Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH

wrote:
Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH

At dockside, absolutely no question, electric heaters, with hot
water tank and a wood stove for back up in the event of power
failure. I would burn commercial firelogs in the stove when
neccessary, and keep my rear wheel drive cargo van back end full of
them for ballast on slippery roads. I would want a tiny woodstove,
and would cut up the firelogs to suit it's capacity using a coping saw.

Hot water in a well insulated tank could provide a little heat while
the wood stove got roaring, and you always want lots of electric hot
water for almost all of life's little luxuries, like showers, tea,
soup, clean clothes, etc.

The option to use engine heat for hot water and heating is not the
best use for the engine unless at sea and in need of motive power.

Besides, the noise of an engine rumbling all winter would cause
trouble with the locals, including me.

Terry K

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 08:42:21 -0300, Terry Spragg wrote:


At dockside, absolutely no question, electric heaters, with hot water tank
and a wood stove for back up in the event of power failure. I would burn
commercial firelogs in the stove when neccessary, and keep my rear wheel
drive cargo van back end full of them for ballast on slippery roads. I
would want a tiny woodstove, and would cut up the firelogs to suit it's
capacity using a coping saw.

Be careful on which fire logs. Some, ones with wax for instance, are not
suitable for woodstoves.

We have a small heater that works off of our propane tank. Don't have
heated water. This is our second year living aboard. The litttle
heater works great. And as a bonus people say that it and it's little
chimney look cute as hell

wrote:
Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH

The boat I sail on (50ft. LOA) has small central heating radiators, just
like the ones you have at home, with a hot fresh water system, heated from
an Eberspacher hot water heater (very tiny). The system is fully
programmable, and although we don't live aboard in the winter, she's as warm
as toast when we are working on her. Keeping the heat on 2 hrs and off
4hrs, night and day, seems to cost very little, and the batteries are kept
charged by the marina's supply thru an auto charger.

So far, no problems. This is the 4th year since installation.

Dennis.

wrote:
Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH


For the last two winters I have been using a Pelonius oil-filled
radiator-type heater. The one I have includes a timer so this allows me to
set 2 on-off cycles. I set it to turn on around 6AM to warm the boat up a
bit and then off at 8AM. It comes on again around 2PM to warm things up for
my return. It is a 1500 watt unit and I run it at full power instead of
lower settings. I find it adds about 10C to whatever temperature is
outdoors. I also have a small fan sitting behind it to blow air through the
radiator assembly. The thermostat for the unit is in the housing so I figure
it may shut off prematurely when the unit gets warm rather than the interior
air. The fan is an attempt to lessen this possibility and also distributes
the warm air. Last winter I didn't bother with the timers, just ran the unit
continuously at Medium and I noticed an increase in my electric bill. Just
going to set it up today for the first time this winter.

The boat, C&C 37, came with an Espar and I use this in the evening if it
gets particularly cold.

A reverse cycle heat pump is the least trouble, but only good until
the water temps drops below 38F or so. I built a gizmo that allowed
me to run it all winter, but it wasn't very energy efficient. Its main
advantage is that you aren't tripping over electric spece heaters
all the time. We have an Espar diesel forced-air furnace for when it gets
colder or when we are away from the dock.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH

How do the forced air units compare with the hot water ?

Thank you,
Courtney

Doug Dotson wrote:
A reverse cycle heat pump is the least trouble, but only good until
the water temps drops below 38F or so. I built a gizmo that allowed
me to run it all winter, but it wasn't very energy efficient. Its main
advantage is that you aren't tripping over electric spece heaters
all the time. We have an Espar diesel forced-air furnace for when it gets
colder or when we are away from the dock.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Interested in a discussion oriented towards people who are looking to
live aboard, of ways to safely heat a cruising sailboat at dockside.

SH

Courtney Thomas wrote:
How do the forced air units compare with the hot water ?

Thank you,
Courtney

I would guess that pumping hot water at low pressure through radiators and
associated piping requires a lot less power than forced-air blowing. At
least, that is our experience, and the heat is much more evenly distributed.
Also, those areas which didn't need heat were simply turned off, or the
radiator stat was turned low to suit the environment/occupants. The system
is silent, which makes for peace and quiet. Drilling through bulkheads etc.
is a darned sight easier when the holes are merely 1" dia. or less, against
the 3"-4" holes required for air tubing. Quickly drying wet clothing and
washed items is an absolute godsend, and this alone makes up for any
disadvantages of hot water heating.

The heating unit is very quick to achieve operating temperature, and for
cold the system started to be effective in about 15 minutes. If an en-suite
radiator is inadvertently left full on, the heads would become a sauna!

Although diesel-fired, our boat seemed to survive the winter on very little
fuel, admittedly, we had 2 * 60 gallon tanks, but the guage never seemed to
move much over winter.

I am completely sold on this form of heating against the forced-air systems.


Dennis.

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 09:55:54 GMT, "Dennis Pogson"
wrote:

Courtney Thomas wrote:
How do the forced air units compare with the hot water ?

Thank you,
Courtney

I would guess that pumping hot water at low pressure through radiators and
associated piping requires a lot less power than forced-air blowing. At
least, that is our experience, and the heat is much more evenly distributed.
Also, those areas which didn't need heat were simply turned off, or the
radiator stat was turned low to suit the environment/occupants. The system
is silent, which makes for peace and quiet. Drilling through bulkheads etc.
is a darned sight easier when the holes are merely 1" dia. or less, against
the 3"-4" holes required for air tubing. Quickly drying wet clothing and
washed items is an absolute godsend, and this alone makes up for any
disadvantages of hot water heating.

The heating unit is very quick to achieve operating temperature, and for
cold the system started to be effective in about 15 minutes. If an en-suite
radiator is inadvertently left full on, the heads would become a sauna!

Although diesel-fired, our boat seemed to survive the winter on very little
fuel, admittedly, we had 2 * 60 gallon tanks, but the guage never seemed to
move much over winter.

I am completely sold on this form of heating against the forced-air systems.


Dennis.

Interesting observations. In countries where the need is for heating
only, nobody uses blown air. It's noisy, and its dirty.

But when the need is for cooling, circulating water systems are not so
popular.

As soon as I typed this I realised that when computer suites need
cooling, the system chosen is often circulating water chillers.
So even where cooling/heating systems are needed, there is room for
circulating water, seems to me.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK