I've been thinking of scrounging up a heater core and fan out of a wrecking yard and plumbing it into the lines to the hot water heater with some t's and a shut off valve for an inexpensive cabin heater. I didn't see any similar projects listed on the projects page. Anyone do something like that already and how did it work. (I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel)
Ray : There are expensive "marine" versions of your idea. I'm sure that your's will work as long as you have hot engine coolant.
What I have is a small 110v electric heater when we're on dock power and a Colman Black Cat catalytic propane heater when we're at anchor.
A thought. :wink:
I've seen a lot of people on the c30 bb and some here who
use portable propane heaters or alcohol stoves to heat
their cabin.
Seems reasonable iif you crack more than one
window/hatch, install al carbon monoxide detector
and shut if off before you go to sleep.
What about using the oven with the door cracked
(or others have talked about putting a clay pot
on a burner) as the heat source. Once the cabin warms
up just shut the door and set the stove at a temp
that it's excess heat is enough to keep the
cabin warm.
I've done this for 15 mins or so but since I haven't purchased
a CO alarm (and it gets hot) I just it off.
It would be nice to have a bulkhead mounted heater but
installing the propane hose seems like more trouble than
it's worth.. here in SF... at least when there are alternative
already on board.
Has anyone else baked themselves warm?
My neighbor with a C36 just bought a propane heater that has a built-in CO detector plus tip switch and thermostat. I think he got it at Home Depot. Seems like a nice unit for less than $100. I too use a couple of 110v heaters when at the dock. With any type of combustion heater you MUST have a CO detector.
David
We have a Force 10, very pretty and nautical looking, and aboslutely worthless for cabin heating. It's kerosene, with a pressurized tank under the V berth. The flame makes a lot of noise, and puts out very little heat. It needs alchohol to get it started, so I have now have to have 2 more different kinds of fuel on board. Regardless of how well I operate the burner, all it does is soot up the cabin. I stopped using it, will leave it for its "jauntiness."
While I know a propane unit would be quieter, the fact is that not a whole lot of heat comes out of it.
We did buy an electric heater for the dockside times, and it works just fine. We'll probably get one of the catalytic heaters for anchoring out, although we ususally anchor out when it's a bit warmer.
Our major source of heat, which works just fine, is our large trawler lamp.
Stu,
I got a chuckle out of your remark about the force 10 heater. We had one aboard Andiamo (now sold & replaced by a C38). The heater looked beautiful but took all night to heat up a cold boat. I was so impressed with its beauty that I never considered how ineffective it really was.
Sounds like a cool idea. Where will you place the mechanism?
John,
I haven't decided whether I'm going to do it yet or not, but I think the whole thing can be done for under $40. I bought a heater core and fan from a junk yard several years ago for about $25. That leaves a few dollars left over for hose and fittings. I was thinking of mounting it in the hanging locker. Wouldn't be any trouble to "T" into the lines to the hot water heater, run the lines under the floor to that locker and mount it to the vertical surface under the chart table. It would have the added benefit of radiating a fair amount of heat into that locker where we keep our foul weather gear. I think I would want one of the "T's" to have a shut off, so I could cut the flow of hot water to the heater in the summer time or when we want to heat the water in the hot water tank only.
I wouldn't use it for my primary heat source, but rather to keep the boat warm inside while we're underway and a short time after we get there. Once we're on the hook, I'd switch over to our diesel furnace. But it would be an alternate/inexpensive heat source. We took the boat into La Conner this weekend to watch the annual Christmas Parade. It was rain/snow mix on the way back home and a heater like this would have been very nice to have.
Ray,
I installed a Red Dot core heater on our old Catalina 27 and loved it. In that case, I cut a hole below one of the main settees across from the table and put a grill over it. With a two speed fan, it would heat the cabin quickly while underway.
BTW, we had a Force 10 Kerosene heater that heated up red hot on the bottom third. The trick to heating the cabin was to mount a 12 volt fan to circulate cabin air. This would successfully break up the thermocline that would previously form about waist high - leaving feet freezing and head hot! the penalty was charred clothes, rubber, skin, etc. It's nice to have an Espar now!
