Espar Hydronic Heater Wiring & System Start-Up: D5E Hydronic Heater for Vanlife

[@j6sj7]

Yikes! Amazing job figuring that out. The smile on Sandy's face when the thing fired up... priceless. Quote of the day: "And yet... another perfectly good hole in a perfectly good van." Thanks for the education! -Burt in NJ

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Oh man Burt!!!! I was so damn excited when that thing actually worked! The wiring had me stressed for weeks!!!

[@FreedomStrider]

We're installing the same system in the UK (so Europe) we usually use black for ground and red for positive in 12V systems. Brown is also sometimes used for ground, but the black-coated red wire for the positive threw us off as well, they could have at least used red heat-shrink!!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hey guys! Thanks for watching! By the way we love following your van build!!! We do the same here in the US for 12VDC. Black for ground and red for positive. The wiring harness definitely took some time to figure out, but so happy it’s done and working!

[@FreedomStrider]

@@WanderfulRevolution We're just on the step of installing the heater and wiring now, our Kalori Silencio has 2 wires from the back of it (2 red, 2 orange and 2 black), so a little different from yours, and as you said the wiring diagrams for these things are few and far between so it's a lot of digging around online and ringing up companies to try and find it out. Glad your system is all up and running, we can't wait to gets ours working. Your van build is awesome :)

[@cluek9780]

Congrats! Looks like you are luxuriating in space for these and plumbing connections. (Next build, I’ll bet you design space-use tighter)

[@WanderfulRevolution]

First van build, big learning curve. Would definitely do some things differently if we ever build another. Thanks for checking out the video.

[@chrisgriffith3501]

Very helpful, thank you!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks! We hope we helped and thank you for watching!!!

[@cdshobak]

Well done. You guys put your video up just in time. I just received my heater kit and looking forward to work one it. Very well done Thanks for the all the info.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thank you so much for watching! We really hope you find the video useful! We definitely had to do a lot of research to figure it all out and hope this helps simplify some things for others using this kit. Best of luck with your install and let us know if you have any questions!

[@fbr65]

Hi Jason, we’re getting ready to purchase our heater kit. Where did you get yours?

[@NR-hw7wy]

The most detailed video on installing the hydronic system in a van! Well done. I have the same exact kit and been procrastinating getting to it as I was surely confused as heck as to what goes where and there is always “yet another project” to get to in a van before I dive into that one. Welp, no excuses anymore :)

[@WanderfulRevolution]

We did the same! We procrastinated for quite a while because there was just so much stuff in the installation kit and no idea of where it all was supposed to go. It was intimidating to say the least. We hope these videos make it a little easier for others! Let us know if you have any questions as you get into the install!

[@leow_se]

In the UK (most European countries as well) the Earth (Ground) wire is a green/yellow ish colour, simply google 'iec wiring colours'. Loving the contents btw, I am going to do a recir shower/hydronic heating setup and they are rare! Glad you guys are going with it!

[@christiansthilaire5074]

You mentioned black and red on pin 1. Is that the pin that says un-used in the webasto instructions?

[@ntran2012]

Thank you for sharing the process. I know how time consuming it is to film the whole process why trying to figure out how things work. I did not see you mentioned in your videos. Did you need to bleed your glycol system? If you did, do you mind sharing how you did it? Thanks again.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

You are so welcome!!! Yes we did bleed the system… we left a line cracked while filling… after we cycled the system and any air trapped in the glycol just gets vented out of the holding tank… hope this helps and thank you for watching!

[@mmlear29]

You guys are awesome!!!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Awww thanks! You are pretty awesome yourself! 😘

[@CJEvers]

Well done! I just ordered my Espar hydronic system (mostly Amazon & eBay) for my 2020 Sprinter build. Fingers crossed. Haven’t started building yet. Currently doing lots of planning and gathering of parts and pieces. I’m thinking the most difficult part for me will be the 12v AC system. Thanks for making great videos. Keep it up,

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks so much!!!! Plan plan plan!!!! The more planning the better! So much to prepare for! We feel like we planned so much and still wish we had done more haha! The electrical system can definitely be challenging! If you haven’t already, check out the explorist.life and faroutride websites! Lots of great info there!

