Do these costs seem about right?

[Boaty_Pete]

I have an Eberspacher aboard and a cheap Chinese heater in my workshop.
I understand the concern over the cheap Chinese one and would probably struggle to agree to replace my Ebby with one if it fails but the Chinese one in my garage has worked faultlessly for 3 years being used many winter evenings and weekends I've got maybe 500 hrs on it now. Hmm
I've seen the Nordkapp and think they look good. I would definitely consider one.
I'm rigged to turn the boat heating on from home, and it's a feature I'll always pursue in any boat we own, because we're often there regardless of weather.
As mentioned above, buy the Eberspacher exhaust skin fitting and insulate the exhaust internally with fibreglass sock.
I'm sure you'll find a boat engineer to fit one significantly cheaper than the broker, especially if you're happy with a supplementary fuel tank for it which may save painful messing about feeding from the main. (Depending on the boat configuration).
The bow thruster is going to take some research for the best recommendations of who to do it and will not be cheap, but you've already identified it's value. One serious argument aboard can derail all plans if the partner says 'no more'
I'd go without a windlass for a season and see how much you need it. By then you'll be in a better place to decide a lot of things.

 

[ontheplane]

Very sound advice. I think I need to find out how much labour is to install the heating and maybe do that when the boat comes out at the end of the year as it won’t be needed until the following spring…. I think I can genuinely manage without the Bowthruster as well in the Marina we’ve chosen as it’s incredibly sheltered. Like all these things, perhaps just do one job a year or something.

 

[paulbrown22]

When I bought my new to me boat last year, it came with a brand new (Chinese) HCalory heater fitted (with remote control and Bluetooth), and part of my offer was the fact I'd have to remove that obviously dubious piece of equipment and replace with a "proper" heater, as I've only ever had Webasto/Eber before.

But after year one, it's still there working perfectly and there's no way I'm spending ~£1000 to replace it! As others have said, worth checking/replacing some of the lower quality pipework/exhaust/hose clips, etc. but I've certainly lost any heater snobbery after a year of this one, given the whole unit only cost something like £80!

 

[ontheplane]

I think where the Chinese ones fall down is people worry about the safety of the exhaust etc not so much them just “breaking down” - certainly that’s what would worry me about it. How many hours do people think it would cost to fit one of these heaters from scratch roughly?

 

[ylop]

I think where the Chinese ones fall down is people worry about the safety of the exhaust etc not so much them just “breaking down” - certainly that’s what would worry me about it. How many hours do people think it would cost to fit one of these heaters from scratch roughly?

It depends on the boat. Depends how many outlets you want. A full install with 4 outlets is probably 3 man days (perhaps 2 if familiar with the boat layout etc), but if you only need a single outlet close to the heater and you can get that close to fuel, exhaust, power - you could do it 1/2 a day and have time for a cup of tea!

 

[paulbrown22]

It depends on the boat. Depends how many outlets you want. A full install with 4 outlets is probably 3 man days (perhaps 2 if familiar with the boat layout etc), but if you only need a single outlet close to the heater and you can get that close to fuel, exhaust, power - you could do it 1/2 a day and have time for a cup of tea!

Exactly, mainly depends on the mounting location for the burner unit, number of outlets required and ease of access to run all the requisite pipework through the boat to said outlets.

 

[Tranona]

Nice boat. Personally would not bother to do anything with it for the first year. It is clearly a well used boat (average around 100 hours a year) and previous owners have managed without those goodies. The anchor is fine and while a windlass is great as you can operate it from the cockpit the foredeck looks clear and well protected and a 7.5kg anchor probably with a mixed chain rope rode is not difficult to handle. A bow thruster is probably nice to have, but again it is not essential. Likewise heating is really not necessary for most of the year and perhaps only if you are using it as a country cottage on winter weekends. Even then if you are in a marina with shorepower a fan heater is a much better option. As you have discovered all three of those big things are labour intensive to fit so costs are out of sync with what you are paying for the boat and really only worth doing if you intend keeping the boat for many years to get your moneys worth.