Which Marina are you in? We're in Anacortes Marina - D56
Hello Randy,
We keep the boat in Shelter Bay in one of their non-resident slips. Before that, we've kept this boat and two of our previous boats on a mooring at Utsalady Bay, at the north end of Camano Island. As non residents of Shelter Bay, we'll be the first ones to get bumped as demand for slips increase among residents, so I keep the mooring setup maintained as a backup. We really like walking to our boat with a cart full of stuff over taking several trips between the muddy beach and the boat in a tippy dinghy before each outting.
If your boat has been in Anacortes Marina for at least two years, we've probably seen it. We had our previous boat parked there for a couple of months while we were selling it to purchase our C-34. We were actually looking at Hunter 34's for a while, but after seeing one of the C-34's that was in the ABC Yacht Charter Fleet, we quit looking at Hunters and narrowed it down to Catalinas.
Regarding that thermocline you spoke of. We have certainly experienced that. We had a kerosene wall mounted heater in our previous boat and we used to have to stand up to get warm, because all the heat was near the cabin roof. Being semi warm in a boat is better that totally warm on shore though. ;)
erpsnospam@verizon.net
No, Voyager is new to Anacortes, being just recently delivered from Florida. We kept our Newport 30 there 10 months a year for 7 years, on the hard. Had a big yellow "off ramp" sign on the back.
I'm not sure what to do about the heat situation. We had a diesel heater on offramp that was from scan marine. it was warm when it worked but they had it set up that you should remove it and send it in for special cleaning once a year, otherwise it wouldn't work very well. that was both troublesome and expensive.
Brrrr. after 5 years in the Bahamas, where you can't take off enough clothes to stay cool, getting back to the NW will have it's challenges, but at least there are no tropical storms! 8)
Ray,
I installed a cabin heater very similar to the setup you're describing. I purchased a unit from West Marine that was a package setup. It had a small radiator attached to a 2-speed blower motor and a grille for the exterior mounting.
(http://users.rcn.com/kuba3/photoA.jpg)
The unit is mounted under the nav station, and draws fresh air for the blower from an area at the top rear of the cabinet I built for it. I chose this location to avoid drawing air from the sometimes smelly bilge area.
I installed a teak lip on the top of the cabinet to create a handy storage shelf, that otherwise would have been wasted space.
(http://users.rcn.com/kuba3/photoE.jpg)
I tapped into the water line that was going to the hot water heater, and ran the line around the back of the engine, and the along the port side up to the compartment that contains the holding tank. Two holes drilled through the bulkhead allowed the inlet & outlet heater lines access to the radiator. The hardest part was bleeding the system to ensure there was no trapped air anywhere in the system. The black water line you see in the picture is there to provide a "high point" in the system where I added replacement anti-freeze to top off the system and to make sure there was no trapped air.
(http://users.rcn.com/kuba3/photoC.jpg)
Here is a diagram of the plumbing.
(http://users.rcn.com/kuba3/photoB.JPG)
The heater works like a charm when motoring. When we brought the boat from Cleveland to Chicago in the early spring, The outside air temp was in the 40's, but the heater kept the cabin at a luxurious 80 degrees! And it provided a place to shake off that bone-chilling cold! In the summer, very little heat is even noticeable coming from the unit. And the extra run of heater line reduces the temp at the faucets a few degrees from blistering hot, to just scalding hot. I was afraid it would take even longer to heat up the hot water, but it really isn't noticeable, compared to the benefits of having a place to get warm while underway.
A warm crew is a happy crew!
Bob Kuba
Quiet Island
#1291 C34 1994
Bob,
Do you have a manufacturer for the radiator/heater? I have been looking all over and cannot seem to find one. The only think I come up with is electric element heaters.
Thank you,
Corbett House
Corbett: I couldn't resist jumping in to this conversation, I just ordered one of these heaters. There are two sources for these that I am aware of. Dickinson Marine sells a version they call "Radex" Here is a link to their website. http://www.dickinsonmarine.com/index.asp. I think you might be able to get these through West Marine. The other source is HeaterCraft http://www.heatercraft.com/. They have a lot more options including ducting that can be run to several locations from a single heater. I just ordered a Heatercraft 5H heater from Go 2 Marine in Washington state.http://www.go2marine.com/ I am planning to install it under the dinette forward of the water tank. I will take some pictures of my install and post them when I am done.
