Livaboard heating

[MtB]

1 minute ago, booke23 said:

 

I think Refleks and Newport stoves have some kind of thermocouple cutoff valve to prevent this.

 

 

I think they all have, but it takes a while for the thermocouple to cool down and release the electromagnetic valve and stop the fuel flow. 

 

Hence the flooding.

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

I think I have seen a spring loaded (spring closed) lever valve fitted in the supply pipe to oil boilers held open by a low melting point "solder" link so if the appliance did overheat the link would melt and the valve stop the supply. I think one could be retrofitted to back up any inbuilt safety cutout with the link almost touching the stove body.

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I think I have seen a spring loaded (spring closed) lever valve fitted in the supply pipe to oil boilers held open by a low melting point "solder" link so if the appliance did overheat the link would melt and the valve stop the supply. I think one could be retrofitted to back up any inbuilt safety cutout with the link almost touching the stove body.

 

Yes those are old style overheat fuel cut-offs, mandatory in oil-fired house boilers. 

 

The thermocouple is an 'underheat' fuel cut-off device, to stop the fuel flow automatically if the flame extinguishes. Unfortunately they take several seconds to respond, during which time the burner still gets fed with fuel.

[Tony Brooks]

6 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Yes those are old style overheat fuel cut-offs, mandatory in oil-fired house boilers. 

 

The thermocouple is an 'underheat' fuel cut-off device, to stop the fuel flow automatically if the flame extinguishes. Unfortunately they take several seconds to respond, during which time the burner still gets fed with fuel.

Thanks Mike, I thought we were talking about Madam not leaving her stove running when away from the boat in case it overheated. Must pay more attention.

[Puffling]

Picture of the temperatures and more significantly, humidities, throughout my boat presently. I'm using a multifuel stove, burning a combination of logs and coal.

 

As others have already said, the airflow and dry heat from an SF stove keeps condensation down. For reference, sensors 2 and 3 are near the water tank and in the engine space. Living area has a comfortable 44% to 55% humidity.

[mrsmelly]

1 hour ago, new2boat said:

 

 

Would a hurricane diesel heater be worth the money for a liveaboard?

 

  

I can answer this, its a definate yes. My last boat when I purchased it had a Hurricane as its only form of heating. It has to be said it was superb. Very fast warm up from turning on, much much better than webersploggers. I boat the boat in january with snow on the ground and moved out of marina, first night on to the cut day of purchase. Took some electric blow heaters as back up ( electrolux fitted ) It was below freezing and inside boat I was in T shirt, entire length of 68 foot boat was toasty warm ( Good instalation ) 

I had every intention of fitting a squirrel stove, I fitted it a couple of months later. The Hurricane had done thousands of hours. It was running for hot water and heating for 7 years on this boat as a full time live aboard. There was no immersion fitted until I fitted one. Reason being the bloke who built the well kitted boat was a boatyard and fleet owner that built it for himself  to live on. As diesel cost him nowt ( Hire fleet ) he simply used the Hurricane full time. I had it removed as it came to its end of life and as a secondary heat source I fitted webasto, much cheaper.

BIG thing to think about though. Diesel running costs for all heat and hot water day and night is more than solid fuel stove ticking over.

[Richard10002]

3 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Was that a blown hot air or boiler type Eber? For some reason the former seem to  be less problematic than the boiler type.  Yachts seem to typically use the blown air type.

Blown air.

 

My narrowboat has a Truma gas blown air heater, (also heats a small amount of water), which is OK, but uses a lot of gas. I use it as a back up to the Boatman stove, which has its own issues.

[cuthound]

6 hours ago, Idle Days said:

We Have a Webasto diesel heater feeding radiators and a calorifier together with a solid fuel stove in our 60ft narrowboat. We plan to get rid of the filthy solid fuel stove during the summer and replace it with a diesel bubble stove or similar. Apart from the dust and dirt generated by the stove we find it difficult to control the heat output, so it has to go.  The Webasto works reasonably well but has proved to be unreliable and very expensive to repair so we don't want to rely on it for a main heating source. 

 

Before getting an oil drip stove make sure you know how to clean and service them.

 

When I bought my boat 8 years ago it came with a non functioning in Kabola Old Dutch oil drip stove, which is almost identical to the more popular Refleks stove. I couldn't find anyone to service it for me, so found that I had to learn how to do it myself. 

 

 @koukouvagia has written an excellent post on servicing this type of stove and I have written a couple of posts about my experience. There is also a Refleks Stove Facebook group that is very helpful.

 

Once you understand how they work and how to maintain them, they are clean, controllable and reliable. The blowing out in winds issue raised by MtB is easily resolved by using an H cowl on the flue or the Kabola equivalent which is a bit like an inverted can on the top of the chimney 

 

@koukouvagia

[blackrose]

2 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

Blown air.

