Tube heaters and winterisation

[Jamborock]

This will be our first winter as boat owners and I obviously want to get through it without any problems due to icing and freezing weather. We are doing the suggested things like draining the water system down and checking the anti-freeze in the engine etc, but to be doubly safe we would like to leave some heating on. We are on shore power so should be no problems keeping electric heaters powered, and we are more interested in keeping the boat from freezing than the cost of the electricity - at least in the first winter.

 

Has anybody experience with the tube heaters I've seem in some of the chandlers and how many would you use in a 58 foot boat or is there better/safer alternatives. Also, does anybody worry about keeping the engine bay warm or do you just rely on the anti-freeze in the engine and central heating system.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[jelunga]

When we bought our boat we could not move her from the brokers for 3 months or so due to ice. She was kept on a shoreline with the Eberspacher central heating on through a frost setting on a room stat. As far as I remember not of the water system was drained and we had no problems.

Second winter in our mooring again on shorepower. Kept an oil filked radiator switched on a frost setting in the rear cabin whuch was the one that got coldest. Did not drain water system but left all taps open avd shower head off hose and hose draining into bath. Plastic piping mostly. Again no problems.

My view is you do as much as you are prepared to do. Jf you have the time to drajn the calorifier and water tanks do it. It will not do any harm so to do. If you have plastic piping then it will tebd to blow the joints jf it freezes and therefore the pipes should be as empty as posshble.

But then the vagaries of our weather, the amount of insulation on the boad, ths phase of the moon and Murphys Law all work againmst each other so it can bs a risk wgatever you do.

[Ray]

Different people will tell you different things, I'm sure.

 

I was concerned the first winter that we left our boat because the one part of the plumbing that is all but impossible to get to is the shower mixer unit. All other plumbing is reasonably easily accessible although some less so than the rest.

 

I turned off my water pump, opened all the taps and let as much water drain as I could. I didn't even turn off the outlet valve from the tank. I also made sure that the mixer was drained and disconnected the hose. I have a trad stern boat and everything is inside the main cabin - cruiser and semi trad stern boats often have some plumbing in the engine compartment.

 

My colleague reckoned that as virtually all the plumbing was at floor level it was well below canal water level so whilst the top of the canal water may feeze, that below probably wouldn't. It is also on the side of the boat that is nearest to the bank when we moor (which reminds me, we turned it round to do some work on it this year - work that we never did, so I'd better turn it back again).

 

We never had any problems. However, the following winter was much colder and just to be safe I left the Alde boiler on pilot light during the coldest spell as that is next to the vertical calorifier.

 

I've since fitted some drain-offs and can now drain the water from any pipework above main plumbing run, just above floor level. The main thing I find is to make sure that the all taps are opened and left open - we inadvertently closed one last year and that froze up.

[Lady Muck]

This will be our first winter as boat owners and I obviously want to get through it without any problems due to icing and freezing weather. We are doing the suggested things like draining the water system down and checking the anti-freeze in the engine etc, but to be doubly safe we would like to leave some heating on. We are on shore power so should be no problems keeping electric heaters powered, and we are more interested in keeping the boat from freezing than the cost of the electricity - at least in the first winter.

 

Has anybody experience with the tube heaters I've seem in some of the chandlers and how many would you use in a 58 foot boat or is there better/safer alternatives. Also, does anybody worry about keeping the engine bay warm or do you just rely on the anti-freeze in the engine and central heating system.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Because it's just not practical for us to winterise - we're constantly backwards and forwards between his dads house in Letchworth where we have a room and mums house and the boat - We've got two tube heaters - theyre from Argos - My link

I thought they worked - one is fitted about a foot from the water pump and the other near the calorifier in the back, we switch the water pump off, open the taps so theres no pressure in the pipes and switch these on. I say, 'thought' but now we're not so sure, water pump is starting to leak, looks like the diaphragm is holed and I know frost can do that. Thing is we got away with the heaters for the past 2 cold winters. but I may have to upgrade to a radiator. I should say that we've never had any other leaks but this is the third time the pump has gone in this way, in the winter.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Lady Muck

[Jamborock]

Thank you all for your replies.