[@michaelscarfi3196]

What AC did you buy?

[@thecodingworkshop4346]

Here in the UK on a single phase system i.e 240v we use brown=live, blue-=neutral and yellow/green = earth or as you guys say ground. in a three phase system i.e 415v we use brown/black/grey all live conductor and we would normally use the black as ground wrap in yellow/green sleeve if that cable is part of a 4 core cable. On the DC side its typically black and white core where white=positive and black=negative

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks so much for the info! We really appreciate it!

[@wanderingzythophile9083]

I'm so glad I came back and watched this video again! I'm in the midst of puzzling out my wiring harnesses for the same unit. Yours are a little different; I don't have the bigger red/white wire you mentioned, and for a brief bit I didn't think I had the black/red one either - but oddly enough, there's a little black/red wire that comes out of the main bundle, hooks back around and is taped down on the outside of the main bundle where the model number label is. I suspect this wire has the same use as yours does, so I think I'm going to try it with my Kalori air matrix/Webasto controller as well. That said - how did you guys manage to keep air heat going overnight in cold conditions? You say this one wire will prevent the Kalori fans from blowing when there's not enough heat in the system; does using that wire make the Webasto controller cause the main hydronic furnace to kick on and heat the glycol? Or does the main furnace controller have a timer you can set to run for a few hours as needed?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hello there and thanks for watching! The main timer for us we would set it to come on throughout the night as needed… there is an option for a continuous run but we didn’t want to stress the system too much… good luck and wishing you success!!!!!

[@wanderingzythophile9083]

@@WanderfulRevolution Gotcha! That's the answer I was hoping for. Thank you and I hope you and Jed are doing well!

[@buzzinkame5660]

Trial and error will get you through if you persist . Well done .

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Very true!!! Thank you!!!

[@tipatses]

Nice video ! Very helpful ! It's me or the Kalori fan blower sounds very loud when running at 17:55 ? Or maybe it's because the camera was to close to it ?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Yes we had the camera pretty close and I believe we were on the highest speed setting. With that being said it can definitely be heard while running but we don’t find it to be annoying

[@CameronHill23]

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Wondering if you could answer a question though. I got to the point where you're working on the PVM. Couple of questions there. First in the four pin connector how do you identify which one's number one second you said replace the positive there because the positive goes somewhere else or is it just not used at that point? Additionally on the PVM there's a two pin connector am I missing something on that or is that not used?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hey there! Could you do me a favor and email for questions to me at [e-mail] I will need to look this up again because I don’t remember off the top of my head! Thanks!

[@CameronHill23]

@@WanderfulRevolution Thanks so much for your reply. I was watching Van on the Run Mori, and kept seeing a manual and it appeared to be the same one you had. I dug around in all my product docs and found the missing link!!! Thanks again though and seriously thanks for the video, absolutely the most helpful video on this set up from Heatso out there!

[@julianrout1347]

What a great helpfull vlog thanks from the uk.. In the uk are earth cable is Green & Yellow 👍.Can i ask if you want to keep the heater on to warm all night does the burner stay on all the time or just to heat up the Glycol mix ??? Stay Safe 👍👍🚙

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks for watching!! Really glad it is helpful! The burner heats the glycol to 167degrees F. It will then stop heating until the fluid temperature drops (I’m not sure what that is though) and then restart. It does continue to circulate the fluid through the system the entire time the unit is on.

