Has anyone with a gas hot water heater managed to use it for a 2 man set up any pic’s would be appreciated. Been using it for years for 1 person but now need it for 2 people . I’ve tried different plumbing methods but no success
Someone on one of the forums many years ago just added a second gas boiler. He joined the exhaust pipes together and used one exhaust through the roof.
His setup looked very impressive, but we never heard much about how successfully it worked in practice.
I'm guessing you could follow the same principle as a diesel heater with a header tank, a 12v water circulation pump, and 2 heat exchangers with thermostatic mixer valves. Water gets pumped through the gas heater from the header tank, through the 2 heat exchangers and back to the header tank. Each operator's pump will get connected to each heat exchanger, and this will zap heat from the internal heated circuit to the water being sent to the brush head. The header tank will need to be higher than the gas boiler, which could mean the header tank is close to your van's roof. This will make topping up difficult.
The gas heater will work for its statutory 20 minutes and then switch off. You will have to manually restart it.
Would it be worth the expense and hassle? I doubt it.
Another way would be to use your gas boiler to heat the water in the tank that both operators can use. Again you will need a 12v circulation pump and be able to take water from the tank, heat it and then return it to the tank. This pump would need to have the ability to suck, as I'm sure the heater will normally be higher than the water level in the tank.
One of the downsides is that hot water doesn't mix with cold water. When my diesel heater bleeds hot water back to my tank, the water is hot in one corner at the top and the water in the rest of the tank is cold.