Underfloor heating on a boat?

[Ex- Member]

I originally wanted a wooden floor on my boat but after checking different samples of insulation/wood/carpet tiles, I found the wood far too cold in winter even when laid over underlay. I suppose wood's nice in summer, but since most people with wood floors are trying to avoid carpet, if you then have to cover it over with rugs in winter it seems to me you're back to square one!

 

Well we're not into fitted carpet on boats, and natural wood is as you say good in the summer cold in winter. A good quality rug in the saloon though does keep the saloon warmer in winter so a good solution. The rug rolls up and just slides under the cratch through the summer. The saloon floor is natural cherrywood, beautiful flamy colours & grian, so would prefer not to cover it up. but er in doors likes to be cosy, so a rug it is for winter

Edited April 8, 2008 by Julynian

[Big Steve]

Thanks for the info,

 

I've got about a foot under the floor to play with, so can quite easily have a good 3"+ of insulation here. Compared to radiators how quick was it to heat a room?

 

I will most likely use a solid fuel stove for the majority of the time with a back boiler linked to the clarifier, radiators and/or underfloor heating with using the diesel heater in summer to heat the hot water (or to pre-heat the boat so it's nice and warm when I get back from work )

 

It's a totally different concept in a home as the pipes are warming several tonnes of concrete so you never have it go cold. It runs at 17 degs at night, 20 in the day. If you do switch it off, I do at the end of April, it takes days to cool down to ambient, and about a day to get back up to temp. in the autumn. Because of the large floor and wall mass of my house I rarely need heating between May and September, in the hot days the mass cools it down , on cold days it warms it up, magic. (how does it know? Spooky )Obviously it would be difficult to have that sort of mass in a boat so it would be a lot more responsive. You're also limited to a max water temp of 55C, but again that's through 5" of stone and concrete, the max. surface temp. of the floor should not be higher than 30C as it causes foot swelling if higher. I find 23-25 is about right, cooler than that feels cold to the stocking foot, even though it's still putting heat into the boat, much warmer and it feels uncomfortably warm with shoes on. In spring and autumn the floor is often at 21C which feels quite cold to the bare feet, even though the room is warm. The point here is you can't have the floor feeling warm and toasty all the time, or the room will be too hot. The maximum heat output of the floor must be less than 100watts/m2 or it'll get too hot. I think 10m of 15mm pipe will output 100watts at 55C so you have to squeeze that into 1m2. (Obviously the heat O/P will vary depending on the ambient temp, but them's the figure the manufacturers use.)

 

Hope this helps.

[DHutch]

Yeah, ours being night storage, its only on at night. Then just maintains temp through the day.

- As steve says, it takes days to warm up and cool down again, particularly in a well insulated house.

- We've never got around to having any form of controler, becuase its that slow to react we just turn on/off varous loops as and when we feel fit, altering that and the timeclock and keeping an eye on a minimax thermometer and how many jumpers we have on.

 

However on a boat, or really any wet system, theres less need for any mass/inertia in the system. Although there is 2inchs of concrete covering the bottom of emilyanne.

 

 

Daniel

[Robbo]

Thanks for the info, I've got a feeling underfloor heating won't be right for me, with a solid fuel stove been the majority of heating (mainly for running costs and "feeling"), I'm looking for a instant heat solution which obviously underfloor heating isn't. Plus having no underfloor heating will make having underfloor storage a possibility, any suggestions on making hidden hatches for solid floor?

 

A recent(ish) post has pointed me the way to Thermaskirt, has anyone had any experience of these?

 

All the best,

Robbo

[Big Steve]

Thanks for the info, I've got a feeling underfloor heating won't be right for me, with a solid fuel stove been the majority of heating (mainly for running costs and "feeling"), I'm looking for a instant heat solution which obviously underfloor heating isn't. Plus having no underfloor heating will make having underfloor storage a possibility, any suggestions on making hidden hatches for solid floor?

 

A recent(ish) post has pointed me the way to Thermaskirt, has anyone had any experience of these?

 

All the best,

Robbo

 

Is that the aluminium skirting board with hot water flowing through it? Saw some at the Homebuilding exhibition. Looks a good idea, but no experience of it. I'd be surprised if it was effective on a NB because furniture tends to be put up against the walls (hull?) thus preventing a ready circulation of air around the skirting.

[DHutch]

ThermaSkirt: http://www.discreteheat.co.uk/products.html

- Its a bit like long thin fin rad, only without the fins, really, isnt it?

 

 

 

 

Daniel