paraffin heaters

[tadpole]

Does anyone have experience of small paraffin heaters on boats and who makes them. I've seen one by Compass Marine at £60. We have a 23ft boat. How efficient are they, etc? This one outputs at 2500kcal/hour - can this be expressed in watts?

 

[chippie]

Is paraffin the same as kerosene? If so, beware, as they give off moisture as a by product of combustion.

 

[roger]

Yeah moisture is bad but carbon monoxide is worse. You have to be very careful with any heater that vents combustion products to the cabin - that goes for LPG and simple hurricane lamps too.

 

[gtmoore]

Re: LPG Catalytic Heaters?

How about the LPG Catalytic heaters from Plastimo? According to the catalogue they don't give off Carbon Monoxide but they do cost a bit more and I don't know about moisture. The small one (£117.81) gives Gross capacity as 0.8kW and Nett as 0.7kW and the larger one (£130.89) as 1.35kW Gross and 1.25kW Nett although I don't profess to know what these terms mean!

They might be cheaper from a chandler - these are prices from the Plastimo catalogue I got from the Boat Show yesterday.

Regards

Gavin

 

[Guest]

Have you looked at charchole, tehy seem to work very well for small boats

Roly, Voya Con Dios, Glasson, Lancaster

 

[Mirelle]

The proper job is the Taylors' one, which uses a Primus type burner and has a flue so it vents safely outside the cabin.

These cost much more, but you can often find secondhand ones at boat jumbles and they are built to last 100 years or so.

Beware of any un-vented heater in a small boat.

 

[Footpad]

Re: Any Chemists out there?

I have been told that burning any hydrocarbon (parrafin - gas etc) produces suprisingly high quantities of water. It is a least twice possibly five times the volume of the fuel burnt; ie 1 gallon of parrafin/gas = two to five gallons of water! Any chemists out there who know the actual figures?

 

[bedouin]

Re: Any Chemists out there?

I'm a bit rusty - but if memory serves me...

Going by weight rather than volume, burning 1kg of hydrocarbon (gas, parrafin, diesel or even candles) will produce between 1.1kg and 1.5 kg of water

 

[oldharry]

Re: unvented heaters

Any heater operating an open flame produces, as has been pointed out, Carbon Monoxide (including cookers), which is a highly dangerous odourless and invisible toxic gas, which kills at only a few percent concentration. Unfortunately by the time you become aware something is wrong, you will already be too far gone to save yourself. Very soon after, you lose consciousness... Sadly this happens only too often both ashore and afloat. Briefly, Carbon monoxide inhibits the red cells in your blood from absorbing oxygen so your muscles work less aand les eficiently, while the brain, starved of oxygen starts shutting down to the point of no return. Symptoms: drowsiness, possible headache, and tiredness, with increasing lethargy - Just what you might expect after a hard day at sea anyway.

Detectors cost about £30, look and operate like smoke dectectors, alerting you long before concentrations become dangerous, and are an absolute must if you are using any form of open flame heating device on board. They are readily available from Homebase and B&Q.

Catalytic heaters work differently, and do not produce carbon monoxide, but still produce water vapour. They also burn up oxygen, so that in the confines of the cabin there is the danger of being asphyxiated by oxygen starvation, if the heater was left on overnight for example without adequate ventilation.

The only safe form of on board heating is the type that vents the combustion gases overboard, as do the Taylors, Eberspachers, Propexes and so on. The problem is these units are relatively very expensive compared to their open flame counterparts, starting at around £600 and rising to several thousands for more powerful ones, and have to be properly installed in the boat. An open flame or catalytic heater would cost from £75 or so up, and can be carried around and stowed away or left ashore when not needed.

But if you go for the cheap option you absolutely MUST have some means of alerting you to the presence of 'the invisible killer'

 

[Guest]

Re: Any Chemists out there?

don't know the exact figures, but would doubt it's anywhere near that much. Makes no difference anyway if heater is vented as combustion products vent to outside.
julie

 

[alant]

Re: unvented heaters

As with all ' hydrocarbon' based heaters, these need air(oxygen) to burn the fuel. Combustion products if fully burnt, will be water + carbon dioxide. Any problems with burning will also produce (as already mentioned) carbon monoxide. We are all aware of carbon monoxide as a killer, but carbon dioxide will also do the trick even when reasonable amounts of oxygen present. Ideally, all such heaters should take both their combustion air from an outside vent as well as venting combustion products outboard.