adding a hot water system to a cold water only sailboat

rogerthebodger said:
Don't know about the UK but we have room sealed hot water heater mainly LPG.

This is how mine works so no combusstio products inside he cabin so no risk of CO.

As the combustion only takes place when the water is running and being heated very little of chance of CO being produced at night when asleep
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Yes they are available, but have fallen out of favour because calorifiers using waste heat from the engine are neater, unobtrusive, can feed multiple taps and do not require gas. I know that most boats use gas for cooking, but it is expensive and a calorifier essentially has no cost to run.
 
thanks Tranona - that's good to know (y)

We'll have a good think about this boat and its hopefully big enough to add a calorifier as the heads is adjacent to the engine and the galley just outside the heads, so this looks like a doable plan
 
I fitted mine mainly for use when sailing and not using the engine of have shore power available

As I said early I have both and only started my calorifier when I moved to a marina with shore power before I use the instant gas water heater to save running the engine just to heat water.

Most of my electrical power cane from solar panels on my taga and cockpit solid cover.

Mains came from an inverter or suitcase generator
 
Have a think about the type of sailing you intend to do. Having hot water is nice but we sailed in a larger boat without it for a long time and it wasn’t a big deal. You boil water if you need some hot water and you have showers at marinas etc. Hot water does take up a lot of space on board and adds complications. Now, if you intend not to be near showers on land or just really want the mod cons, you have the options outlined above. I suspect the most common is engine heated hot water tank with an immersion to run off 240v system when plugged in. You will need to look at the heads as it may not be designed as a ‘wet room’ and you will need a sump and pump for the waste water.
 
Stemar said:
With a raw water cooled engine, it could still be done, there's bound to be a pipe you could divert to a heat exchanger, but you wouldn't get the water as hot, because a raw water cooled engine has to run cooler to prevent excessive limescale buildup.
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That is not quite the case. Hot water in the block is circulated through the calorifier using an additional pump. The mistake many make is to take the pipe from the thermostat but this includes bypass water so may only be at 40C or less. Details on my website, already linked above.

Theoretically the domestic water temperature will be cooler with raw water heating but after 15 minutes of motoring it will be too hot to put your hand in provided it has been installed correctly.
 
I was originally goings to supply from my raw water cooled Bukh, to my recently installed calorifier. However i decided to opt for the Bobil because of the risk of legionella . My Bukh stat opens at 60 c . So even if I could get a decent temperature flow to my calorifier as per Viv's instructions. I would need the engine running for a long time and still couldn't guarantee a domestic storage above 60'C , which is required to prevent the bacteria thriving. Not saying it can't be done, I may even pipe it up as I still have the in direct coil in the calorifier doing nowt at the moment. The Bobil will practically boil if left unchecked. No association with them , just a happy customer.

I have now recently seen the Chinaspacer have a built in water heater like the Eberspacher, I may have took this option if I hadn't already fitted the Chinaspacer regular 2 KW jobbie.
 
You also need to consider if you have any females on board.

My Admiral would not sped a night on board with out hot and cold running water and a proper flushing head
 
rogerthebodger said:
You also need to consider if you have any females on board.

My Admiral would not sped a night on board with out hot and cold running water and a proper flushing head
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My navigator insists we go ashore at least every other day. Marina, harbour, boatyard or inn/hotel with shower for a fee. Sure shore power could run an immersion but there will be hot water ashore somewhere and many harbours dont have shore power. ( Fresh veg meat or restuarants also call and she is the ‘quartermaster’)

A calorifier might be nice but costly but it needs engine running before shower which may mot suit sailing. We did have gas heater in old boat it was long broken and we junked the one on our camper as just encouraging profiligate water usage.

If I really wanted one I would go for ebi or webasto but if you boat has big calor not poxy camping gaz then gas ok
 
Running hot water is nice to have, but in sixteen years of Channel cruising with my 27 footer I've happily made do with the kettle for shaving and the odd flannel soap-down, followed by a brief cold water rinse under the shower-head (via a foot-pump which saves a ton of water; capacity is 200 litres, however this can quickly go).

The bottom line is that shore facilities are never far away (every 2-3 days at most) where one can enjoy a proper long hot shower! A woman might see this infrequency as a hardship, but my dog doesn't care!

When I re-engined twelve years ago (direct-cooling Bukh out, indirect-cooling Beta in) I did consider fitting a calorifier etc, but space was already pretty tight, so I just carried on doing what I did before. However if I had a slightly bigger boat (for me 32' would be 'big') with adequate freshwater capacity, then I'd almost certainly fit a calorifier etc.

What boat are you looking at buying?
 
Florence Nightingale, a woman made of sterner stuff than our modern misses and missuses, is reputed to have said that a woman should be able to keep herself clean using only a pint of water a day.
 
Another example of water economy:

"The availability of water was such that one first boiled one’s egg in a mess tin over a hexamine Tommy Cooker, washed and shaved in the same water, filtered that water through a face flannel and then made tea with it. We remained remarkably healthy."

Gordon Corrigan, former soldier, military historian, author of “Blood, Sweat and Arrogance”
 
Poignard said:
Another example of water economy:

"The availability of water was such that one first boiled one’s egg in a mess tin over a hexamine Tommy Cooker, washed and shaved in the same water, filtered that water through a face flannel and then made tea with it. We remained remarkably healthy."

