Inexpensive Cabin Heater

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

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)

[Ron Hill]

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.  

[David Sanner]

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?

[Ted Pounds]

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.

[Stu Jackson]

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.

[pklein]

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.

[Jon Schneider]

Sounds like a cool idea.  Where will you place the mechanism?

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

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.

[Randy and Mary Davison]

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

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

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

[captran]

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!

[Bob Kuba]

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.


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.


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.


Here is a diagram of the plumbing.


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

[Chouse]

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

[mike lofstrom]

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!

[Chouse]

Thank you for the links. I purchased the same one.