 

My narrowboat has a Truma gas blown air heater

 

Well, we've all got problems....

[peterboat]

4 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Before getting an oil drip stove make sure you know how to clean and service them.

 

When I bought my boat 8 years ago it came with a non functioning in Kabola Old Dutch oil drip stove, which is almost identical to the more popular Refleks stove. I couldn't find anyone to service it for me, so found that I had to learn how to do it myself. 

 

 @koukouvagia has written an excellent post on servicing this type of stove and I have written a couple of posts about my experience. There is also a Refleks Stove Facebook group that is very helpful.

 

Once you understand how they work and how to maintain them, they are clean, controllable and reliable. The blowing out in winds issue raised by MtB is easily resolved by using an H cowl on the flue or the Kabola equivalent which is a bit like an inverted can on the top of the chimney 

 

@koukouvagia

My Bubble has never blown out it has a flap in the back, balanced flu which seems to sort it 

[cuthound]

1 minute ago, peterboat said:

My Bubble has never blown out it has a flap in the back, balanced flu which seems to sort it 

 

Same here, it has a flap on the back of the stove, which once correctly adjusted and in conjunction with the chimney cowl seems to prevent high winds from either blowing the stove out or running away.

[ditchcrawler]

4 minutes ago, peterboat said:

My Bubble has never blown out it has a flap in the back, balanced flu which seems to sort it 

My Dickinson has gone out when exiting a tunnel when I have had the chimney off or sometimes when its very windy and the burner set low, going under a low bridge

[Peanut]

You might like to look at the Planar heater, same as MV from MV heating.  No connection, blown air and water heating.

[IanD]

Maybe it should be pointed out that plenty of people on land only have one type of domestic heating (gas, oil, electric, solid fuel) and don't have any real problems with not having a backup?

 

But then domestic gas and oil (to compare to onboard diesel) CH systems are designed for the job to run every day all year, are built with (relatively!) reliable and suitable components, and rarely break down as a consequence -- and when they do, there are plenty of people who can fix them (at hopefully reasonable cost) because there are millions of these systems out there.

 

The most common diesel heaters on boats (Webasto, Eberspacher and the like) are not, they're often adapted from truck heaters which are not designed for continuous "domestic heating" duty, and even the boat-targeted ones are not really designed to be used every day for months on end -- never mind the problems of short-cycling. So it's not surprising that they can be unreliable (and expensice to fix), hence the oft-repeated requirement to have a second heating system.

 

The Hurricane diesel heater does have a better reputation, and it is designed for continuous-duty applications -- IIRC it was targeted at log cabins in Canada, where it's quite important that it doesn't break down in winter. But it's also a lot more expensive than the Webbys/Ebbys so almost all UK boaters go for the cheap option. Also if it does break down (or needs servicing) spares are neither cheap or easily available (all custom Hurricane parts), and neither are engineers who are familiar with it who can diagnose and fix any problems.

 

The right way to solve this problem is to do it properly, and put together a relatively small (about a one foot cube?) diesel-fuelled boiler using the same types of components that domestic oil CH systems use, so you end up with something which is not only reliable but can be diagnosed and fixed by any domestic oil CH engineer using widely available and low-cost parts. It's what I will be using, with no backup -- except I guess electric fan heaters, OK in a short-term emergency (with 9kVA onboard genny).

 

However I don't know how much this would cost as an off-the-shelf system (probably not cheap...) and I don't know whether the boatyard would be willing to supply and support it separately rather than fitting it to a boat like mine that they're building. I suspect the conclusion might be that it's too much hassle -- but I can ask next time I speak to them, if anyone is interested? 😉

[David Mack]

26 minutes ago, IanD said:

The right way to solve this problem is to do it properly, and put together a relatively small (about a one foot cube?) diesel-fuelled boiler using the same types of components that domestic oil CH systems use, so you end up with something which is not only reliable but can be diagnosed and fixed by any domestic oil CH engineer using widely available and low-cost parts.

Domestic oil fired central heating boilers use forced air burners which are bought in by the boiler manufacturers. So a bespoke boat-sized boiler either needs a mini sized forced air burner, which is probably not available due to the small market size, or the standard sized unit would need to be under-run. Which would make the unit disproportionately large and expensive. 

It would end up something like the Heritage Uno.

Edited February 12, 2022 by David Mack

[MtB]

12 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Domestic oil fired central heating boilers use forced air burners which are bought in by the boiler manufacturers. So a bespoke boat-sized boiler either needs a mini sized forced air burner, which is probably not available due to the small market size, or the standard sized unit would need to be under-run. Which would make the unit disproportionately large and expensive. 

It would end up something like the Heritage Uno.

 

And I doubt any of them will run on 12Vdc.

