Even if you get a few good shipments, they like to "back out" cost by cutting quality later. Then as the businness owner you get to go back and fix all the problems that their cost savings has cost you. Bye Bye profit.
The only way I would manufacture in China is if I had people in the factory full time for QC. Other than that it is too big of a risk.