A few months ago I was sent one of my heat exchanger for a warrantee claim, The owner stated that it had some how failed internally. It was 3 1/2 years old but I agreeded to have a look at it as I don't want this stuff failing. Now he stated that it had done very little and the boat had hardly been used.
When it arrived I dis mantled it to find the inner cooling pipe split and had a bulge in it. I couldn't explain why at the time looking at the way it had split so I fixed it and returned it to a slightly grumpy customer (as you would be), Since then it has been bugging me so I gave the piping to my supplier to see if it was faulty as I didn't want any others having issues. They have now told me the cause of the failure, and it was ICE the internal pipe had frozen as it has raw water going through it. The pipes were tested to 200psi with no problems and are rated to 600psi, the grade of copper is a commercial grade and although not cheep it is the best which is why i use it.
Now this can happen with any heat exchanger so...If you live in an area that freezes allot and you boat is going to be parked up for a period of time DRAIN THE RAW WATER SIDE OF THE HEAT EXCHANGER so you dont blame the product and save yourself some grief.
Harris Marine Forum - General
Heat Exchangers
(1 post) (1832 views)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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