Reverse cycle air conditioning

[nicho]

Does anyone have experience of this? If so, could you please answer a couple of questions:

1) I presume the system will run on shore power, and not only through the fitted generator - is that correct?

2) How effecient is the heating side of things - is it suitable for early and late season heating of a boat un the UK?

Many thanks.

 

[ArthurWood]

Nicho -
1) Yes
2) If the surrounding water is very cold, they are not very efficient heaters or so we found in Georgia ( US) winters where the air temp sometimes fell to -8C. We always had a backup ceramic heater. For hardy, resident UK types, taking the chill out of the cabin air might be all you need, in which case the a.c. will suffice /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Coupe]

Mike,
We have rev cycle air con in saloon and both cabins as we live aboard every 2nd weekend throughout the year.
They run on shore or genny power and they keep the boat nice an warm (mid 20c) in winter.
Our only gripe would be the position of one of the outlet vents which can be uncomfortable if you are facing towards it. Other than that - no complaints.
Mick.

 

[bdsweeting]

[ QUOTE ]
2) How effecient is the heating side of things -

[/ QUOTE ]The question of efficiency relates to the conversion of the electrical power input and the heat output. In the case of a heatpump then yes they are efficient. Roughly speaking if you put in 1kW of electrical power you could get out 3kW of heat.

Whether that 3 kW is enough to heat your boat is another matter however /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[tcm]

It's okay, but it's not cheap to heat a boat via rev cycle airco imho, both in the initial kit and in running costs. Much cheaper I believe and less racket internally is eberspacher for off-season boat heating. If you aren't going to the med you don't need airco and eberspacher might be a better and cheaper bet - it doesn't need big power. Added to this, reversed airco isn't that quick a solution for quick heat - you'd need to run airco for some considerable time to warm up the whole boat so much faster wd be a cheap fan heater - only whilst you were on boat of course. Without shorepower of course, you wd have no heating at night unless running the genny so no genny means no heat, whereas runing the ebby all night seems less inconsiderate and doesn't need a genny. But yep, airco always needs AC so genny or shorepower are the options.

edit: if have thort about it more: rev-cycle air is really for cold air not warm - cos the vents are high up, and hence rubbish for warming up the boat really, and need full blast to warm tootsies and even then not much kop give the power needed. Ebby outlets are always low down, much better for warming things ooop.

 

[markdj]

We have reverse cycle air con and use it throughout the year in sea water temps around 6-7 degrees in winter. I think 5 degrees is about the limit for providing good heat and we have no problems heating our P55 which has a large interior.

We also have installed a calorifier heating to heat the boat off the engine cooling water. This demists and heats the forward cabins too.

All of these heating systems require ducting so if we were to add a diesel heater we would add into the piping with Y joints which have flaps to direct the heat from either source.



M

 

[nicho]

Thanks Matt. The reason I ask is 'cos were going to view a boat that already has it, and the required genny fitted (by factory at the build stage) I personally would not order a new boat with it for the UK, but if it's there already, they that's fine by me!!

Thanks all for your helpful comments,

Mike N