Hot weather

[sueb]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

[Top cat]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

We find that keeping moving during the heat of the day helps. Our porthole glasses are removable and that helps too as does the houdini hatch. So far we have kept comfortable.

 

Regards

 

TC

[Phil Ambrose]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

 

We are lucky enough to be on a really secure mooring and we are simply able to leave doors and windows open.

 

Phil

[matty40s]

keep the curtains on the sunny side closed and open all windows and doors on the shaded side if possible. Keep any perishable foods in the lower kitchen cupboards as the water will keep these cooler. Make sure your fridge has room to breath, pull out slightly if possible to give more air behind. drink water and juice not tea and coffee, (and not beer until at least beer o'clock.)

[Lady Muck]

Those reflective foil padded thingies for car widscreens - you can pick em up cheap in the £1 shop sometimes. I've a full set which I cut to size for the windows. On the sunny side - foil in the windows, windows closed, blinds drawn, on the shady side, windows open.

 

Otherwise, move and moor in a cutting!

[carlt]

Wooden boats don't suffer from the extreme temperature changes, that metal boats seem to.

 

On really hot days, though, we'd move the boat under the big oak tree.

[blackrose]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

If I've got bow and stern doors and at least one set of side doors open its fine. At my mooring I use a big desk fan.

My boat should be bad because the cabin sides are black, but a friend on a NB says his boat is worse because you're never more than about two and a half ft from a wall.

I'm sure covering the windows woukd help reduce heat coming in, but it also reduces ventilation and makes it a bit gloomy onboard. I've also seen boats with reflective film on the windows but I wouldn't fancy it with limited natural light in winter.

Edited June 29, 2009 by blackrose

[granddad]

to keep some air coming in as I move along I use flowerpots in the portholes. Cut the side out of a plastic flower pot. Push the flowerpot out thru the porthole. Turn the flowerpot hole to face ford. The boat movement pulls air into the hole and into the fpot which pumps the breeze into the boat.

 

Its an old sailors trick to get a breeze in the red sea. But there we used a steel waste bin with a hole in the side.

ken

[carlt]

Put your Ecofan on the fridge and it will work in reverse, circulating the cool air around the boat.

[blackrose]

to keep some air coming in as I move along I use flowerpots in the portholes. Cut the side out of a plastic flower pot. Push the flowerpot out thru the porthole. Turn the flowerpot hole to face ford. The boat movement pulls air into the hole and into the fpot which pumps the breeze into the boat.

 

Its an old sailors trick to get a breeze in the red sea. But there we used a steel waste bin with a hole in the side.

ken

I'm not sure there's really an issue while the boat is moving because there's airflow and most people would be out on deck anyway.

Its more of a problem on a steel boat when you're static - moored up without shade.

[NBMike]

Put your Ecofan on the fridge and it will work in reverse, circulating the cool air around the boat.

[NB Alnwick]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

 

If the heat becomes a problem even when the curtain are draw over your windows or ports, it could be a symptom of inadequate insulation - it works both ways

 

Oddly we were issued with a warning during our BSS exam regarding inadequate low level ventilation, yet when it is warm there is always a nice cool draught blowing round our feet from the bilge vents - we don't really notice it in winter but it is very welcome in the summer . . .

[GUMPY]

How do you keep your boat cool? Are portholes better or worse than windows? Any hints and tips?

Sue

 

I just turn the aircon on

Fitted it after the last hot summer, in this weather its best £600 I ever spent.

 

As an alternative just hose down the boat with water it drops the temp inside by a lot.

I did look at building a system that pumped canal water through a heat exchanger with a fan and then let it flow over the roof along the lines of these:

http://www.gmilburn.ca/2005/06/14/homebrew-air-conditioning/

[Timleech]

I just turn the aircon on

Fitted it after the last hot summer, in this weather its best £600 I ever spent.

 

As an alternative just hose down the boat with water it drops the temp inside by a lot.

