New choice of heating

[Guy Primo]

Well it's midwinter and New England I don't know if anybody else knows about this but we've been using this heater for about 3 years now it's a diesel heater from Amazon under $200 live I live in Northern New England I have a 1888 305 sedan Bridge I have this Chinese diesel heater in the bilge I installed a separate fuel tank of 6 gallons I ran ducking into the cabins put this heater has been running Non-Stop since October of 2022 Around the Clock it is now January 26th 2023 this boat is always heated at a temperature of 75 to 80 degrees at the beginning in a month it was down near zero degrees Fahrenheit it was still 75° in this boat it cost a little bit more fuel when it gets colder it burns around 3/4 of a gallon every 24 hours of diesel or kerosene it's very quiet efficient I'm pretty easy to install I read a lot of posts where they had problems with the reverse Cycles on the AC unit I see a lot of of guys telling the person that has the problem with their AC unit that's not heating just to put an electric heater in did you realize what your electrical bill would be at the end of the month running that thing for 30 days and one little electric here is not going to heat a boat you need three or four then you need need them in the bills also so you probably need six or seven heaters to keep the boat warm I use one 8000 BTU Chinese diesel heater the air is warm dry no fumes no noise so Google these guys if you really want to get some heat or the AC just ain't doing it for you in Reverse they're worth the money they're very safe if anybody needs any input instructions videos pictures I have them oh and they are extremely small in size happy boating keep warm

 

[Maybe A Dancer]

With that setup, I likely would not be able to sleep at night.

BEST !

RWS

 

[Stee6043]

I follow a couple folks on Youtube that swear by these things. They are very popular amount the van-lifer types. It's amazing how much heat they can produce with a relatively small amount of diesel.

 

[mrsrobinson]

I am going to need you to add periods, commas and paragraphs before I can read this

 

[Thornton69]

This post seems a bit like an advertisement but we have actually been pretty impressed with ours for those interested.
We went with a 5000 BTU Wabasto copy to replace an old propane catalytic heater that came with the boat. 2 full seasons with it now and it hasn't skipped a beat. We run our boat in freezing temps early in the season and use it throughout the season to get rid of the morning condensation in the cabin. Also added an additional duct kit to it so it provides heat in the V berth, main cabin and the windshield. A good quality thru hull near doubled the price of the install but were all in for about $450 CAD. Actually bought a second unit for parts just in case due to the price but haven't had to go into the box yet. Have never shown a CO reading in the cabin so no leaks. The exhaust pipe gets smoking hot and is a fire risk. We installed the screen from the propane heater over it all and removed that risk.

 

[Maggieiscrazy]

I follow a couple folks on Youtube that swear by these things. They are very popular amount the van-lifer types. It's amazing how much heat they can produce with a relatively small amount of diesel.

A gallon of diesel can only produce 137,381 btu of heat.

 

[Stee6043]

A gallon of diesel can only produce 137,381 btu of heat.

A gallon of natural gas will produce 139,725 btu of heat. So....pretty stellar #'s for a fuel as portable as diesel I'd say

 

[Maggieiscrazy]

A gallon of natural gas will produce 139,725 btu of heat. So....pretty stellar #'s for a fuel as portable as diesel I'd say

I’m not sure where you got your information but a gallon of liquefied natural gas only has 69,000 btu. By the way. Nobody measures natural gas by the gallon.

 

[Stee6043]

I’m not sure where you got your information but a gallon of liquefied natural gas only has 69,000 btu. By the way. Nobody measures natural gas by the gallon.

I assume the same place you got your intel? Good ole google...which provided a conversation from CF to gallons without me even asking for it It's possible I did the conversion wrong but I wasn't heavily invested in this one. I just like those neat heaters.

 

[Stee6043]

I have never seen a more worthless comparison table than the one below...but found it interesting nonetheless!

 

[Flyer5]

 

[Thornton69]

More to the diesel heater topic. For those interested, the 10 liter tank for the 5000 BTU heater on our 245 lasts us for 3 day runs without powering it off in cooler weather. Probably about 48 hrs. In the warmer weather, I flick it on in the mornings for a couple hours to burn off the condensation in the cabin with the windows open. Never more than 1/2 a tank on those runs.
I also heard if you bump the heat up a bit with the remote in the middle of the night, the blankets and pajamas get tossed on the floor.....

 

[DaveKamp]

One cubic foot of natural gas, and one gallon of Liquified Compressed Natural Gas, are two totally different things. One Cubic Foot of tank volume, will hold 7.48 US gallons of liquid. Natural gas in liquid form is in a cryogenic state, and is neither delivered, nor useable in this application, so it is irrelevant for all comparison here. Notice, however, that it's energy unit is identified in 'therms', which is an energy equivalent, not a liquid or gaseous volume.

Diesel, Kerosene, and Fuel Oil are all of much higher fuel energy content per volume and weight, and as the reference above notes, one cubic foot of natural gas is only 1030btu, so the 137 cubic feet identified, is in correct order of magnitude to equivocate a gallon of fuel oils.

Maggie's identification of 137kbtu per gallon (US, not Imperial gallon) is a 'best case' fuel scenario, we typically see an average of 126kbtu. The two primary concerns here, is 1) wether the 'webasto copy' liquid fuel heater is safe and suitable for a marine installation, and 2) wether a vessel's heating requirement is within the reach of the heater's capacity.