[@julianrout1347]

@@WanderfulRevolution Ok thankyou, I want the same and was wanting underfloor heating but seen the timer switch and it says only run for one hour etc, so does the heater stay on all night to keep floor warm etc ?? Theres not alot on inernet for help etc... Stay safe 👍👍🚙

[@thetreyxturner]

Love this video! It’s so useful, thank you. One question: how did you seal the hole in your van floor the wiring goes through to get to the heater on the underside? I’m at the step now and want to seal out moisture but not permanently seal the wiring either.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Awwwwww thank you so much! We used a sealing foam to keep out the outside! Fairly easy to work with. Thank you for watching!

[@vanderlei5566]

Thanks for the great video. Can you tell me what wires in your 4 wire harness connect to which wires on the actual easy start? My easy start just has a bunch of wires with no harness connector. My heater was also purchased from Heatso.

[@Cs13R]

Hi guys, thanks for detailed video. Can you tell from what vehicle do you use coolant tank?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thank you for watching! Our system uses a separate coolant reservoir that came with the kit. You can tie into your vehicle’s coolant system but we opted to keep it separate. Hope this answers your question!

[@Cs13R]

@@WanderfulRevolution Thanks for the reply/ I'm doing separate system as well. As I understood reservoir came with Heatso kit. Ok, I'll check on their website.

[@wbumbernick]

Question: In the event of a power interruption to the heating system, when power is restored, does the heater come on in the same mode as before the power interruption? For example, if the system is in heat mode and is running, the power is interrupted and then restored, will the heater go into heat mode and run? Ir will it require a person to turn it on?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

To be honest I don’t know… our electrical system has never experienced an interruption… the batteries provided a constant power supply… we did have a battery disconnect but never flipped it while the system was running… I would assume that the system would automatically cycle down… an error code may be thrown if the system can’t complete it’s shut down cycle… but this is a guess…

[@CameronHill23]

Follow up question, I am still struggling getting the wiring done, like you said in your video literally the hardest part... With the Webasto Controller, I have the yellow wire, and then power and neg for it. it turns the Kalori blower on, I can set it to auto and change the temp setting on the dial to the right and the unit comes on, but how does that connect to the espar? I thought you could use the auto function and during the night the unit would turn on, the glycol would heat up, then the blower would turn on and you got hot blowing air.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hey there! Sorry the wiring is giving you a hard time. Do you mind sending an email with your questions and a picture of what you are asking about? That way I can make sure we are talking about the same thing. [e-mail] Thanks!

[@CameronHill23]

@@WanderfulRevolution Will Do, thanks

[@r4mpage34]

I'm from Germany and the house installation is brown or black for the conductor and blue for the neutral conductor and in the 12 and 24 volt range, red is for the conductor and black for the 0 conductor

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hello! Thank you for the information!!!! I know the colors can vary greatly between countries! This is good to know for our travels!

[@r4mpage34]

@@WanderfulRevolution Oh yes, there are many differences in the colors Off topic you are sympathetic I found you just now because I looked at the topic of 12 volt heating and would like to build a heating system for my small house

[@johnplyler7054]

Nice Video, Thanks

[@gregwood1567]

Why did you use two heat exchangers on your hydronic system and did it work out for you.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

One for the sink and the other for the recirculating shower… because the shower water wasn’t drinkable we wanted two separate circuits… it worked out great! hope this helps!

[@jeffsteinmetz7188]

How much cheaper was that system, and was the cost difference worth not going with Rixen? I have already purchased the Rixen system because of the Dares Drives content, but I am still curious. Thanks for the great content. The failures and detailed content is appreciated.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hey there, thanks for watching! We definitely saved a lot of money buying our system. We spent $2000 on it. I believe Rixen systems are about $5000-6000 right now? The cost of the system we bought has gone up though and I think it’s a little over $3000 now. With that being said, I think you made a great choice going with Rixen. If we had it to do over, we likely would have gone with them. Their system is much more integrated than ours, they seem to have better installation instructions, and their customer service is amazing! They helped us out even when we didn’t buy from them.