Gordon Corrigan, former soldier, military historian, author of “Blood, Sweat and Arrogance”
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Those of us who moor in small creeks and anchorage cannot get water till we get to a marina, and we may avoid that for both economic or aethetic reasons. Its bad enough hauling 20L of fuel 1 mile across the marsh or down the lane without hauling 20L of water as well.

Fresh waters prime role afloat is for tea or cooking, nothing to stop some being used for washing and a kettle does well to warm it but restraint required. Lots ashore most harbours in some form or other, so we enjoy our showers there.

No doubt in the Artic a harsher regime would apply.
 
pmagowan said:
Have a think about the type of sailing you intend to do. Having hot water is nice but we sailed in a larger boat without it for a long time and it wasn’t a big deal. You boil water if you need some hot water and you have showers at marinas etc. Hot water does take up a lot of space on board and adds complications. Now, if you intend not to be near showers on land or just really want the mod cons, you have the options outlined above. I suspect the most common is engine heated hot water tank with an immersion to run off 240v system when plugged in. You will need to look at the heads as it may not be designed as a ‘wet room’ and you will need a sump and pump for the waste water.
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thanks and I guess just to answer the type of sailing we hope to do is more long distance voyages where we won't be too near marina's that often/swing moorings/anchor etc. The boat in question does have a watermaker (and can collect rain water so we could filter that if needed) and we'd hope (if we did to go for this particular boat) to have hot water so we can wash hands in nice warm water when been outside, but also keep clean at end of day, and have short hot/warm showers when feeling needing to decontamitate/warm up

This particular boat is the only one we're looking at that doesn't have hot water, but we just wanted to not discount it and ask about what possible options there are and if it's doable (even if it's not us doing it and we have help hiring installation at a boatyard)

But that's a great mention at the end of your post Pmagowan which we also don't know (as so far we've only seen this boat in photos) as to likely needing to also put in some sort of shower floor and what to do with the waste water. Hadn't thought of that, so will check that as well with the broker and do more research on possible's there also.
 
My response to that is that boiling kettles on the stove every time you want hot water is wasteful, absurdly time consuming and a massive phaff if you require more than 2 litres of the stuff at once; calorifiers use otherwise wasted energy and unless it's ancient the insulation keeps it in for a long time. Sailing in the UK it rains every 5 minutes, so collecting the stuff using an appropriately modified cockpit cover or suitably ducted area of deck is reasonably practical if you want to stay away from marinas and in Scotland at least it's rare to be that far from a burn big enough to fill a can.
pmagowan said:
Have a think about the type of sailing you intend to do. Having hot water is nice but we sailed in a larger boat without it for a long time and it wasn’t a big deal. You boil water if you need some hot water and you have showers at marinas etc. Hot water does take up a lot of space on board and adds complications. Now, if you intend not to be near showers on land or just really want the mod cons, you have the options outlined above. I suspect the most common is engine heated hot water tank with an immersion to run off 240v system when plugged in. You will need to look at the heads as it may not be designed as a ‘wet room’ and you will need a sump and pump for the waste water.
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penfold said:
My response to that is that boiling kettles on the stove every time you want hot water is wasteful, absurdly time consuming and a massive phaff if you require more than 2 litres of the stuff at once; calorifiers use otherwise wasted energy and unless it's ancient the insulation keeps it in for a long time. Sailing in the UK it rains every 5 minutes, so collecting the stuff using an appropriately modified cockpit cover or suitably ducted area of deck is reasonably practical if you want to stay away from marinas and in Scotland at least it's rare to be that far from a burn big enough to fill a can.
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We would always have a kettle on the boil of an evening anyway for tea/coffee, dishes and whatever else needs doing. I would certainly have hot water and showers on board a largish boat if practicality allowed but would not necessarily retrofit them, particularly if space is short and marinas with shower facilities are near at hand.
 
I guess it's why some boats have hot water and some don't for those (many and various) reasons (y)

we don't have hot water in our little Jaguar 24 and do boil a bit for hand washing/body washing when on the boat overnight, and being on a swing mooring and not really visiting marinas yet we don't get to shower until many hours after we get off the boat when we're finally home (and it's such a relief to finally get to have the shower)

I think some of the places we're hoping to sail to and visit won't have marinas and showers (or not many marinas) so it's something we'd like to have in our next bigger boat if poss
 
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Marceline said:
I guess it's why some boats have hot water and some don't for those (many and various) reasons (y)

we don't have hot water in our little Jaguar 24 and do boil a bit for hand washing/body washing when on the boat overnight, and being on a swing mooring and not really visiting marinas yet we don't get to shower until many hours after we get off the boat when we're finally home (and it's such a relief to finally get to have the shower)

I think some of the places we're hoping to sail to and visit won't have marinas and showers (or not many marinas) so it's something we'd like to have in our next bigger boat if poss
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If you are really doing that kind of cruising suggest fit a saltwater tap with pump. Saves a lot of water as clean seawater fine for washing up and much cooking. One more hole in hull plus lever valve but low tech and easier than using bucket especially when on the way
 
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