Air Com

petem

petem

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Joined
16 May 2001
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Location
Cotswolds / Altea
www.fairlineownersclub.com
Anyone got any ideas how I call make up a cost effective A/C system for my boat?

Perhaps someone has a 16k BTU chiller in their garage or knows someone who does?
Or can find me something suitable on eBay?

Any fitter recommendations?

Looking to have work done in September.
 
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I'd be interested in what solution you come up on this. The most cost effective way is of course to simply buy a portable unit, they are reasonably compact, but as you already commented on the other thread, your space is at a premium

The marina I plan to use has already confirmed to me that with a yearly mooring ALL electric (and water) is included in the price, so I'm not bothered about leaving the unit switched on all day every day if I choose to :)
 
Prima said:
I'd be interested in what solution you come up on this. The most cost effective way is of course to simply buy a portable unit, they are reasonably compact, but as you already commented on the other thread, your space is at a premium

The marina I plan to use has already confirmed to me that with a yearly mooring ALL electric (and water) is included in the price, so I'm not bothered about leaving the unit switched on all day every day if I choose to :)
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This is something we tried for a season before fitting a "proper" system.
Worked very well in fact but check dimensions, ours only just fitted through the cabin door. The other constraint is it will vent through a tube through one of your windows which you have to keep open. When it rains you have to close the window and be without ac as the humidity increases. Need perhaps to knock up a diy panel to fit the window.
 
I came across this on my internet travels, which is compact enough for my needs

31zvCuWRjdL._SY355_.jpg

Smallest Portable Air Conditioner

The smallest portable air conditioner of decent quality is the EdgeStar Ultra Compact 8,000 BTU Portable AC. It measures 24 3/4″H x 19 1/4″ W x 13 1/4″ D and weighs 56 lbs. It can cool a room 150-250 sq. ft. relatively quickly, depending on how much heat there already is in the room.

While you may be able to find smaller models, according to customer reviews this model is the smallest that’s in any way effective at cooling a room.
Click to expand...
http://airconditionerlab.com/best-small-portable-ac-reviews/
 
DavidJ said:
This is something we tried for a season before fitting a "proper" system.
Worked very well in fact but check dimensions, ours only just fitted through the cabin door. The other constraint is it will vent through a tube through one of your windows which you have to keep open. When it rains you have to close the window and be without ac as the humidity increases. Need perhaps to knock up a diy panel to fit the window.
Click to expand...

I'm not ruling out the option of a portable if it would fit somewhere. One of my partners has an engineering company and he's confident he could fabricate a nice fitting that connects a pipe to a porthole.
 
We had a portable unit on our last boat in France. €250 from SuperU with a remote control powered from the mains. We use to plug it in and position it at the companion way so we still had max space below. It worked very well and kept below decks in the low 20s. The condensation water just flowed out the back and overboard. Don't forget that the portable unit will produce a constant flow of water from condensation. Mine had a small tank which would shut the unit down when it filled, but we never tested it's capacity. It worked like a treat and th value for money was excellent. This was all on a 10m Beneteau sail boat. We had storeage for it on board, but it was tight.

Our new boat Bavaria Sports 37HT has built in air conditioning and we are looking forward to a more permanent fix. I will let you know how good it is once we take ownership in a week. The system is all mounted under one of the beds in the rear cabin and has two outlets. Let me know if some pictures would help.
 
petem said:
I'm not ruling out the option of a portable if it would fit somewhere. One of my partners has an engineering company and he's confident he could fabricate a nice fitting that connects a pipe to a porthole.
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Perleeeese Pete. You've got a v nice boat there and it would be crazy to spoil it with a big white box that would get in the way and which you'd hate as soon as you first used the boat with it. Get a proper unit, ffs. You only need a completely hidden 16000 btu/hr selfie to get things started
 
jfm said:
Perleeeese Pete. You've got a v nice boat there and it would be crazy to spoil it with a big white box that would get in the way and which you'd hate as soon as you first used the boat with it. Get a proper unit, ffs. You only need a completely hidden 16000 btu/hr selfie to get things started
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You're very probably right and to be honest, it would probably add a couple of £k to the value of the boat so makes sense if I can find a reasonably priced permanent solution (pref <£3k fitted). Hence the q's above.
 
Well, it was maybe five years ago now, but as a benchmark the supply and fit (by Seacraft Marine) of a Dometic 16000btu all-in-one unit in my T40 cost about £3500+vat. It generally performs extremely well but has not been without its faults - the mains raw water pump failed almost immediately and was replaced under warranty, and the ac compressor failed last year and cost a few hundred quid to replace. For a low-hour unit this latter failure was very annoying and spoiled a holiday.

Others will have an opposing view on this but I'd recommend having the raw water outlet just below the waterline, to prevent annoyance to neighbours at night.
 
Yup. All comes down to choices and compromises, as ever. If you have space and budget you're better arguably with 2x 9 rather than 1x16, then those problems wouldn't stop you in a holiday. But dims of a 9 are virtually same as a 16 and you have to find space. I have 2x 60 compressors rather than 1x 120, and one has failed in the past, and the dual install allowed the show to go on. But as I say you have to make choices and compromises then hope you made the right choice

For Pete's boat it would be interesting to see whether a single 9k btu/hr unit that is inverter driven (like Portofino-itama's) could be run off a big inverter, possibly at 2/3rds output, during navigation
 
Hi Pete congratulations on your new Boat
There's a marine a/c company in Poole called Nauticool
I spoke the owner at the boat show last year about replacing my two units as their on R22 and cooling only
He mentioned he sometimes has warranty replacement units and the prices seemed very reasonable against the cost of new units, but I'm still toying with the idea of building my own this winter as component costs are a fraction of the price
My T37 has two located under the saloon settee and ducted into the saloon and both cabins
You will definitely need a/c in the med !!
 
Others will have an opposing view on this but I'd recommend having the raw water outlet just below the waterline, to prevent annoyance to neighbours at night.

I use two 12" lengths of plastic hose pushed into the outlets, they terminate just below the waterline
No water noise & no restriction on water pump pressure , just have to remember to remove them before taking the boat out
 
Adethefridge said:
There's a marine a/c company in Poole called Nauticool
I spoke the owner at the boat show last year about replacing my two units as their on R22 and cooling only
He mentioned he sometimes has warranty replacement units and the prices seemed very reasonable against the cost of new units, but I'm still toying with the idea of building my own this winter as component costs are a fraction of the price
My T37 has two located under the saloon settee and ducted into the saloon and both cabins
You will definitely need a/c in the med !!
Click to expand...

Thanks to all for the advice.

I've spoken to Dan at Marine Air Spares and he says he works closely with Nauticool who I'd corresponded with previously (they'd quoted me £2.2k for the parts including recon chiller). Apparently Nauticool have the original FL plans so know how much ducting, etc is required.

Dan's ROM was £5k fitted. I told him that my budget is £3k and he's going to see what he can do.

By the way, my boat is 'Cheery' isn't it?

20170722_153411.jpg
 
jfm said:
That makes no sense.
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LOL, thanks for pointing that out.
I was already struggling to understand what I was missing, after reading the previous post.
Yours saved me the time to try and dig further into my memories of physics... :encouragement:
 
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