When we got Lionheart, it came from San Francisco. It had a
rotted-out diesel heater to keep it warm. Sitting right next to this
waste of good diesel fuel, was a Perkins 4-108 diesel heater POURING
heat into its exhaust system so much they had to pour seawater into
the exhaust to cool it.

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.

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

I have an electronics shop built into a surplus Air Force stepvan. My
shop heater in winter is a 1KW Honda EU1000i power plant. I welded a
pipe nipple on the little exhaust port with an elbow on the end. This
connects to a copper tubing draining the exhaust gases out the deck
under the truck. Keeps the shop toasty warm while providing me up to
1KW of 120VAC to run my equipment.....I figure I recover 85-90% of the
heat produced by the engine. Its quiet enclosure makes an acceptable
sound level to work in hidden away behind the cabinets.



On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:16:43 GMT, "Lawrence James"
wrote:

You are going to find out that heating things with electricity takes a lot
of it. That is why gas is used on boats, mobile homes, etc for things that
heat. And why most people run their gensets when using appliances. AC's
use a lot of power too but you might get away with it. Consider this, a
1200 watt electric heater is drawing 10 amps at 120 volts. Drop the voltage
down to 24 volts and now you need 50 amps. I will not tell you it is
impossible but you will need a lot of batteries.

"misia" wrote in message
mail.from.there...
On my new boat I will have a powerfull 24VDC battery bank charged by a
diesel generator and auxiliary sources.

I did a bit of search but couldn't find much- are there any 24 VDC
appliances such as cooker/oven, fridge, AC and water heater you could
recommend?

I know I can run standard items through power inverter but I would
prefer not to do it for the sake of reliability/efficiency/cost. I want
to go totally electric (no gas)

Regards Mi