[@undertheradarvan]

Hey Jeff, did you get your Rixen system up and running? I finally flipped the switch on mine after three months of install and can’t seem to get power to the fuel pump/furnace.

[@alanmoore2197]

Brown is always ground (and Red is +) on European vehicle wiring based on the Bosch standard. Other 12v systems commonly use Red (+) and Black (-/Gnd). 240V house power systems tend to use Green/Yellow spiral as ground Brown as Live(Hot) and Blue as Neutral at least in flexible wiring - e.g. power cords for appliances.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks for watching and thanks for the info!!! We use red and black for 12VDC here in the USA. So we had some learning to do to figure out the differences for European standards!

[@natepascal2329]

Why two heat exchangers? Why doesn't just one work? And could you route them in parallel instead of series?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

We have two exchangers because we have a recirculating shower and we keep that totally separate from our kitchen water. If you have a regular shower, then you definitely only need one heat exchanger. If you do need 2 exchangers your can run them in series or parallel. We ran ours in series because we have a pretty short circuit and series works fine. If you have a longer circuit you may want to run in parallel as that will reduce any heat loss further along in the system.

[@anthonyclement6940]

I really appreciate your effort to document your installation, very well done! I was wondering if you find that you are able to control the temperature conveniently without needing to wake up frequently to either turn off or turn up-down the heat system? I’m trying to layout a system for an older but large boat. My goal is to comfortably heat a 1987 - 55 foot power boat, with potentially 5 separate areas. So aft berth, salon, galley, forward V-Beth, and fly bridge (steering helm area). Heatso insists that it is NOT possible to have thermostatic temperature control wirh hydronic heating from Espar. Do you agree? Which makes me wonder about needing to get up multiple times a night to turn fan units off or the entire system? Any suggestions or advice greatly appreciated.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Our unit Espar kit came with a kalori blower and a webasto controller. It does have a temperature sensor and the blower will kick on and off depending on the level we have the webasto controller set on. You can not pick an exact temperature though. Keep in mind that the blower and the Espar heater are controlled separately though. I don’t know that you would have an easy time controlling 5 different areas of a boat. The weather has warmed up here so we haven’t used the heating extensively though. May I suggest looking up Rixen Enterprises in Oregon (are you in the UK? US?). Those guys are so helpful and are happy to talk a system like that over with you! www.rixens.com

[@anthonyclement6940]

Thank you so much! I’m in the US, moving the boat from San Diego almost to the Canadian border. So need heat 😁I will check out the link. Thanks again

[@Joe-nx7nj]

im building a sprinter and i am thinking of going in the same direction. how has the heater held up? also how has it been for hot water ? its hard to decide between this and two individual systems

[@WanderfulRevolution]

The heater has held up fine and after waiting for a few minutes gives us as much hot water as you have supply… overall very happy with the water heating capabilities!

[@Joe-nx7nj]

@@WanderfulRevolution thank you.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

@@Joe-nx7nj you’re welcome! Good luck with your build!

[@austinmabry8462]

Hard to tell from the video, but you're not running straight propylene glycol in the system, are you?

[@austinmabry8462]

Never mind. I should've finished the video before asking. Haha!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

@@austinmabry8462 lol no worries! Thank you for watching!

[@michellearneson5961]

So what is the coolant for? Did you say this heats water and warms interior of van?

[@VanLifeinVietNam]

Loved

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Thanks!!! Thank you for watching!

[@Entering.happiness]

Hay guys! I was wondering how long does the water in your shower Stay hot if you’re running it constantly? Since I install my system, I can only get the water to stay hot for about a minute or two before the heat exchanger goes cold and I have to shut it off and let that warm up. This is all while I have the heater running and I have already let it heat up for 10 minutes before turning the water on. Any suggestions could help as well

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Ours stayed hot constantly… what are you using as your heat source? Also keeping the circuit as short as you can helps conserve the heat in the loop… I hope this helps!!!

