Cabin heat

[Guest 000]

One of the distressing things about ageing is that I start to really feel the cold.

I am thinking back nearly 50 years to when I was circumnavigating, and like every other impoverished single hander on a small boat, I had a terracotta flower pot to put upside down over my stove burner for warmth. The other sad thing about ageing is that I can't remember if it worked or not.

I have a good old Steven Marine two burner kero stove on my present boat and have amassed quite a collection of spare burners, pumps, fuel tanks etc. I also have some 100mm diameter heavy wall stainless pipe and I am thinking to use the pipe with a burner inside to make a small bulkhead mounted cabin heater. It would of course be flued through the cabin deck head to the outside via the usual arrangement of double pipes, deck plate etc.

It would be nice to hear if anyone has thought about or done anything similar.

[erice 732]

sounds a bit like the cabin diesel heaters sold commercially

 

http://www.belship.nl/belship/manuals/Blakes/079D_ownersHandbook.pdf

 

or something like this

 

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/325455510552678447/

[Guest 000]

Thanks - that's pretty much what I had in mind. The Taylor heater looks expensive. Hopefully mine will cost almost nothing except a bit of time.

[erice 732]

 

https://youtu.be/b11dqKJrulk

[Steve Pope 243]

There is a Dickinson marine heater / stove distributor in Bluff if you want to look at a diesel alternative. Of course they need them down there.

[Steve Pope 243]

another is the "little cracker" = google,   solid fuel, though you might have to build a small wood shed on the H28 for one of these

[Island Time 1,220]

I have one of these - they work pretty well http://www.burnsco.co.nz/shop/shop-all/ventilation/propex-lpg-heater-2kw

[Guest 000]

Thanks for the replies. OK, I'll come clean.

I know there are lots of good cabin heaters out there.

But think old man with only a part time job, a nice workshop and time on his hands.

I want a project.

[Jon 360]

Sail up to the islands

That will fix the getting cold part, especially if you go now and don't come back until Nov

[SloopJohnB 323]

would this be the same as "cabin fever"

[erice 732]

gleaned from the net

 

an inside pic

 

 

of a taylors cabin heater

 

the outer panel has been swung open, the kero burner's pre-heat cup has been filled with meths, lit and due to the yellowing of the flame (+40sec?) appears about ready to burn out just as the kero valve should be opened to allow pre-heated and vaporised kero to flow to the burner and burn with a nice clean blue flame

 

the black canister above the burner must contain a metal baffle system to hold and radiate the heat while allowing the fumes to rise up and out of the boat through the 25mm stainless pipe at the top 

 

if you've already got a kero stove with the same pressurised burner system in your galley it looks like you could stack some clay pots on top, drop a flanged? exhaust tube (old vacuum cleamer tube? or even 25mm square desk leg) into the top hole and run that out your galley hatch/window? (through an inside-outside fibrolite - hardiplank? blank that sandwiched the open port and held together with a through bolt + wingnut)

 

 

might experiment this winter

 

in the set-up above you'd want to run the stove on the stable bench-top instead of the swinger

[Guest 000]

Thanks for the pics erice.

Our three month cruise has concluded and we are only just home, but I am already well advanced with the cabin heater construction. Not a lot of science has gone into it - it's shape and dimensions being governed by the materials at hand.

Will put up some photos in a few days time.

[too_tall 15]

Could I suggest that whatever you finally build, a Carbon Monoxide sensor/alarm could be a very wise investment should you not already have one?

[erice 732]

$20

 

http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/security-locks-alarms/alarms/other/auction-1065603126.htm

[khayyam 68]

Could I suggest that whatever you finally build, a Carbon Monoxide sensor/alarm could be a very wise investment should you not already have one?

+1

[Guest 000]

I agree an alarm is a good idea,but I need to understand it a bit better..

We never close up the boat completely, and often have a large pot of my wife's world famous soup bubbling away on the stove for an hour or so, admittedly under a partially opened hatch. The heater will operate under the same conditions but with the burner semi enclosed and vented via a double walled flue to the great outdoors. Theoretically this should be safer than operating the boat's stove which I imagine most people are happy to do without an installed alarm.

Anyway, heater construction is temporarily delayed as I have become a victim of the obesity epidemic by injuring myself trying to load an overweight patient into the back of my ambulance. Hope to resume construction soon.

[Fujo 3]

Island Time..

 

I've been agonising over the heater issue for my Beneteau 37 footer and I'm interested that you have the Propex LPG heater on your boat. 

 

I've been thinking about buying a diesel heater furnace from China on aliexpress, but haven't plucked up the courage to take the plunge yet.

 

I've also recently realised that LPG heaters are used on boats and in fact they have some advantages like quieter and less electricity required.

 

In addition to the Propex, I've come across the Truma heater which seems to used on RVs quite a bit.

 

Have you found that it has enough grunt for local cruising and did you install it yourself? Do you find that it uses much gas?

 

Beneteau usually fit an Epsar D4 4kw to my boat which is $3800 for the marine kit if I was to buy one locally.

[wheels 543]

I have a Force 10 wall mount gas heater. It is of the style that simply heats a box and uses the hot air rising principle to move the heat around. Problem is, with it mounted about 500mm above the floor, the cabin at that height gets toasty and the area below remains cold. So we use a fan to blow thew air around. It takes just a few minutes to heat the Saloon and then you turn it right down on low to maintain the heat, which it does so easily. If I was buying heating today, I would look closely at the Propex. Having the air jeted around the cabin solves a lot of the cold spaces issue and we could also duct it to the aft cabin, which remains a fridge in the winter.

Be very careful of prices for heaters from certain retailers. They look cheap, but they take most of the components out of the box and sell them to you as extra's and those extra's and accessories can be really expensive. So make sure when you look at a price, you ask exactly what comes in the box.

[Island Time 1,220]

Island Time..

 

I've been agonising over the heater issue for my Beneteau 37 footer and I'm interested that you have the Propex LPG heater on your boat. 

 

I've been thinking about buying a diesel heater furnace from China on aliexpress, but haven't plucked up the courage to take the plunge yet.

 

I've also recently realised that LPG heaters are used on boats and in fact they have some advantages like quieter and less electricity required.

 

In addition to the Propex, I've come across the Truma heater which seems to used on RVs quite a bit.

 

Have you found that it has enough grunt for local cruising and did you install it yourself? Do you find that it uses much gas?

 

Beneteau usually fit an Epsar D4 4kw to my boat which is $3800 for the marine kit if I was to buy one locally.

Yep, fitted the propex 1800 to Island Time myself, about 10 years ago. It works great, but if it's really cold (2-3 deg) it can chew through the gas, especially if people are not careful about shutting the hatches and the companionway. A 4.5 kg bottle can be consumed in about A week of leaving the heater on thermostat at about 20 deg c, when it's really cold ( down south). However, consider that island time is cored construction, so pretty well insulated. I've been happy with it, but, now we are based here at gulf harbour, we don't need it much...

[Fujo 3]

Thanks' for the feed back Guys.

 

The gas heater tempted me because they a doing deals on them in the RV shops. I want to put the heater in the back locker and the run is at least 3M to the main cabin so that might rule out the gas versions which appear to just allow up to 1500mm of hose. My 2.2KG gas bottles could be an issue as well so I'm back thinking about the Chinese diesel knock offs again.