We like to anchor out whenever possible and a nice feature of our GB when puchased was the engine coolant line routed through the hot water tank. This seemed great: when we cruise the engine heats the water and running the generator to heat water is not required.
Now, we have consistent hot water temperature whether after crusing or while in port. This has been really important when we had guests I would have been very worried about someone forgetting!
Well, as all good plans go we quickly realized that the engine coolant operates at 180 degrees or more and the desired temperature for the hot water is 115-120 degrees! Our first approach was to use just a tiny turn of the hot water when needed, but found that anyone who forgets this condition has no hot water while in port or gets burned while at anchor! Not good....
So, I found a valve that combines cold water with the hot and outputs at a desired temperature:
Fyeer 3-Way Thermostatic Mixing Valve
Of course purchasing the valve was the easy part. Then I had to install it by adding a new cold water line and inserting it into the hot line out of the tank:
An after note, while doing some wiring I discovered there are a number of places where the hot water line touches an electrical wire, so this was another good reason to not have 180 degree water flowing around in the boat in lines designed for 120 degrees!!!
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