Are you running it on veggi oil or something?

I've not experimented with fuel yet... it seems pretty economical on diesel though.  Im not reclaiming any heat either (I'm waiting for a nice old floor radiator to come my way).  But it's been great for power back up and has plenty of power to run whatever I need.  I don't think my FuKing has ever even missed a beat (except when its cold right after it starts).  It's broken in some now and has noticably more power than it did when it was new.

We've been down around 30 deg last couple mornings, (mine is outside) and it starts OK after a few cranks.  Above about 45 deg it always starts on the first crank.

How fast can you heat a tank of water and to what temp?

Carpe Vigor

How about an electric element in the water heater as well as heat recovery from the engine?  I know that electric heating is not the most conservative way to heat your water.  But with the combination, it shouldn't take all that long to heat the water and then you would always have hot water for the wife.

Did you setup to do any heat recovery from the exhaust of the engine as well as the coolant?  You might get lots more heated water in that situation.  I don't know for sure how practical it would be in your situation though.

How about some insulation on the tank?
(that is the holding tank, right?)

What you see in the picture is the Lister diesel engine and the heat exchanger for the coolant. This preheats my domestic hot water. It's a converted 40 gal gas water heater.  I welded a plate in both ends of the flue after grinding off the glass lining, and welded a pipe fitting into the plate. No-tox/low-tox antifreeze (propylene glycol) fills what was previously the flue.  The coolant side holds three gallons of 50/50 antifreeze/distilled water.

Since this effectively functions as the radiator, I can't have any insulation on it. There is no water pump, and the system operates on thermosyphon.  That means absolutely no leaks or air pockets, or it breaks the syphon and it overheats.  But, no water pump to fail either, so take your choice.

What is not visible in the picture is the heat exchanger for the exhaust.  The exhaust pipe is insulated with fiberglass, though I do plan to add more insulation once I have all the bugs sorted out.  That heat exchanger is also a converted gas water heater with plates welded in to accept regular exhaust pipe.  After the heat exchanger it goes through a cheap car muffler and then out the basement window.  Noise outside is minimal.  Noise inside comes primarly from the injection pump and cam/valve train noise.  Again, once everything is sorted out, I will make a little sound proof room to make it civilized.

It takes 3 hours to heat the tanks up (80 gallons total) to make enough hot water for a regular day.  I think that will be more like two hours once we get enough electrical load to push the Lister a little harder.  The coolant heat exchanger heats up a little faster than the exhaust heat exchanger.  But the exhaust heat exchanger still has all the original insulation just like a "normal" water heater, so it retains the heat a lot better overnight.  I do have a long term concern about soot build up in the exhaust heat exchanger reducing efficiency.  We'll see.  And it has a condensate drain that gravity drains into my main plumbing stack.

It's been a fun experiment.  I did have some problems with head gaskets.  Some cheapie supplier substituted copper plated aluminum composite head gaskets.  When the gasket fails, the cooling system becomes highly pressurized and leaks develop.  I also blew a radiator hose out as well.  I have a couple of proper copper composite head gaskets on the way, so that should fix that up.

I will post a better overal photo of the whole system sometime in the next couple of days.

Good luck and have fun,

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All the best,