Under floor heating

[umpire111]

Can anyone give me advice whether electric under floor heating is feasible. This would be used when the boat is on shoreline. 

Tx

[Kingdom Isambard Brunel]

3 minutes ago, umpire111 said:

Can anyone give me advice whether electric under floor heating is feasible. This would be used when the boat is on shoreline. 

Tx

If you have electricity at a quarter of the price most of us pay then great. Otherwise find a cheaper way of warming the fish. Get a solid fuel stove, you know it makes sense.

[mrsmelly]

27 minutes ago, umpire111 said:

Can anyone give me advice whether electric under floor heating is feasible. This would be used when the boat is on shoreline. 

Tx

I reckon it could work well? If multi fuel stoves were not available I may consider it myself.

[stegra]

If the bollard has a 16a trip you won't get much heat, especially if you're likely to use electric kettle, toaster, microwave, vacuum or additional heaters etc at the same time. It also needs to be well insulated underneath which could be tricky on a boat. 

[Kingdom Isambard Brunel]

It has been done. I know the boat. It was moored here last winter and the electric bill was frightening. A electric boat but it didn't move all winter, the bill was just the heating to prevent frost damage.

Suffice it to say, the boat is up for sale or sold I believe.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Boater Sam
added more

[Onewheeler]

It might be feasible if installed as an adjunct to a stove, and would make the boat feel very comfortable. Easier to fit on a new build. Maybe just fit it up the middle 1 m of the boat (assuming a narrowboat) as the edges are usually furniture. The ballast goes up the edges. Build a Celotex wall to separate the centre section from the ballast area, and line the baseplate with Celotex.

 

Typcial heating mat is 150 - 200 W/m^2. 50 mm Celotex has an R-value of 2.25 m^2 K / W so a deltaT of say 40 K water to heat mat would only lose about 17 W/m^2 to the water, anything left would warm your feet. 10 m^2 of 150 W/m^2 would therefore put over 1300 W into the boat. Not enough to keep it fully heated but it would certainly make the boat feel more comfortable.

 

Domestic underfloor relies on a low heat input over a large area. A narrowboat is only the area of a small room in a house.

[nipper]

Thats the first thing i took out of Largo!

It has no place in anyboat, especially mine!

If one wants the bathroom tiles warmed, pour some hot water on em!

 

Nipper

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Onewheeler said:

It might be feasible if installed as an adjunct to a stove, and would make the boat feel very comfortable. Easier to fit on a new build. Maybe just fit it up the middle 1 m of the boat (assuming a narrowboat) as the edges are usually furniture. The ballast goes up the edges. Build a Celotex wall to separate the centre section from the ballast area, and line the baseplate with Celotex.

 

Typcial heating mat is 150 - 200 W/m^2. 50 mm Celotex has an R-value of 2.25 m^2 K / W so a deltaT of say 40 K water to heat mat would only lose about 17 W/m^2 to the water, anything left would warm your feet. 10 m^2 of 150 W/m^2 would therefore put over 1300 W into the boat. Not enough to keep it fully heated but it would certainly make the boat feel more comfortable.

 

Domestic underfloor relies on a low heat input over a large area. A narrowboat is only the area of a small room in a house.

 

41 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

I reckon it could work well? If multi fuel stoves were not available I may consider it myself.

I have seen one with water based underfloor heating system which worked well