cheap cabin heating advice please

Geoff Enigma said:
Mine has a log burner which was fitted by the previous owner when I first got the boat I thought that’s coming out but after spending a few spring nights and working on the boat through the winter it is perfect. I usually burn a couple of charcoal brickets or lump wood charcoal which warms the boat up nice its also dry heat. I think the one on mine came from machine mart as I saw one a while ago for about £60.
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Things like that are great, provided you can sort the chimney away from sails, rigging etc, and you don't end up too close to other boats.

You still need to be a bit careful regarding carbon mon, just because there is a flue, does not mean all the CO will obediently go up the flue. Quite often the worst CO production can be a smouldering fire, such as when you let it die down at bedtime. If the wind tends to work against the flue, it can be deadly, as sailing yachts tend to have inherently poor ventilation.
 
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lw395 said:
Things like that are great, provided you can sort the chimney away from sails, rigging etc, and you don't end up too close to other boats.

You still need to be a bit careful regarding carbon mon, just because there is a flue, does not mean all the CO will obediently go up the flue. Quite often the worst CO production can be a smouldering fire, such as when you let it die down at bedtime. If the wind tends to work against the flue, it can be deadly, as sailing yachts tend to have inherently poor ventilation.
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and if all that sounds too scary

first try six tealights on a plate

they cost a penny each from Ikea

KISS
 
Geoff Enigma said:
Mine has a log burner which was fitted by the previous owner when I first got the boat I thought that’s coming out but after spending a few spring nights and working on the boat through the winter it is perfect. I usually burn a couple of charcoal brickets or lump wood charcoal which warms the boat up nice its also dry heat. I think the one on mine came from machine mart as I saw one a while ago for about £60.
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I really like that, looks just the job...
 
Tealight candles give out about 25 watts of heat each, so 6 on a plate gives you 200 watts of heat, thats about the same as 2 people, so you could just have a party onboard and invite lots of friends over, 20 people and you have 2 kw of heating for free !! :)
 
TopDonkey said:
Tealight candles give out about 25 watts of heat each, so 6 on a plate gives you 200 watts of heat, thats about the same as 2 people, so you could just have a party onboard and invite lots of friends over, 20 people and you have 2 kw of heating for free !! :)
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Trouble is, the party animals probably give out a similar amount of water vapour to the tealights, per watt hour of heat.
I think a tealight probably gives off twice its own mass in water, it does not sound a lot, but it is a lot in terms of promoting condensation and mildew. Half the battle with heating is damp. If the air is damp, you need it to be a lot warmer to be comfortable.
 
One of the cheapest sources of dry, safe heat for a boat is a second hand Propex heater using Propane which is better in cold weather-these go for about £200 on e bay. The older basic ones put out about 1500W of warm blown air controlled by a thermostat and which soon heats up a small/medium sized boat.
 
I bought this second hand in the for sale section of this forum - needed and strip and clean otherwise great - make not so relevant as the style and simplicity. Fuel tank is behind the bulkhead and gravity feeds.

uses Diesel - dry heat and lots of it - they come up for sale fairly regularly ... a good way to cheap dry heat. It has a double skin flue above deck so you can't scald yourself or burn the sails. (ignore the slight offset in the flue I needed to make it penetrate the deck in the right spot to avoid obstructions)
 
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lw395 said:
Things like that are great, provided you can sort the chimney away from sails, rigging etc, and you don't end up too close to other boats.

You still need to be a bit careful regarding carbon mon, just because there is a flue, does not mean all the CO will obediently go up the flue. Quite often the worst CO production can be a smouldering fire, such as when you let it die down at bedtime. If the wind tends to work against the flue, it can be deadly, as sailing yachts tend to have inherently poor ventilation.
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I understand that and have checked for CO. I have also fitted a CO alarm and use small amounts of least smoke fuel and always have vents open and its out before sleeping. Its mainly used through the day when not sailing just when working. Through the night we usually use electric heating but the original poster was asking about heating without shore power.
 
Space, the final obstacle...

Geoff Enigma said:
Mine has a log burner which was fitted by the previous owner when I first got the boat I thought that’s coming out but after spending a few spring nights and working on the boat through the winter it is perfect. I usually burn a couple of charcoal brickets or lump wood charcoal which warms the boat up nice its also dry heat. I think the one on mine came from machine mart as I saw one a while ago for about £60.
Click to expand...

So for the thousands of Centaur (&c.) owners, its a choice between a 'fridge, a wood burner or crew :0(
 
I bought an Eberspacher of ebay and fitted it myself. It doesn't drain the batteries too much if you have them well topped up. It was very little work to install and could be done while swinging. We didn't run it all night when first installed but it got quite cold in the middle of the night. We now leave it on a low setting overnight and give a blast in the morning. We had tried various alternatives in the past. A Tilley light gives off a fair heat along with a few candles. Overall though none compare to the ebby.
 
Stimulated by the discussions and the vapalux recommendation, i dug my old coleman powerhouse 295 out of the garage. after a clean up, a blow through with some fresh petrol its working fine and it throws out an enormous amount of heat - easily as much as a small fan heater. i've only ever used it for fishing (many years ago) so wasn't aware of the heat, but wth that, two bog standard hurricane lamps and the decorative gimballed oil lamp that SWMBO wanted i'm going to try winter sailing!
 
We use a "Corona" parafin heater. It is a modern bit of kit, can be bought for £130.00 ish and works great. We have a Honeywell control CO meter just above where it is sited when in use. It has never gone off. Worth a google, but ensure you dont get the boost model that requires 240v.
 
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