[@firpofutbol]

I bought a kit from Heatso too. Their support isn't the greatest. I tried their chat option and they stopped responding midway through the conversation. Would be nice of they just said we don't help people with installation questions!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Their customer support is extremely lacking. We attempted to call, never got answers. Left messages, no return calls. Sent emails with no response. The only place we were able to reach them was through chat and the same thing happened to us. They disappeared mid conversation! We’re you able to get yours installed?

[@firpofutbol]

@@WanderfulRevolution Installing mine in a couple of weeks! Looks troublesome but so glad I found your videos. How effective has the Kalori blower been for you guys? I got the same one with the kit which draws 55 watts, but they have a smaller one (3.25kw vs 4.3kw) drawing only 7 watts. Given that the dedicated 2.2kw D2 air heater seems to be enough to heat a van, I will be trying out the 7 watt Kalori for the energy savings.

[@rogerlittlejohn475]

what fittings did you use to hook the calorie fan to your (orange) coolant line? looks like 3/4 shark byte elbow then what? Thanks.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

The fan has barbs on it. We clamped hose to those barbs. On the other end of the hose we used the following fittings: 1. Barb to 3/4 male NPT 2. 3/4 Shark bite elbow, one end is a female NPT and the other end is the shark bite fitting Hope that makes sense

[@rogerlittlejohn475]

@@WanderfulRevolution thanks again. Great help.

[@trevortirrell]

Where can I find the documentation you have for the wiring? I can't find the info on the CD I have.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Unfortunately we had a difficult time finding the information in the CD as well. We searched for the installation manuals online. We scrubbed through all the wiring diagrams and traced all the wires. We also talked to Heatso about what was needed and not needed. We got some of our wiring info on the sprinter source forums as well.

[@kendra9557]

@@WanderfulRevolution do you have any pictures of the back of your easy start or webasto heat controller? this video was very helpful, I just wanted to move really slowly at that part of the wiring because that's where I'm hung up

[@mikejohnson7768]

Guys would you please tell me where you got your glycol tank, thanks!

[@WanderfulRevolution]

It came with the kit that we bought… you can find others on Amazon as well

[@tipatses]

Hi ! I've just start running my Espar D5E S3 and even if I select "Infinite" time running on the Easy Start Pro, it stop every time after many hours ( Fault code P000e01 : Runtime limit exeeded). Do you had this issue with yours ?

[@WanderfulRevolution]

Hello! We generally run it for about an hour at a time… we haven’t let it run for that long… not sure if there’s an actual limit to how long it will run? If you do get an answer please let us know! Thank you for watching!

[@tipatses]

@@WanderfulRevolution Ok so it looks like it's a 12 hours maximum runtime and it's obviously not designed to run all the time according to the manual. So if I'm leaving the van for a few day trip, the van will not heating on it's own after 12 hours of running time. I'm getting to the conclusion that I will have to add an Espar D4 Airtronic for the regular heating and use the D5E as a complementary heating system. Disappointing as I was looking for this system to run all the time (during winter) and use it as a primary heating source and spent so much money in this setup. However, the good side I guess is the fact that having a backup heating system in case where one or the other come to fail one day could be a great option in extreme cold weather conditions. (it's still snowing today here in Québec, Canada ! )

[@psyamok3735]

wow $3300 just for the Espar Hydronic kit, plus parts and heat exchanger, etc, we are looking at close to $4k?! Way out of my budget. gonna DIY it for less than $1k budget.

[@WanderfulRevolution]

The price has increased a lot since we bought ours. We paid just under $2000.

[@cluek9780]

Caution, if buying *used Espar:: it’s computer can be LOCKED-OUT if “start/ON” is commanded improperly 3x. I bought a “second-hand bargain”from a skoolie build (they went with air-heat) and only learned this *after

[@REDONDINES]

Speak english Not For Me, Lástima que no tiene subtítulos en español. ...good luck 🤗