Thanks to all who made recommendations for our water heater
replacement.
What follows is how we got to where we ended up, which was a Super-
Stor 6
gallon unit, from Defender.

One of our driving data points was that we have a KISS wind
generator. The
controller for that unit has a diversion mode for times when the
batteries
are full, but the generator keeps on making electricity.

In our case, that diversion was directed to a dual-voltage heater
element in
our Raritan. The element looks essentially the same as one you'd find
in the
hardware store - a 6-sided place to put a 1.5" socket, or one of the
units
pressed from conduit or fence post material available cheaply in the
plumbing departments. We replaced the Raritan unit with this dual
voltage
unit, provided by Hotwire, the alternative energy vendor. That's
quite an
expensive unit, so we wanted to keep it, and went looking for other
units
which could use it.

Isotherm won the heating and keeping-it-hot race hands down, but only
a
model which had been discontinued had a screw-in element, and at that,
it
required an adapter at another $40. The discontinued part had us
abandon
that potential as unlikely to be available in the future. We liked it
for
its horizontal orientation - it could have allowed us to use a 12
gallon
unit.

Super-Stor uses the same "wrench" (1.5") size and thread pattern
heating
element as the Raritan unit, and it was a close second in the make-it-
hot
and keep-it-hot race, but the 12 gallon unit was just a little too
tall for
the space available for us to install it, so we went with the 6
gallon.
Interestingly, not only was this less expensive at Defender, it was
less
expensive than the Raritan unit it replaced.

Unfortunately, when we got it here, and removed the element, we found
it to
be folded. That is, the two rods which made a loop also were back on
itself. You'll find those in the hardware department, sometimes, for
high
efficiency heaters - you can double the surface area in a given space
that
way.

However, in this case, it was because the design of their heat
exchanger
required a shorter element. Ours would not go in. Turning the air
blue, I
considered sending it back and returning to the Raritan. Defender was
quite
accommodating, should I decide to take that path.

However, on removal and post-mortem, we discovered that the reason
the
Raritan leaked was a pinhole rust point in the welding on one of the
heat
exchanger points in the galvanized shell. Super-Stor (and others) is
Stainless, less likely to have that problem. I really didn't want to
return
to Raritan.

However, the Hotwire guys have become personal friends, and after all
the
research they did to finally confirm that Super-Stor's unit used the
same
threads, kindly offered to exchange our (used!) element for their
custom
designed heat dump.

We went that route. The heat dump (lots of watts of power sucked up
from
the wind generator when the batteries are full) is located in a place
where
it can't overheat anything. More importantly to me, though, is we're
running
an incandescent (because LEDs are voltage sensitive) indicator light
in
parallel with the dump. When we see the light, we'll make use of the
excess
power in AC/inverter modes. With our 370W of solar, we're hoping that
will
be a frequent occurrence. Running the computers, charging handhelds
and
computer batteries, and the like will be a non-event to the house
batteries
with the KISS providing the excess power

Initial experience with the Super-Stor has been great. Very quick to
heat
up either with the AC element or heat exchanger, and keeps it hot for
a
couple of days. Because the mounting is via tabs they provide, rather
than
the molded-in base (thus having a wider radius than the tank itself)
of the
Raritan, I was able to tuck it further out of the way and gain some
more
storage space in the ER because the effective size was smaller (no
extra
sticking out at the bottom).

Thanks again for all the great leads from all here and elsewhere. For
others
without the dual-element concerns, the Iso-Therm is similarly priced,
but
has a slightly superior retention of hot water, and is horizontal,
which may
or may not be useful to you. Of note, however, it can also be wall
mounted,
which may well be very helpful depending on your space
configurations...

For those who have gotten this far (and therefore presumed interested
in our
rehab/refit), a quickie update on our progress: We had a most
marvelous 12
hour sea trial on Sunday a week ago, exposing some minor stuff, which
is
being addressed as I type, or already finished. This week we're
replacing
the entire motor mount system and still trying to slay the driveline
flop
dragon (the drive shaft moves when rotating, despite fully aligned,
straight
shaft and balanced/rebuilt prop). A laundry list of minor other
stuff, none
of which would prevent our departure if we wanted to address it along
the
way, but some of which will be easier here, with transportation and
mechanical assistance at hand, remains. ETD mid to late June...

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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