Heating a small wooden boat

Thanks for correcting me. This had slipped off my radar!


Probably a superior solution to the small boat than the Cozy as it is self contained. That is the advantage of my Victory. Although I have a Taylors cooker, the additional piping (not to mention cost) of using one of their heaters was not justified for the amount of use it gets.
 
It has the makings of a humorous retort, however the forums suffer from a certain lack of subtlety and what was in your mind at the time of writing sometimes doesn't come across well.

The smiley icons, whilst a bit naff, do help express your intention /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Pat I have an ugly but practical plastic boat and have had similar heating needs, though probably more of a condensation issue than you will have. I've done a lot of research on the fora. The Coleman Black Cat is supplied by camping shops or on line for about 35 quid plus disposable gas canister. It has a catalyser and so burns without exposed flame. It warms my westerly Pageant ( roomy23ft). I think this is a great low cost solution. If you will consider a chimney Dickinson of the USA will supply an attractive solid fuel heater with chimney etc. There is a great exchange rate at the moment which means the delivered, new price is about 250 pounds, complete. Other forumites have used a variety of cheap gas or parrafin heaters and simply encased them in a pipe and put a chimney above. Hope this helps.
 
No-one has yet mentioned a wall mounted gimballed parafin lamp. Heat & light together. OK so not much of either, But I find I can use it with the hatch closed if I fill it with Lamp oil, which is deodorised.

Nauticalia sell one for about £30 like this . Finnish quality is not brilliant, but mine still looks OK after about 20 years (on two boats). You will still need your thermals, jumpers & hot toddy - but that's part of the fun. I wouldn't leave mine on overnight but not had a problem so far using it all evening.

Image048.jpg

That's it, centre left, with the heat shade.
 
I lived for a year on a 27 ft wooden gaffer, and I had a potbelly stove as the main form of heating, still available for around £60 (plus VAT) from Machine Mart (try Google).

Absolutely brilliant heater- cleared condensation (because of the updraught through the chimney), cheap to run( I kept a few 10 Kg bags of coal in the bilges but hardly ever used them, I used to go ashore and collect driftwood, a good mix with a bit of coal).

It was possible to sail with the stove alight, providing you had a chimney cowl which could point away from them wind.
Only problem was I had to clean the chimney regularly. I used a 70mm bit of cast iron drain pipe, and I cleaned it by running a bit of chain up and down.

I used to sail in winter and sitting in the saloon in a T shirt with ice on the deck was a common occurrence. You have to watch iron stoves - if you feed them too much they start to glow red. There is no problem making a hole in the deck for a chimney, as the heat does not spread far. It is easy to arrange an insulator from the pipe to the deck.
You have to watch the interior fitting - I put ceramic tiles against the bulkhead, and had no problems. A spacing of at least 3 or 4 inches between the timber and the stove should be alright.
These stoves are small, and if you take the legs off can be fitted easily on most yachts. I would not consider saiing a yacht for long periods without a solid-fuel stove.
 
I lived for a year on a 27 ft wooden gaffer, and I had a potbelly stove as the main form of heating, still available for around £60 (plus VAT) from Machine Mart (try Google).

Absolutely brilliant heater- cleared condensation (because of the updraught through the chimney), cheap to run( I kept a few 10 Kg bags of coal in the bilges but hardly ever used them, I used to go ashore and collect driftwood, a good mix with a bit of coal).

It was possible to sail with the stove alight, providing you had a chimney cowl which could point away from them wind.
Only problem was I had to clean the chimney regularly. I used a 70mm bit of cast iron drain pipe, and I cleaned it by running a bit of chain up and down.

I used to sail in winter and sitting in the saloon in a T shirt with ice on the deck was a common occurrence. You have to watch iron stoves - if you feed them too much they start to glow red. There is no problem making a hole in the deck for a chimney, as the heat does not spread far. It is easy to arrange an insulator from the pipe to the deck.
You have to watch the interior fitting - I put ceramic tiles against the bulkhead, and had no problems. A spacing of at least 3 or 4 inches between the timber and the stove should be alright.
These stoves are small, and if you take the legs off can be fitted easily on most yachts. I would not consider saiing a yacht for long periods without a solid-fuel stove.
As with all heaters, I would not go sleep without ensuring adequate ventilation.
 
