Shrewd boat skippers don’t tolerate cold tap water when at home, so why should they accept an icy-cold tank full of water when they’re onboard a boat? What more when it’s their boat too. Boat owners desire hot water, and they use Webasto Isotemp Water Heaters to satisfy their boating needs. After all, no one wants to wash their hands in chilly water after a hard day’s angling, right?

A Perfect Cold Season Companion

A Webasto Isotemp Water Heater has been installed on a yacht. Where has it been stowed? Well, yachts and smaller boats have compact interiors. Ask anyone who has ever bruised a knee or bumped their head; they’ll soon tell you how tight it can get inside a crew cabin. To solve that problem, these appliances use small but rigid stainless steel tanks. They mount vertically, which is of some benefit. Remember, tall people bow their heads when onboard yachts, so there’s not a great deal of upward space in a boat cabin. That’s one reason why a horizontally installed water heater works so well. Next, filled with injected polyurethane tank insulation, Webasto Isotemps are undeniably small, but their manufacturers have still somehow managed to pack their compact outlines with feature-rich functionality.

Fueled by Tap-In Power

This feature has been mentioned before, but it deserves another mention, especially since it makes this appliance an invaluable boating addition. Keeping the facts succinct, this type of water heater does use an immersion heating element. That’s a standard fixture, no argument there. But, more importantly than all else, this appliance hooks into a yacht’s engine cooling system. Using heat exchanger technology, the heat transferred to the engine cooling system is transported to the water heater, where it uses non-contact thermal exchange technology to warm the tank water. In other words, the engine coolant heats but never mixes with the domestic water supply. Arguably, another form of fuel could pull off the same achievement, but at what cost?

Ponder that last question for a moment. A gas-fueled unit would produce hot water. Okay, that’s true, but where would the gas canister reside? Yachts are small, there’s no room for extra canisters. More importantly, how safe would this setup be, what with the yacht hitting rolling waves? No, the safer, more space-conserving solution is clear. When the cold weather and stormy seas arrive to punch a yacht hull, a Webasto Isotemp Water Heater is the logical answer. As long as a yacht engine is active, there’s hot water. And, should the yacht coast along for a day or two, that companion appliance will quickly switch over to its immersion heating element.