 

We have an Eberspacher central heating system, I'd never considered leaving it unattended, but we are having it serviced next week so I'll chat to the service engineer and see what he thinks about leaving it on. I had been told that these systems don't always like marine diesel, although we have had not problems so far, we were warned against relying on it. I don't know what would be wrong with marine diesel, as opposed to road diesel, but there are a lot of things we are learning as we go.

 

Thanks also for the tip about the orientation of the boat, we will look in to that, and I think we will look at either an oil radiator or a coupe of tubes and try and keep the rear cabin and bathroom as warm as possible.

 

As I said, thank you form your replies given us some thing to think about.

[jelunga]

Thank you all for your replies.

 

We have an Eberspacher central heating system, I'd never considered leaving it unattended, but we are having it serviced next week so I'll chat to the service engineer and see what he thinks about leaving it on. I had been told that these systems don't always like marine diesel, although we have had not problems so far, we were warned against relying on it. I don't know what would be wrong with marine diesel, as opposed to road diesel, but there are a lot of things we are learning as we go.

 

Thanks also for the tip about the orientation of the boat, we will look in to that, and I think we will look at either an oil radiator or a coupe of tubes and try and keep the rear cabin and bathroom as warm as possible.

 

As I said, thank you form your replies given us some thing to think about.

When red diesel did not have to be UL sulphur, the quality of the fuel was often suspect with quite high sulphur levels. When burnt, this deposits crap ibside the eberspacher combustikn chamber and on the ignition plug. This lead failures and a bad reputation on boats for this type of heater. Couple with that the inability of some boat builders /installers to fail to take the installation instructions seriously and use wiring that is too small.

With the advent of low sulphur red diesel I do not think these failures occur as much. Provided the boiler can run for at least 45 mins at full power on start up and the thermostat/frost stat has a wide enough cut in/out range to orevent short cycling i cannot see a problem. The Eber is designed for unattended operation with time switches and remote switch on systems available.

When I drove coaches for a living my coach had a webasto fitted that you could set a timer so that when you arrived at sparrows fart on a cold morning the coach and engine were nice and warm. Battery might be flat but that is another story

[Naughty Cal]

We don't bother draining our boat as we use it every weekend. We leave a couple of tube heaters and a small oil filled radiator on 24/7 to keep the temperature in the cabin well above freezing. Might use a bit more electric but it has not failed us yet.

[trackman]

In the 2010/11 winter we had a water pump fail after lasting 4 years with no previous problems. We were living aboard with a solid fuel stove going well throughout the big freeze that lasted 8 weeks before Xmas 2010 but it still got pretty cold overnight in our saloon, with outside temperatures down to 16 below!

 

With hindsight I decided that the leaks in the joints of the pump body had possibly been caused by ice. It was really cold under our front deck where the pump lives, and I don't think I was quick enough to start pulling out the front step to let some warmth in there.

 

 

[GeoffS]

For the first 3 winters I had the boat I had shorepower and left 2 tube heaters on with thermostatic plugs, 1 in the engine bay and 1 by the water pump and water tank and had no problems. Last winter I had no access to shorepower so didn't use the heaters. I opened all taps when I wasn't there and put some blankets around the water pump, and despite the very cold temperatures last year, had no problems. I do normally use the boat each week or two so it never gets left for long periods.

[Emerald]

Its interesting that people talk about damage to the boat but what about soft furnishings? We have a couple of oil filled radiators turned on to keep the boat aired,damp free and hopefully keeping the mould off the curtains,sofa etc. We are using some of those DIY moisture absorbers that contain crystals for the first time too. Interestingly enough the boat next to us has no heating and they leave the windows open, certainly making it cheaper on the electricity than what we pay. Makes you wonder what is the best approach doesn't it?

[Lady Muck]

I've never had any problems with mould onboard but we rarely leave the boat for more than a week at a time.