[ditchcrawler]

51 minutes ago, IanD said:

Maybe it should be pointed out that plenty of people on land only have one type of domestic heating (gas, oil, electric, solid fuel) and don't have any real problems with not having a backup? 

During this winters storms with no electricity many wished that did have a back

[IanD]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Domestic oil fired central heating boilers use forced air burners which are bought in by the boiler manufacturers. So a bespoke boat-sized boiler either needs a mini sized forced air burner, which is probably not available due to the small market size, or the standard sized unit would need to be under-run. Which would make the unit disproportionately large and expensive. 

It would end up something like the Heritage Uno.

 

Given that I've seen said boiler in the workshop ready to be installed in a boat, I don't think it's a figment of my imagination -- I described exactly what it was and what I was told about it, and from memory it's maybe a bit more than a foot on a side but I didn't measure it -- it will certainly sit on the swim with room to spare. I doubt that it costs more than a Hurricane but it's all bundled into the boat price so I wouldn't swear to that... 😉

47 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

And I doubt any of them will run on 12Vdc.

 

Given the electrical system on the boat I suspect it's either 24V or 230Vac, I didn't ask. And yes, there are two sources of 230Vac (for redundancy), inverter and generator... 😉

Edited February 12, 2022 by IanD

[IanD]

28 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

During this winters storms with no electricity many wished that did have a back

True -- but my point was that it's no more (or less) essential on a boat than in a house, if the system is properly designed to run day-in day-out. For most people in houses lack of heating isn't the most immediate problem in a power cut...

 

As I also said, in my particular case I will have an emergency backup anyway, but not one for everyday use... 😉

Edited February 12, 2022 by IanD

[Tracy D'arth]

19 hours ago, peterboat said:

My Bubble has never blown out it has a flap in the back, balanced flu which seems to sort it 

Its not a balanced flue, its a draught diverter.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

During this winters storms with no electricity many wished that did have a back

 

Very true.

 

One reason we had our MF stove put in four years ago was our total reliance on gas heating supplied by combi boiler which doesn't work when the leccy goes off. We can still cook on our gas hob but have to light it manually and could even cook on the stove at a push.

 

The drive to heating homes by one sole source is an error IMHO. Especially in rural areas.

[Ex Brummie]

A domestic type pressure jet boiler might well be suited to a wide beam, but there are drawbacks to their use on smaller systems. Bubble did make a small PJ boiler, but with a small load it came up to temperature very quickly and cut off, shortly after it would restart as cooler water came back, but the ones I commissioned never really brought the boat up to temperature, as the pre purge and post purge operations circulated cold water.

There are also problems with small pressure jet boilers running on diesel, requiring a high pressure through the nozzle, and a preheater in the nozzle supply, otherwise you get poor/non ignition and very dirty electrodes and nozzles. The higher combustion temperatures require good design in the flue system to stop the blast tube disintegrating.

[IanD]

53 minutes ago, Ex Brummie said:

A domestic type pressure jet boiler might well be suited to a wide beam, but there are drawbacks to their use on smaller systems. Bubble did make a small PJ boiler, but with a small load it came up to temperature very quickly and cut off, shortly after it would restart as cooler water came back, but the ones I commissioned never really brought the boat up to temperature, as the pre purge and post purge operations circulated cold water.

There are also problems with small pressure jet boilers running on diesel, requiring a high pressure through the nozzle, and a preheater in the nozzle supply, otherwise you get poor/non ignition and very dirty electrodes and nozzles. The higher combustion temperatures require good design in the flue system to stop the blast tube disintegrating.

All I can go by is what I was told, by a boatbuilder that I trust (who seems to do properly engineered boat systems and not cut corners) and who has these working reliably in boats out there -- apart from that I didn't ask for details of exactly what was inside, all I know is roughly how big the heater is, and the description I gave.

 

It sounds like it's vaguely similar to the Hurricane but built from standard components widely available in the UK rather than expensive custom ones imported from Canada... 😉

 

I plan to ask for more details once the boat shell build starts shortly, other things are more important right now...

Edited February 12, 2022 by IanD

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

All I can go by is what I was told, by a boatbuilder that I trust (who seems to do properly engineered boat systems and not cut corners) and who has these working reliably in boats out there -- apart from that I didn't ask for details of exactly what was inside, all I know is roughly how big the heater is, and the description I gave.

 

It sounds like it's vaguely similar to the Hurricane but built from standard components widely available in the UK rather than expensive custom ones imported from Canada... 😉

 

I plan to ask for more details once the boat shell build starts shortly, other things are more important right now...

Maybe this Post - Smart Line Marine Boilers - Ocean Footprint

 

[Tony Brooks]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Maybe this Post - Smart Line Marine Boilers - Ocean Footprint

 

 

Sounds too good to be true and I note no electrical consumption or indicative price given that I could see.