 

 

Yes, use canal (or river) water though, don't waste tap water. A small submersible bilge pump rigged to a length of hose should do the trick

 

Tim

 

Edited to add that usual precautions with canal water should apply, keep it out of open cuts etc.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Timleech

[Jamboat]

Paint your roof cream.

[nb Innisfree]

No need to build a heat exchanger when you've already got one in the guise of a bottom plate, install a computer fan(s) in the floor and switch on, hopefully cool air from bilges.

 

Would draping desert cammo nets over the outside make an appreciable difference?

[Proper Job]

Stand on the roof and enjoy the sunshine

 

We'll all soon be moaning about the cold/ice/being frozen it

[Albion]

I just turn the aircon on

Fitted it after the last hot summer, in this weather its best £600 I ever spent.

 

snipped

 

Out of interest Julian, do you happen to know the Btu output of your air con and the size of room it's cooling please?

Roger

[GUMPY]

Out of interest Julian, do you happen to know the Btu output of your air con and the size of room it's cooling please?

Roger

From memory its either 5200 or 7000Btu/h and draws 910w when running

Room is 4m x 3.5m x 2.2m but if the boat is shut up it will cool the next rooms as well to some degree.

Its one of the electrolux/dometic ones that sits on the roof

[Albion]

From memory its either 5200 or 7000Btu/h and draws 910w when running

Room is 4m x 3.5m x 2.2m but if the boat is shut up it will cool the next rooms as well to some degree.

Its one of the electrolux/dometic ones that sits on the roof

 

Ta, that's encouraging for the 12,000 Btu/hr stand-alone unit that we've bought for the French barge with a room size a little larger than you've quoted due to the inclusion of the galley into the same cabin space. I had a nightmare with breakdowns on a Telair equivalent that we had on the other boat and so I've been wary of one that's fixed to the boat when abroad for servicing and repair considerations.

Roger

Edited June 29, 2009 by Albion

[Sir Nibble]

I just turn the aircon on

Fitted it after the last hot summer, in this weather its best £600 I ever spent.

Must be an antique by now isn't it?

[Yoda]

Apart from parking under a tree the best way to keep a boat cool is to rig up an awning over the cabin so that there is an air gap.

[blackrose]

If the heat becomes a problem even when the curtain are draw over your windows or ports, it could be a symptom of inadequate insulation - it works both ways

 

But it doesn't work exactly the same both ways, at least not on a steel boat.

 

In winter you have warm air inside the boat in contact with the insulation, whereas in summer you have hot steel in direct contact with the insulation. In the case of sprayfoam the steel is chemically bonded to your insulation. Which is hotter warm air or hot steel?

 

On a steel boat, heat transfer means the hot steel in summer will radiate heat through your insulation far more efficiently than warm air trying to go the other way in winter.

Edited June 29, 2009 by blackrose

[Dominic M]

keep the curtains on the sunny side closed and open all windows and doors on the shaded side if possible. Keep any perishable foods in the lower kitchen cupboards as the water will keep these cooler. Make sure your fridge has room to breath, pull out slightly if possible to give more air behind. drink water and juice not tea and coffee, (and not beer until at least beer o'clock.)

When exactly is "beer o'clock". And does it go back in the winter?

 

Put your Ecofan on the fridge and it will work in reverse, circulating the cool air around the boat.

 

You almost had me thinking about this one

But it doesn't work exactly the same both ways, at least not on a steel boat.

 

In winter you have warm air inside the boat in contact with the insulation, whereas in summer you have hot steel in direct contact with the insulation. In the case of sprayfoam the steel is chemically bonded to your insulation. Which is hotter warm air or hot steel?

 

On a steel boat, heat transfer means the hot steel in summer will radiate heat through your insulation far more efficiently than warm air trying to go the other way in winter.

I'd always assumed it was the same, but your explanation has completely reformed my view. Thanks.

[GUMPY]

Must be an antique by now isn't it?

Not quite, if you remember 2003 was very hot, reached 100deg down south somewhere