The former is partially a function of manufacture (if it came from Asia, one can bet that it doesn't have any certifications that one's insurance would underwrite) and the second, is how well the vessel's living areas and critical machinery areas are insulated against heat loss.

As far as fuel burn, if the heater is an 8000btu unit, it will need to burn at LEAST 126,000/8000 = 1/16th of a gallon-per-hour to equate that output, IF the heater is actually 100% efficient at turning fuel into captured heat. IF there's heat going out the exhaust exiting the vessel, it is NOT 100% efficient... but 1/16th of a gallon per hour means that running continuously, it will burn one gallon in 16 hours.

3/4 gallon in 24 hours is 0.03125 gallons per hour, which equates to 126,000*0.0312 = 3937.5btu/h of fuel consumption. At 90% efficiency, that's an effective heating output of 3543btu/hr.

 

[Bill Curtis]

I don't know if I would be comfortable knowing there is a combustion thing going on aboard the boat when unattended. What could go wrong???

I have never seen a more worthless comparison table than the one below...but found it interesting nonetheless!

View attachment 139354

On a side note: Love how they put some distance between the gasoline and ethanol so hopefully you wouldn't notice the huge difference in BTU output there is between the two. E rated fuels not helping that much.....

 

[Thornton69]

I don't know if I would be comfortable knowing there is a combustion thing going on aboard the boat when unattended. What could go wrong???



On a side note: Love how they put some distance between the gasoline and ethanol so hopefully you wouldn't notice the huge difference in BTU output there is between the two. E rated fuels not helping that much.....

I'm not sure what would be a better option? Not much different than having a furnace in a home?
The units do have several fail safes built in to them and will display a fault and shut themselves down. Ours has only shut itself down once for low battery voltage while unattended. It was on a 5 day hunting trip when the boat sat idle for the most part on the hook and we were running the jet boat from it. Wasn't a big deal as we were only running on cabin batteries. Fired up the main engine to build up batteries and it flashed right back up again.
This older boat is actually pretty well insulated. Has the monkey hair on the outer walls with lots of wood frame and panels. The temp control normally stays in the lower 20% of it's range.
The units are pretty common up here in the north. I have 5 other friends running them in their boats as well and none of them have had any issues either. Two are Wabasto's, but those are in $300k pilothouse boats with twin outboards.

 

[Thornton69]

Should add, the heaters in boats up here are like the a/c units in the south. I don't know anyone up here with a/c in their boats. Most if not all have heaters of some sort. Our climate is wet and/or cold for the best part of a long season.
In my opinion the forced air diesel heaters are a much safer alternative to the open catalytic type.

 

[DaveKamp]

I'm not sure what would be a better option? Not much different than having a furnace in a home?

Well, my house has furnace in the basement, which is kinda like having a heater in the bilge... but the basement floor and walls can't burn, and while a little water trickles in during really rainy seasons, it certainly won't sink or capsize... I do have CO and gas monitors everywhere, and a very carefully-implemented system of ventilation for air quality and safety... but even at that, I don't sleep in an area where those gases would ever accumulate first. The fuel system on my home is propane, so potentially more dangerous than a heavy liquid fuel, but the safety echelon for that gas valve, and the limitations incorporated into the flow system make it extremely difficult for something to go wrong... and still operate at all... but there's nothing within 10 feet of that furnace that is combustable, and after it's done doing it's burn cycle, the outlet heat of combustion exhaust is about 105F at full-blast.

If I was making an aluminum or steel hull workboat, and it was strictly diesel powered, I would certainly fit it with at least one, probably several Webasto units, as well as going keel-cooling, with an auxiliary heating loop from the prime mover and generator(s) to keep the interior and decks warm... especially if I was coastal or inland north. I would NOT, however, be comfortable with the generic imported copies. Webasto is expensive for good reason. Shadow copies are very effectively insulated from liability litigation by having protracted identities, and with that, there is no motivation for quality assurance. In short, where the knock-offs are made, life is cheap. I value my life, and the lives of those on MY boat, so a generic asian copy is not coming aboard.

 

[DaveKamp]

Love how they put some distance between the gasoline and ethanol so hopefully you wouldn't notice the huge difference in BTU output there is between the two. E rated fuels not helping that much.....

They certainly don't. Ethanol is a carbohydrate, not a hydrocarbon, so it's physical volume is substantially higher than a hydrocarbon, and thus, there's substantially fewer, and weaker bonds in the C-H fuel to offer energy release.

The even-more disconcerting facts, are that carbohydrate fuels don't actually 'mix' with hydrocarbons, they assume 'suspension'... like putting a fist full of dust in a glass of water and stirring it up... the water is brown, but if you let it sit, it will settle. Like other carbohydrates, Ethanol, is extremely hygroscopic- it aggressively absorbs moisture from the air. Ethanol and gasoline have liquid density curves that place them very similar, but not same, so as temperature changes, one is slightly heavier than the other. As ethanol absorbs moisture from the air, it become significantly heavier than pure ethanol or gasoline, and accumulates at the bottom of the tank... where the last 'gotcha' occurs... Carbohydrates are a bit caustic, and when water is added, and metals are in contact, you have an electrochemical battery that will gently 'chew away' at any metals in contact... aluminum fuel tanks, steel sending units, copper plumbing, zinc/aluminum fuel pumps, carbeurators, and injector rails...

Not to mention the poor result of watered-down low-btu fuel energy going into a hard working engine...