Has Anyone tried a Small storage heater on a boat?

[Quaysider]

I'm currently in the planning stages of our build (going to place the order for a lined,additions in November when the savings hit 40k) and I'm thinking about heating options...

 

Obviously, were going to have a multi-fuel stove as near to the middle of the boat as the fit will allow, AND eberspacher diesel heating with a few radiators as a back up - It occured to me the other day, that whilst I do like a cold bedroom, Frost on my nipples doesn't appeal.

 

Thinking laterally though, using a storage heater in reverse, it have it plugged in when the engine is running/charging during the day and thus heating up for (almost) free and then getting the benefit of the stored heat during the night.

 

Obviously it'd have to be a small one like this, http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/ERSH6M.html but "some free heat" even from just a few hours charge during the day, has to be better than having to use extra diesel to run the heating?

 

I know ther'd be ballasting issues but Im sure they can be sorted ... am I bonkers?

 

[b0atman]

Back boiler on fire tied into radiators cheapest heating system as "free" heat when fire is on. Good boat insulation and a means to switch eberspatcher on from Bed total luxury.

[magnetman]

I think its a good idea but its where to put it.

 

850w is quite a lot of power - you would need a good alternator setup if you also want to charge depleted domestic batteries.

 

I would put a Mikuni MX40 not a neverspacher. Personal preference.

[Grace and Favour]

As magnetman has mentioned - - you'll need to determine that your batteries don't need charging BEFORE you divert any 'spare' electricity into heating your storage heater. - - unless you're running your engine/cruising for at least four/five hours every day, the idea is, I suggest, a non-starter.

And don't even dream about running the engine just to charge the storage heater!

 

The other option (which I think should be your first expenditure) is working out what your expected total daily electricity requirements will be (i.e. - do a power audit - - and then work out how you will create it) by far the quietest method of generation is by fitting a goodly number of solar panels.

 

It's quite an interesting exercise, doing a power audit accurately, and it certainly gives one a greater insight into what is available, what is practical, and what is affordable.

[Mendip-Locks]

I don't know what the efficiency of a NSH is but it's not great I'll bet they are also becoming old hat now with the advent of the new core heaters to the market see here http://www.farho.com/en/catalogo/ventajas.php but that said I don't think they are good for storing energy.

[bottle]

Look behind the hype, most of these 'new' heating systems are electric radiators and nothing special, except the bill from the electricity compnay.

 

To the OP,

 

If you have solid fuel stove, with or without radiators and an Erbaspcher, with radiators, you will not be cold.

[Richard10002]

Storage heater on a boat? Crazy idea! Enough said!

[magnetman]

I think it has potential if done right. It would be tricky but if you had a large alternator it may be feasible and the idea of 'filling in' a cold time on board without needing to fire up a heating system is quite attractive imo

[bottle]

The original link is for a 'storage heater' of 850 watts, so it will need an alternator of 85 amps @ 12v minimum.

 

As to the hours needed to 'charge' it anyones guess but many, many hours.

 

Perhaps thinking of intercooling the alternator may help.

[Quaysider]

The spec for a unit of that consumption states a full charge requires 6kw... now I know achieving that would be unlikely unless on a full days cruising but if my "sums" are right, perhaps half would be achievable without too much difficulty - I am planning as many solar panels as I can afford plus supplementary home-made ones on the sides of the roof tip boxes for additional freebie power... at present, I have homemade cells on my bin store at home that charge a 110ah battery which powers an inverter in the garden for outdoor tv and sound for the hottub....the cells came from Germany and cost buttons compared to "properly" manufactured panels. OK they don't look pretty but they are a prototype and so far, I've not been able to flatten the battery.. I accept that's not an apples and apples comparison but its all part of the experiment.

 

Perhaps I'll try and get hold of a second hand heater, charge it for 3 hours through the energy meter to see how much it takes in reality and then monitor how much warmer the garage feels... I suspect it'll be a waste of time but I DO like the idea of using surplus power generated and storing it as heat for night time use.

[ditchcrawler]

The spec for a unit of that consumption states a full charge requires 6kw... now I know achieving that would be unlikely unless on a full days cruising but if my "sums" are right, perhaps half would be achievable without too much difficulty - I am planning as many solar panels as I can afford plus supplementary home-made ones on the sides of the roof tip boxes for additional freebie power... at present, I have homemade cells on my bin store at home that charge a 110ah battery which powers an inverter in the garden for outdoor tv and sound for the hottub....the cells came from Germany and cost buttons compared to "properly" manufactured panels. OK they don't look pretty but they are a prototype and so far, I've not been able to flatten the battery.. I accept that's not an apples and apples comparison but its all part of the experiment.

 

Perhaps I'll try and get hold of a second hand heater, charge it for 3 hours through the energy meter to see how much it takes in reality and then monitor how much warmer the garage feels... I suspect it'll be a waste of time but I DO like the idea of using surplus power generated and storing it as heat for night time use.

But are you really going to want a hot storage heater at bed time when you have just had 12 hrs of hot sunshine on the boat, it may be better aimed at an aircon unit.

[Ex- Member]

Storage radiators are crap in houses and you don't get economy 7 on a boat.

 

Spend money on good properly applied insulation and you won't need to think of such silly ideas

Edited April 26, 2014 by Julynian

[Richard10002]

If you have eberspacher or similar diesel heating, with air pipes throughout the boat, just run it for an hour before going to bed, and your nipples will be nice and warm. I have a Truma gas warm air system which came with the boat. If its a bit chilly in the bedroom, even with the stove burning in the lounge, i turn the Truma on for an hour or so. If its not chilly, I don't. A storage heater gives off some heat, whether you want it or not, so you could end up far too hot if your predictions are wrong.

