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Hydronic Heating Replacement Aquahot / Oasis

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Casey Humphries:
Good day Forum,

In inherited a 2001 Beaver Marquis from my father.  The Aqua Hot in the coach had been tampered with, neglected and never winterized, it’s a mess and was deemed dead years ago. 

I have contacted Aqua Hot and can send it back to be refurbished for around $8K USD or buy a new one at around $10.5K USD with a core credit at around $600 USD.  I’m in BC Canada so shipping would unlikely make sense to send back the old unit for a core credit.   I was going to opt for a new one.  Does anyone have experience replacing the original heater AHE-100-00S with a new 600D.   There are no Aqua Hot dealers/installers close to me here on Vancouver Island. 

While browsing the internet I came across a company called ITR (International Thermal Research) that makes an RV model called Oasis.  I have read about them and it sounds like a quality product.  It’s also around $8.5K Canadian dollars and sounds like it can be installed without much trouble.  They also have a company in my town that sells them and services them. Oasis NE-S is what I was looking at if it can fit or the Oasis NE  Any thoughts? 

Appreciate any comments. 

Casey

Keith Moffett:
Hi Casey
We dealt with ITR.  Their original was the Hurricane hydronic heat.  We took our Patriot in and they were able to find boards and parts and got it running.  Much of their staff has changed since and the company seemed to change some.  I cant say I know them well now and their Comfort Hot came later but has seemed to fall short against the Aqua Hot for operating cost and reliability.  Just my 2 cents.
A salvage yard might be your answer.  Perhaps they could pull one and send it to you.  Because of the wiring and thermostats it might be better to stay close to the same model as yours.
Are you sure yours is beyond repair?  Youtube had some good videos on this .  I have even seen one on how to replace the inner coils after freezing.
Best of luck

Fred Brooks:
  Casey,
All the engineering was configured around the Aqua-Hot. Your Marquis has 4 heating zones and continuous hot water. It would be far easier for all involved to upgrade to a newer Aqua-Hot. The plumbing and hot water and all the wiring will stay the same. Sorry about the cost and welcome to the adventure. Your Marquis is a great coach! Fred

Tim Westman:
Casey,

While I can't speak to the difficulty of swapping out your Aqua Hot for an Oasis I can speak to the Oasis brand.  My experience with AH units in my first two Beavers was less than stellar in spite of regular annual maintenance. My current coach, a Newmar, came with the Oasis unit. I have had this coach for almost 8 years and have had little problem with the it with only minimal maintenance. So, if the conversion isn't too complicated, I would vote for the Oasis.  Good luck with your decision.

Tim

Eric Maclean:
Casey
Before you give up on your Aquahot I have a few questions
1) does the tank still hold antifreeze and have you pressure tester it for leaks
2) when you say it was frozen was it just the domestic hot water loop that was frozen or was the tank frozen ( is no antifreeze)

I rebuilt my own unit from the ground up and I can't believe you're could be any worse than mine was. I just couldn't justify the kind of money they wanted for a rebuilt tank and thought I could do a lot of welding for 8 or 9 grand.

My unit is a 411-12 which is almost the same configuration as yours
In my unit the bottom of the tank was rusted through (pin holes leaking antifreeze)
The combustion chamber was cracked leaking antifreeze into the chamber and burning it
And the domestic hot water loop had been frozen and destroyed
And if that wasn't enough the burner fuel pump was leaking and burner insert tube was warped.

In my case I removed the invite unit
Removed the cover
Took the burner out
Installed the refunded domestic water loop from the out side
Used a plasma cutter to cut the bottom out of the tank and cut the old combustion chamber out of the front plate.
I picked up a used wabasto DWB 2010 coolant heater and cut the outer cooling jacket of the combustion chamber.
Welded the new to me combustion chamber back into the end plate
And fabricated a new price of 14 ga steel to weld a new bottom into the tank
All welds where done with a mig welder and where water tight
For good measure I mixed up a quart of heavy epoxy paint and poured it into the tank to seal it from the inside to retire rust
The domestic hot water loop is just 160 feet of 1/2 OD collective wrapped around the outside of the tank and then imbedded in heat transfer cement made by centric they will even tell you how much they sold to Aquahot to do the job the first time.
In my cased seeing as I had to buy two one hundred foot rolls of copper I used as much as I could get in there and this improves the heat transfer ability of the unit

I'll say it's not an easy job but it's very straight forward and doable and I think all told it cost me in the neighborhood of $600 in parts.
Like you said the shipping makes the old unit not worth the core price so what do you have to loose.

Hope this helps
Eric

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