I'm having a wood heater fabricated for me.Im in BC Canada.The winters here are wet ,cold, and often multiple feet of snow.
Anyway it is 10 inches by 10 inches by 12 inches...rectangular with dual doors on one end 3/8 plate steel.One door flips up the other down but locks in place to catch falling ash....this way it is easy to load and clean.There is a wood tray that is simple to empty.The doors shut to create an airtight burning environment...the fuel is press logs or wood or coal.I prefer presslogs....10 inch logs made of compressed sawdust with no other additives.
The cost is 89 cents for one log and it will burn for 10-12 hrs.
The stove pipe is three feet of stainless with a cap.The deck flange is also an important piece of stainless.Behind it is a piece of stainless attached to fire board.All together the cost so far is around 400 bucks.I havent got the deck flange yet.That will be around 100 bucks.So for under 600 canadian or around 300 pounds you should be able to get someone to fabricate one for you and scrounge the stainless bits of pipe etc.It will heat my 36 Uniflite to cozy cozy warmth.

past winters Ive tried electricity and gas but I dont like either.
Their is SOOO much water in gas its not funny.Using gas or LP puts tons of moisture into your cabin along with the heat....and with electricity you are never really freezing but you are always struggling to keep warm.

So in a few days hopefully by New years I will be able to bask around the cabin in my shorts while I watch it snow
 
I take it that this is the stove you used?

090310030.jpg


If so, when you took the legs off, what did it look like, and how did you mount it? If you have some photos it would be great to see them.

Thanks.
 
That's the one, and as I mentioned are readily available from various suppliers at low cost. The legs unscrew, so to save space I mounted it directly onto a sort of shelf, with the wooden bulkhead to "rear" (ie forward of the stove which faced aft), and a wooden face to the port side (the side of a locker). The wooden surfaces were covered with ordinary ceramic wall tiles, which protected the wood very well from any possibility of charing. If thet get wet the iron starts to flake off, but it would take years for this to become significant. I used a mixture of soot and linseed oil as a stoveblacking. You know when the chimney needs clearing as the smoke won't escape, so you hop up an deck and riddle a bit of chain through the chimney to clear it. The stove also has a top plate which you could cook on. I never did that as there was no fiddle to hold the pan or kettle safely, but it would be easy to make one. I am afraid I don't have any pictures ( I sold the boat in 1996), but I still think they are the best stoves around for the cost, and an absolute life saver between September and spring .
 
Hi Pat

I have a home made stove on White Heather (45 ft lugger) which was on board 18 years ago when I bought her. I run it on peat briquets (may not be a popular statement) which are pretty clean and convenient to store and burn and reduce to white powder when spent. I would not be without this stove for anything, it transforms life on the boat.
Its possible you could have your local blacksmith knock something up for you? I could happily talk to you about shape and size etc if helpful. I once had my local blacksmith make me a stove for my workshop out of some stainless steel pipe about 14 inches in dia that I found in a skip!
As an alternative I dont think anyone has mentioned the Tilley Lamp. Pressure parafin I have two on board and I recon apart from producing a brilliant light they also output around 1.5 Kw of heat. Probably quite enough for your boat? They can be found on ebay and are quite simply a brilliant device.
Contact me by PM or email if you need more detail.

Best regards

Mike
 
GouldS in ebrington street PLYMOUTH supply ex wd BI ALLADDIN pressure paraffin lamps brand new still boxed,£30 BUY TWO SALWAYS USE SHADE SUPPLIED. PUT ON ON FLOOR FOR HEAT AND ONE HANG UP FOR LIGHT. THEY DO NEED A LTTLE MAINTENANCE BUT ONLY A LITTLE AND CONDENSATION CAN BE A PROBLEM BUT THAT WILL ALWAYS BE THE CASE WITH THIS TYPE OF FUELS. FOR DRY HEAT YOU NEED A PANSY OR SIMILAR CHARCOAL HEATER. I SHALL BE EXPERIMENTIG WITH THE COBB GRIL AND WILL REPORT BACK DRECKLY. DRECKLY HAS THE EXACT MEANING AS THE MEXICAN MANANA BUT WITHOUT THE SAME SENSE OF URGENCY. FALMAN
 
Daveyjones
Hi, I am also looking for a solid fuel stove to heat my 21 foot boat. Am interested in the Pot belly stove and wanted to know whether when you installed yours did you just tile onto a wood base or onto some sort of millboard for insulation and then bolt the stove down through the tiles or have some other way of fixing the stove down.

Also does anyone know how to get a deck flange that doesn't cost just as much as the stove does?

Thanks
 
Hello everyone, and a happy new year to all. I have just returned from a splendid holiday with my children and I am very pleased to see so many good ideas. Far too many for me to be able to respond to each individual, but one point that I would like to comment about if I may.
AuntyBrett, my children have done a wonderful job in relation to my being a little uptight, it was one of their tasks I believe.

Mr Spars, please accept my profound apology, I have found my sense of humour after many years of being what my son loosely termed, a humourless old fart.
Please meet the new, more relaxed, Pat Latham
 
As promised I can now add initial impression of Cobb premier grill which my dear Father in Law bought for me as a sixtyith birthday present. An unqualified success. Ensure adequate ventilation , obviosly, light the beast in the cockpit and transfer below when charcoal achieves grey colour. I spent three days cruising the Fal alone (plus Blue Merle Collie) and grill was alight all through waking hours and kept us both warm. Unreservedly reccommended. Falman
 
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