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From: Tim Lochner (no email)
Date: Wed Jan 03 2001 - 16:50:37 EST
Hi Ric and the rest of the list,
First, I hope that everyone had a great holiday season and exceptional New
Years. Anyone do anything on the boat (we had a dance - on our 42' Maple
Leaf - 15 people and actually had some swing happening).
Anyway, per the tread, in a nutshell, for diesel heating think you have
three choices,
1) a stove-type drip furnace (ie Dickenson Arctic, Faball, etc) which are
floor or bulkhead mounted, and can be part of an oven/cook-stove, or not.
2) Forced Air furnace (ESPAR, Webasto), with a remotely mounted unit which
circulated heated air via ducting thoughout your boat,
3) Water circulating systems (ESPAR, Webasto, Hurricane) with a remotely
mounted unit which circulated hot water thoughout the boat, with individual
blowers doing the heat transfer from water to air.
From your question, it seems that you want a system that will run without
you needing to be on board to start the system. Although I had a Dickenson
drip furnace which ran 24/7 for the entire winter last year, and a Faball on
my previous boat which also ran 24/7 (ie even when no-one was on board), my
assumption is that you would like a thermostatically controlled unit. This
then limits you to either hot air or hot water.
I personally have no experience with ESPAR. Anicdotally however, I have a
number of friends and neighbours who either have ESPAR systems and hate
them, or have replaced their ESPAR systems with hot water systems (either
due to a new boat, or an ESPAR breakdown). The only thing I have first hand
information on is that they are very noisy, even with a muffler.
I personally spent the summer installing a Hurricane hot water system.
Before chosing the Hurricane I was seriously considering a Webasto system.
Living in Vancouver BC, however, Hurricane (made by ITR) is manufactured
here and I have an installer as a neighbour (so my reasoning is somewhat
biased, based on price and on convenience). I have been running the system
now since October 2000 and it has been working flawlessly.
Pros and cons.
The biggest impact in going away from the Dickenson to the Hurricane have
been:
1) Cost. The Hurricane (and probably the ESPAR, etc) cost significantly
more than the Dickenson/Faballs. ($5000-$10000 Canadian vs $800-1500)
2) Condensation. This is probably the biggest difference I have noticed.
The old Dickenson furnace sucked in the cold moist air from the floor/bilge
of my boat and radiated hot, dry air. In fact, I used to have to put a tin
can of water on the furnace to add some humidity. Now, the boat is a
virtual rain-forest.
3) Speed. Within 10 minutes of turning up the thermostat, the Hurricane
(and I assume the ESPAR) starts spitting out nice hot air and the boat is
soon toasty warm everywhere. The one thing about the ESPAR that I've heard,
is that in the beginning it blows cold air, until the unit heats up. Each
seperate fan in the Hurricane is equipped with an aqua-stat so it only blows
when the circulating water is warm enough.
4) Convenience. I can use the Hurricane in the windiest of conditions and
while sailing, something I couldn't or wouldn't do with the Dickenson nor
the Faball (even with the "Balanced Draft").
5) Cleanliness. I no longer have to scrub my decks to remove the black
fall-out from the soot shower that results from startup and shutdown of the
Dickenson and the Faball.
6) Noise. I really miss the peace and quiet of my Dickenson. The cycling
of the heat exchangers drives me a bit batty.
7) Temperature Stability. I could achieve great temperature stability with
my Dickenson by simply keeping a window or hatch slightly open. With the
thermostatically controlled units it often gets too hot, then 15 minutes
later it is too cold, then too hot.
8) Efficiency. I have probably cut my fuel consumption in half moving from
the Dickenson to the Hurricane - especially nice when diesel is $.70 per
litre. I now use about .75 gallons per day (or less - depending on the
outside temperature).
So, in summary, there are certainly no ideal solutions. If you are
considering spending 4K-8k US on an ESPAR, I'd seriously consider all of the
heating options in that price range (including the Hurricane). 1 1/2"
heater hose is sigificantly easier to run than 3" or 4" air ducting. If you
are interested, I'll try to dig up the web site, but they are located in
Richmond BC, Canada and can be contacted at (604) 278-1272.
Sincerely
Tim Lochner
S/V Volantis
Maple Leaf 42
-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:]On Behalf Of Cap'n Ric
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 4:02 PM
To: Liveaboard List
Subject: lv-ab: Diesel Heater Opinions
I'm about to install a diesel heater in my boat, an Endeavour 37 MK II
Sloop, and would like some recommendations and/or pans. At the risk of
skewing the replies I'm leaning toward the Espar D5LC. I would like to
especially hear from people who are already using a diesel heater.
Baltimore Gas & Electric's third world dependability in Southern Anne
Arundel and Calvert County, Maryland have convinced me to do this now. All
of this area was without power for 13 hours a few nights ago when the
temperature was in the low teens. I have a back up alcohol system which
certainly heats the boat but I have to be onboard to start it.
Thanks,
Ric onboard the S/V SEZANEH
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