On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:28:35 -0800, "Rod McInnis"
wrote:


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...


I've never figured out why boats in cold climates waste all this
energy going out the exhaust. It's SO easy to make a cast iron heat
exchanger in a dry stack, right next to...or even right IN the exhaust
manifold that will just roast your ears with free heat.

the old Volkswagon Beetles used a heat exchanger off the exhaust manifolds
to heat the car! It was actually pretty nice on cold mornings, as the
heater worked almost instantly after starting the car.

Yes, and it heated near instantly as you started the cold engine.
Didn't take long to heat the heat exchanger directly in the flames!

My VW 411 station wagon with the Porche 914 pancake engine in it did
it even better.....It had a gasoline furnace you could turn on BEFORE
starting the car by turning on a timer on the dash that limited how
long it would run without starting the car. It was like heating with
a jet engine....and sounded like one!


We retrieve some of it with the hot water heater hooked to the water
jacket. Too bad so much heat is simply wasted.


There is a lot of free heat to be had from the engine. The only drawback is
that the engine has to be running! Not what you want when you are swinging
on the hook!

Agreed, but I suppose it would depend on how cold your feet are...(c;

For those times, perhaps what is needed is a black plastic water
heater you could haul up the mainmast to heat some medium for the
night. There's more to solar energy than battery chargers that are 2%
efficient. I know someone who has homemade panels hanging from the
sunny side window sills to the ground below. When the sun shines on
them, it superheats the air on the front of the panel. This air rises
and enters the room through the window sill opening. The hot air
rising sucks house air from the bottom side of the sill into the heat
exchanger to replace that already heated.

When he first built them, he made one for every window. His living
room has 3 that sun hits. Fed up with sweating at 90F, he reinvented
thermostatic dampers to control how MUCH of the hot air was allowed
into the house. At first it was like a furnace out of control! A
boat model could simply be a vertical panel hung over the hatch with a
simple 12V muffin fan to force the air up into the panel which can't
be self-flushing like his home system is. With all the boat stink
problems everyone has, maybe a solar panel could have an opening
outside, heat the air then let the fan suck it into the boat to
displace stinky, wet air out through another hatch.....the leaky one
into the cockpit on a sailboat. Wouldn't hot fresh air be nice all
day in winter?