 

If its an experiment, you should do what you want... But if looking for a good solution to warm a boat, there are many more suitable options before a storage heater makes sense - particularly at build stage.

[Quaysider]

hmmm - I thought it would probably be a non-starter ....I just liked the idea -I suppose only because when bought my first house, I had them and actually managed them quite well...

 

Another mad cap idea I had, was to fit "12 v soil warming cables under the bedroom floor to take the chill of it - I've got a 70watt one in the greenhouse in a frame, connected to a battery charged by other homemade panels on the garage roof... Its on a self (1.5v battery)powered central heating timer set to 15 degrees as I've been using it as a propagator....

 

I wonder if that would cause problems with the rcd or subsequent bss?

[Ex- Member]

 

 

hmmm - I thought it would probably be a non-starter ....I just liked the idea -I suppose only because when bought my first house, I had them and actually managed them quite well...

 

Another mad cap idea I had, was to fit "12 v soil warming cables under the bedroom floor to take the chill of it - I've got a 70watt one in the greenhouse in a frame, connected to a battery charged by other homemade panels on the garage roof... Its on a self (1.5v battery)powered central heating timer set to 15 degrees as I've been using it as a propagator....

 

I wonder if that would cause problems with the rcd or subsequent bss?

 

Any heating under the floor would ideally need to be placed on top of insulation. Under the floor of a boat will generally be very cold, it's under the waterline, we actually put 4 inch computer fans in the floor to draw up the cool air in the summer, we have these under the fridge too, a kind of poor man's air conditioning.

 

We have a well insulated boat, I know this as we did the job ourselves. We also have a small 4KW Diesel bubble stove with back boiler heating 4 rads. Ok we've had a very mild winter, but we've run this stove on the lowest setting possible and still have to open windows and hatches as it's far too hot. On a couple of occasions it did reach freezing and we did turn the heating up one notch for a couple of hours on a few occasions. It soon went back to low setting though.

 

I would concentrate on good insulation, IMO a 4 to 5 KW stove should be ample to heat a n/b at UK sub zero temp's, it suffices for us on a wide beam, we are all porthole though which can easily be insulated with bungs.

 

With hindsight though we could have avoided a stove, a Webasto or Eber type unit would have served us better as their far more controllable and would keep the boat at a steady temperature with thermostatic control, the stove however takes several minutes to light, so we end up leaving it on and wasting heat if it gets too hot as switching on and off is a hassle. So it's good to be thinking about it

Edited April 26, 2014 by Julynian

[John V]

I actually did some serious working out for having storage heaters.I have an 18 KVA 3 phase genny and was going to have all electric cooking so I was thinking one phase runs 2 immersion heaters (2 water tanks), 1 phase runs battery chargers cooker hob etc and the third phase storage heaters. I even acquired a couple of big storage heaters but when it came down to it they were too big, ugly and were going to give me max heat in the late evening (genny running early evening for cooking meal) but next to nothing by the morning and if I started . the genny in the morning it was going to take too long to warm up. the more you go into it the worse it gets. in the end I sold the heaters and bought a second hand solid fuel Rayburn Royal I .also installed a wing generator of 6KVA single phase which is the one that gets used all the time....the main genny is just ballast

[Naughty Cal]

Why would you need storage heaters if you have solid fuel and diesel heating?

 

Just fit a timer to the diesel heating. Set if for an hour or so before you normally get up and hey presto warm bedroom.

 

Don't try to over complicate things!

[Quaysider]

Why would you need storage heaters if you have solid fuel and diesel heating?

 

Just fit a timer to the diesel heating. Set if for an hour or so before you normally get up and hey presto warm bedroom.

 

Don't try to over complicate things!

 

I take your point but I was just thinking about "free" heat.... to try and reduce running/living costs....longer term, money is going to become less available ;-)

[bottle]

Totally off the wall....

 

larger battery bank, lots of solar an inverter, wait for it....

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 1000 watt fan heater.

[Naughty Cal]

 

I take your point but I was just thinking about "free" heat.... to try and reduce running/living costs....longer term, money is going to become less available ;-)

But your free heat won't be free!

[magnetman]

Good idea Bottle

 

I think a plinth heater or matrix heater might be useful, either electric or plumbed into the CH

 

Good thing with a fan is you would get the heat to the chest quickly

[Pete & Helen]

I think that the idea as a concept sounds ok but its the practicalities that fail in this instance. The time you need heaters is going to be the days when the sun isn't so warm and the days are short, and cruising will not be an everyday occurrence . so the only time this idea would stand any chance or doing anything would be in the summer on nice sunny days when your out and about. and those are also the days when you won't need any heating.

 

I say well done for at least thinking outside the box.

[Quaysider]

lol I know that but it would be "cost effective" give the engine would be running anyway and the solar panels doing their bit. I'll have to bow to everyone's experience in life afloat though and concede it's probably not worth the effort .... perhaps I'll pepper the entire boat with solar cells and then have a try ;-)

[Guest]

There is far more "free" energy from the engine via the cooling system. We use that to heat the cabin to great effect in cooler weather, but of course it doesn't have the storage facility that you are looking for, unless a calorifier was added for this purpose. You would then be moving into an expensive/complicated system.

I suspect you would need a dedicated alternator to charge a storage heater.

[ditchcrawler]

There is far more "free" energy from the engine via the cooling system. We use that to heat the cabin to great effect in cooler weather, but of course it doesn't have the storage facility that you are looking for, unless a calorifier was added for this purpose. You would then be moving into an expensive/complicated system.

I suspect you would need a dedicated alternator to charge a storage heater.

Use the ballast as a heat store ?