keeping warm at night

[Guest]

Just starting out new life of living aboard. What do people do for keeping warm during the night whilst asleep (NO NAUGHTY SUGESTIONS) i'm ok with that.
We have a deisel heater ESP, is it safe to leave it on all night? do realise it will use the battery for the blower. Does any one have alternative suggestions? we will be spending winters around this Country for a while. we will at times be in marinas but also up the creeks.
ALSO, our home is a cat any suggestions on how to feed the air pipes through to the opposite side of the boat, hope this doesnt sound stupid i know what i mean.
Many thanks for any & all advice. e address available if helpfull.

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[Gerry]

One simple trick is to put a duvet UNDER the bottom sheet as well asone on top of you. It is amazing how much warmer the nights are!

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[heerenleed]

It is not enough to keep yourself warm at nicht. You must keep the boat warm, otherwise condensation will be streaming down everywhere in the morning. And yes, it is perfectly safe fo keep your diesel heater on at night, use a thermostate, and you can turn it down some degrees at night. If you have a modern heater the use of current is not that bad. Of course, your batteries must be up to the job.

If you do not have a heater yet, you might consider two small units for your cat instead of one larger.

Happy sailing

<hr width=100% size=1>Peter a/b SV Heerenleed, Steenbergen, Netherlands

 

[DavidJ]

If you're in a marina then a small oil filled radiator will keep things cosy. Don't go for fan heaters (I did) which tend to make the cabin airless and stuffy even when turned down low.
David

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[jeanette]

I don't run the heater all night so I find that a hot water bottle works wonders. Use it to warm up the duvet or bag a couple of hours before you climb in, then refill it before you go to bed.

<hr width=100% size=1>Jeanette

 

[MAURICE]

Ive just put an ebers. diesel heater on my boat I am a bit concerned about leaving it on all night. The exhaust pipe seems to be very hot as does the piping immediatly around the hot air blower.
Is this normal???


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[AndrewB]

Insulation.

For me, really good insulation above the water-line is the answer. Not only is it key to stopping condensation, the real bugbear of living aboard in winter, but it goes a long way to solving the heat problem. There is only a small volume of air in a yacht cabin, and other than in the coldest spells body heat will do a pretty good job of keeping it tolerably warm at nights.

Some ventilation is essential of course, but I've found it can be kept to a minimum overnight without ill effects.

As the sea is generally warmer than the air in winter, the insulation can stop at water-level. This system works well in summer too, keeping the yacht a little cooler than outside in daytime.


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[temptress]

I've lived on board 2 boats in Northern climes. A Sigma 362 and a SO 47 (Current boat). The first time we wintered in OSLO and we have also spent 2 winters onboard I the UK. I have to say that the med is a better option for the winter although we did have snow in Barcelona last year!

On both boats I had a EBS which i over sized.

We found that if we kept fresh (outside) air flowing through and around the boat we had no condensation problems but I needed to generate extra heat for this - hence the oversized heaters. We still has some condensation around the harch and window frames but this was minor and our lockers stayed dry. Airflow is the key and we spent a lot of time making sure our lockers are well vented.

I have experimented with running the heater all night or switching it off - I found in Scandinavia (at -30 or so) I HAD to keep the heater on all the time. But remember these things are designed to be run all the time anyway and they just keep going
as long as there is Power and fuel. I even got used to the noise of the outlets and forgot it was on.On the colder nights we used a 'hot water bottle' to keep the bed warm and also used an under duvet as has also been suggested elsewhere here.

In the UK we found that we did not need to run the heater all night and installed a 'timer' switch that turned the unit on about 1/2 an hour before we needed to get up to warm the boat up.

Again I find that as long as I keep air flowinf through the boat (even if it is a small ammount) I have few condensation problems. Although interestingly I think we suffer from more condensation in the UK than we did in the much colder but dryer scandinavian winters.

Good luck,

Kevin & Susie Harris
Temptress Of Down
Southsea Marina
Portsmouth

<hr width=100% size=1>Temptress of Down