As soon as I get back to the van I plug it into the tank so the heater thinks it’s still having to work,I turn the flow down to 10 this enables the water temperature to climb back up to 60-70degrees when driving to the next job.
Until last May I was a carpet cleaner who used a van based cleaning machine. In the van I had a 100 US gallon stainless steel water tank. I used 3 methods of heating water, the tank had a 3kw element fitted I carried a diesel hotbox and more importantly the tank had a stainless steel heating coil inside, this coil connected with 10ft of 1inch radiator hose to the van engine cooling system (it had 2 T junctions on the inlet & outlet of the radiator) as I drove around from job to job the van engine would circulate the radiator water into the water tank coil Very good idear free hot water , but if you are parked up and only travel a short distance to your work it won’t work unfortunately Sometimes I would preheat the water with the element in the night but usually just driving around gave me very hot water by the end of the day the tank would be scolding hot and would still Be hot the next day.I’m making this post as I think this method of heating water is vastly underrated and relatively unknown, it cost me £140 to get a garage to professionally plumb the tank into the van and I Used it trouble free for 8yrs