Cheers!
Thank you for the links. I purchased the same one.
On checking the West Marine Catalog for 2004, I see they no longer list this heater. But it indeed was made by Heater Craft, and is the 5H model.
I also considered the area forward of the water tank, under the settee, but I didn't want to draw any intake air from the bilge area and blow those aromas all around the cabin. I suppose one could add an intake duct to take air directly from the cabin, but it seemed like more work. But I wound up building a cabinet for my heater, so I wound up doing some extra work too.
In any case, it's a good unit, and a good project.
Bob Kuba
Quiet Island
#1291 1994 C34
Bob: Your installation looks very professional. I was thinking about mounting the heater forward of the water tank and then ducting the intake through the V berth locker. That way, I'll get some ventilation from the cabin back through the forward locker. I'll have to see how that will work when I get the heater this week. I like your installation idea as well. That space is not very useable, so it would be a good place to put the heater. I Still haven't decided whether I will plumb the system in series with the H2O heater like you did, or in parallel with a shut off valve. You mentioned that the heater does not get very hot when it is off, Is it an inconveinience in the summer? I am just a little bit concerned about excess heat in the cabin on those hot summer days.
I've had this installation for 2 years, and been through through some 100+ days, and it hasn't really added any additional heat to the cabin. But as long as you could ensure a good flow rate in a parallel setup, it should work fine as well. I'd be interested in seeing your results with that setup. Keep us posted.
Bob Kuba
Quiet Island
#1291 1994
Bob
How is the fan controlled? do you have a thermostat wired in to it?
Is there some way to valve off the hot water flowing through the heater in the hot summer or does it not through any heat unless the blower is on?
Thanks
Roland Gendreau
Gratitude #1083
The fan is wired to a 3 position switch, Off, Low, and High. I didn't see the need for a thermostat, since it really wasn't designed to be a "furnace". I use it as a source of supplemental heat to take the chill off while under way.
When dockside, and plugged into shore power, my a/c unit functions as a reverse cycle heat pump, and heats the entire boat. Now that is wired to a digital thermostat much like you would see in a house.
In the summer, even though hot water is flowing through the heater core, very little is dissipated into the cabin. In fact, to gives you some basis for comparison, it radiates less heat than the hot water heater. It's not even noticeable.
Bob Kuba
Quiet Island
#1292 1994
I got some time this weekend and finished the install of the heater in "Cat Tales". I mounted the Heater Craft 5H unit under the dinette. It is mounted in front of the water tank in a wooden box that I fabricated out of plywood scraps from another project. ( There is nothing as nerve wracking as cutting large holes in ones boat with a sabre saw!) The box is sealed with West Epoxy, and gets its air supply from the V-Berth locker via a 3 inch PVC Pipe. (another leftover from a previous project.) When I first hooked the heater into the engine water loop, I put the heater in parallel with the water heater, and installed a shutoff valve so I could shutoff the cabin heater without affecting the hot water heater. Unfortunately, the M35 has a pretty small water pump. I just could not get enough flow through the parallel setup to make the heater work properly. As a result, I re-plumbed it to be the same as Bob Kuba's setup shown in his schematic. Works like a charm!! :razz: (There really is a bunch of good advice on this site.! Thanks Bob!) I haven't really had a chance to give it an extended test yet. I ran it in the slip at a fast idle for 30 min or so, and finally had to shut it off because it got too hot in the cabin to continue working in there. I also put a tee in the return line and put a petcock at the end of the line to bleed the air bubbles out. The petcock is attached to one of the little partitions in the aft cubby behind the dinette seat back. That also worked quite well. When I figure out how to upload the pictures, I'll post them.
Here are some pictures of the heater installation:
I don't know the temperature of the hot air coming out of this unit is but for your info , I get 146 f from my car heater
Paul
Why can't I view Mike's photos? I am logged in. Is this something like "The Emperor's New Cloths"?
Ron and others
This is a link to the IMPORTANT Posting Photos thread.
Thanks,
http://www.c34.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1933
recommends that you also go here:
http://www.c34.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1747
Essentially, when we swtiched over, many folks didn't resign up as requested by the webmaster. Once you do so, everything should work.
Sorry for any inconvenience.