Never Fails

 Note:  For further info on the Espar heater see the archive at right.

This past week has been very cold with sub-freezing highs and single digit lows.  Most daytime temperatures have been in the teens.  Yeah, pretty cold for our part of the country.  Normally this is not a big deal since we only have to deal with it when running between the boat and the car.  This being our final cold winter for many years to come we thought it would be no big deal.
 We've had our diesel heater for four winters now.  I calculated that amounts to about 9300 hours of usage with only minor maintenance such as replacing the glow plug and diffuser every year and the fuel pump once.  That's pretty good.  It's not an inexpensive way to heat your boat but it does keep it comfortable and it is fairly reliable.

This past weekend that reliability thing caught up to us.  I guess with 9300 hours I should have been expecting something.  Just as the temperatures dropped into the teens our heater no longer could keep up and temperatures inside dropped into the 60's even though the thermostat was set for 70.  At first I thought it was just because it was extremely cold outside.  Then I discovered strange sounds coming from the heater.  At first it sounded like a baseball card in your bicycles spokes.  It progressively got worse and developed into vibrations with the heater cutting out, usually in the middle of the night.

After a few days of this  I climbed down into the cockpit locker and did some maintenance on the heater.  I was pretty sure the problem was in the blower that supplies fresh air for the combustion process as well as the recirculated air that gets reheated.  The error codes displayed on the controller included #32, "blower motor short circuit".  The troubleshooting manual (click here) suggests a blockage in the fan.  I removed the input air duct and vacuumed it out.  I also used a paint brush and the vacuum to clean the fan blades.  I was kinda disappointed not to find any large dust bunnies in there.  As I was putting things back together I discovered the output air duct had popped off and was hanging down about a quarter inch, allowing cold air to be sucked in.  Yes!  That would explain why the heater couldn't keep up.  Not.

I fired up the heater and it seemed to run very nicely for a while but after a few hours it started making noises again and eventually stopped running.  It never seems to fail....bad things happen at the worst possible time.  At this point our weather had really deteriorated with a major snowstorm predicted for that night.  Temperatures were supposed to go below zero at some point too.  Inside the boat we'd be waking up to temperatures in the high 40's and 50's and that was because we were running two electric heaters to keep it from going any lower.

The next day I removed the heater and brought it down below for some major surgery.  After pulling off the intake hood I spun the fan.  It was locked up and after it broke loose I could feel resistance when I turned it.  OK, this is definitely the problem.  To remove the blower assembly I had to first remove the upper jacket shell and shell holder.  The manual says the blower isn't serviceable and is simply replaced as a whole unit.  The cost of this thing is about $700 so I wanted to play with it, break it down as much as I could.  I can see why it isn't serviceable.  Once you get down to the motor you still have the whole combustion side of the blower attached and it doesn't break down much beyond that.

I tried buying my replacement parts from the local distributor but they were closed because of the snowstorm that had blown through the night before.  I ended up going on-line and buying my parts from Lubrication Specialists (click here) located in Greenfield, Indiana.  I've bought parts from these guys before and their prices are excellent and delivery is speedy.  This time I asked for overnight delivery which added $86 to the bill.  Well worth it considering the temperature on the boat this morning was 49 degrees.  I also ordered a new injector and two new diffuser screens.

The parts arrived the next day at 1100, delivered to the marina office.  When I went to pick it up I climbed the stairs to the second floor office and from there I could look out across the Chesapeake Bay.  From up there I was able to see all the way across to the Eastern Shore and into the mouth of the Choptank River.  The Bay was frozen solid all the way across except for the shipping channel.  This is the first time I've seen this but it's not that uncommon.  Sharps Island Light at the Choptank River entrance has an interesting history (click here) of being damaged by ice on the Bay.

Although this could be considered a major repair for this thing the actual job itself is not difficult.  Once I had the parts unpacked it only took me about an hour to reassemble the unit and I took my time, cleaning as I went.  The Espar heater is really well built with a tight, compact design.  Parts fit together well and the only drawback for me was the need to invest in a set of star drivers.  This was the first time I've had to remove the cover and do major surgery but now that's it's done I'll have no fear if I ever have to go back in again.  There are few serviceable parts and all components are pretty easily accessible.

Once I had it back together and reinstalled in the cockpit locker it fired up on the second try and has run well ever since.  Just in time too because the weather went from bad to worse with temperatures dropping even further for the next three days.  Yikes!  That was close.