Bobil Calorifier vs Bobil Air Hybrid - What's the Difference?

samistrider
Apr 29
3 min read

With the release of our Bobil Calorifier kits, there have been a few people asking what the difference is between the Bobil Calorifier Hybrid and our standard Bobil Air Hybrid system.

This short blog post should help explain the differences so you can find the right kit for your needs.

What is a Calorifier?

To best explain the differences, we should start by explaining exactly what a calorifier is. In a nutshell, a calorifier is a hot water tank which has a coil inside of it, which allows you to pass engine coolant through. The coolant never directly touches the water inside the tank, but instead, flows through this coil, and the coolant transfers its heat to the water in the tank.

The reason this is so useful, is that when your vehicle engine is on, the coolant is automatically heated up by your engine to around 85C. This means you can use this heat to heat up your water for free (so long as your engine is on).

It does this without any need for extra pumps or other complicated parts, it is as simple as cutting into the coolant lines and adding a few T pieces.

What else can the Bobil Calorifier do?

As well as heating up water via your engine, the Bobil Calorifiers also have other neat features found in our other kits.

Electric Water Heating

Our calorifiers have a dual electrical element built inside, meaning you can heat water up from your leisure batteries directly through the 200W 12V element, or via the 800W AC element for even faster water heating.

With our Calorifier tanks, the Bobil Simple Controller also allows the 12V element to be turned on and off automatically based on your battery's voltage, allowing you to heat the water inside your tank from excess solar or a B2B charger when your batteries are full, providing another source of free water heating!

Diesel Air Heating

With our Bobil Calorifier Hybrid kit, you can even add a 3rd source of water heating. By utilising our custom heat exchanger, you can hook up the Bobil Calorifier to a pre-existing diesel heater of any kind, allowing you the heat up water from your diesel heater.

This is perfect for when you have little battery power to spare for water heating (e.g. in the wintertime when there's little solar), and you aren't moving around and thus don't have your engine on to heat water.

We even sell the full works, pairing our Bobil Calorifier with the reliable Autoterm diesel heaters, for a full water and air heating kit!