Has anyone tried ThermaSkirt radiators for central heating?

[Sierra2]

Seems perfect for spreading the heat evenly through a section of the boat and not taking up any space?

 

http://www.discreteheat.com/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfYw-cw3uU#action=share

 

Technical : http://www.discreteheat.com/thermaskirt/technical-information/performance-data.aspx

[bottle]

No I haven't but first thought can you get enough heat out of them in the short runs on a boat.

 

They appear to be designed to be on all four walls of a room and that will be doubtful on a boat.

[Phil Ambrose]

I have Finrads on my boat, about 7 metres in total and when we don't have our fire lit these together with a small single rad un the heads plus a double in the saloon keep us plenty warm enough from our Ellis boiler. I've been told the max output of the finrads is 500w a metre

Phil

ETA 60ft NB

Edited January 5, 2016 by Phil Ambrose

[David Mack]

No I haven't but first thought can you get enough heat out of them in the short runs on a boat.

 

They appear to be designed to be on all four walls of a room and that will be doubtful on a boat.

 

But a small space the size of a boat cabin has proportionately more wall length per square foot of floor area than a large room, so not necessarily a problem.

[peterboat]

i liked it very discreet i dont like rads very much but have column rads on the boat as they look nicer than panels

[Dave Payne]

But will they provide enough heat without rads also?

[spaceyaface]

I seriously looked into them, but didn't proceed. I've always liked them, too

[bottle]

 

But a small space the size of a boat cabin has proportionately more wall length per square foot of floor area than a large room, so not necessarily a problem.

 

agreed, it may not be a problem but you are more likely to have all walls available in a house but not on a boat.

 

I have only one wall available in my saloon and on that sits a bloody great big radiator.

 

We I need a heating engineer to work it out.

[MtB]

 

But a small space the size of a boat cabin has proportionately more wall length per square foot of floor area than a large room, so not necessarily a problem.

 

 

But a well insulated boat still leaks heat at about ten times the rate of a well insulated house!

[Chewbacka]

I am thinking of fitting a diesel boiler and in planning the rads I looked at a similar product to the op link. This has a heat output of 170W/m with a water temp 60c higher than the air temp. For 3kW of heating I wood need about 17m or less if mixed in with a couple of rads, but it looks too expensive as they don't give a price on the web site - always a bad sign - and I don't have a long clear run of wall to fit it on, so I shall stick with rads when I fit my heating system.

[Sierra2]

I am thinking of fitting a diesel boiler and in planning the rads I looked at a similar product to the op link. This has a heat output of 170W/m with a water temp 60c higher than the air temp. For 3kW of heating I wood need about 17m or less if mixed in with a couple of rads, but it looks too expensive as they don't give a price on the web site - always a bad sign - and I don't have a long clear run of wall to fit it on, so I shall stick with rads when I fit my heating system.

The prices are on one of the drop down menus, £30 a meter roughly with VAT

[Chewbacka]

The prices are on one of the drop down menus, £30 a meter roughly with VAT

Thanks - I missed that.

[blackrose]

They seem like a good idea from an aesthetic perspective, but my main concern would be that because in effect they're installed in the walls, they may radiate as much heat into the cavity wall of a house (or behind the wooden lining of a boat) as into the room space that they're meant to be heating.

 

I realise that some heat will always get behind the wall anyway whatever radiators are used and that some of that will come back into the room, but I don't think it helps the overall heating when the rads are embedded in the walls. So is there any insulating/reflecting material behind the skirting board rads to make sure the heat is radiated in the right direction?

 

In terms of space saving the space under the gunwales is often dead space anyway, so do they really save that much space? The other issue is that I don't think they'd be as easy to install, modify, inspect or service as pipes and rads.

Edited January 5, 2016 by blackrose

[David Mack]

 

 

But a well insulated boat still leaks heat at about ten times the rate of a well insulated house!

 

Do you have any U-values for typical boat construction to compare with those used for houses?

[blackrose]

 

Do you have any U-values for typical boat construction to compare with those used for houses?

 

I know nothing about building regs, but I've seen new build houses being built with something like 1ft thick PU insulation board in the roof and 6in thick PU board in the external walls (and double glazed windows). How can an inch or two of PU insulation on a boat (which may also have a relatively large area of single-glazed windows) ever compete with that? Plus the fact that a smaller volume has a much greater surface area to volume ratio which means it will lose heat much more quickly, especially when it also sits in a bath of cold water!

 

I think that much more work has gone into designing new buildings to be energy efficient than has been the case with new boats.

Edited January 5, 2016 by blackrose

[Roger Crown]

A similar company if not this one approached us when we were building, the whole concept fell over when it was realised the "skirting board" would literally have to wrap around all the fixed furniture to give a decent output at a very uneconomic install cost.

[Sierra2]

A similar company if not this one approached us when we were building, the whole concept fell over when it was realised the "skirting board" would literally have to wrap around all the fixed furniture to give a decent output at a very uneconomic install cost.

 

Funnily enough that's what has attracted me to the product as I want something at floor level away from the hull. I'd be doing the install my self as with everything else to keep the budget alive.

[ditchcrawler]

A little over 200 watts per meter

 

"Hi,

Martin from DiscreteHeat, responding to the above comment.
Whilst 210w/m might not sound much, (150/m for the 6" profile) when you add up all the skirting in the room it soon provides more than enough heat.
Go to our design system website: "

[Bunny]

Oh what a shock we have had here tonight! Spent the afternoon/ evening doing my washing in my twin tub, onboard, which meant refilling up with water. As it takes a whole four hours to fill up here because the water pressure is so bad, it was around 5.30pm and dark, when the tank flexed (because it was full) and I went outside to get the hose in.

Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a C0 alarm. Could see smoke, but from several chimneys down the pontoons,, but it wasn't until I walked down there, to see which boat had the alarm going off that I saw smoke pouring out of the windows, mushroom vents and chimney of one boat.

Shouted for help and my partner and another neighbour came out. My partner grabbed a torch and extinguishers from our boat, he smashed open the doors and the boat was orange bright flames in the cabin..

He and our neighbour managed to put the flames out. Isolated batteries, pulled mains plugs out, switched off gas, three more extinguishers and several buckets of water later and it was completely out. I had been poised to dial 999 but had we waited and done nothing, we reckon we'd have lost the boat.

It looked so close to going up, properly, never seen anything like it. We've gone back several times to check and some things inside are untouched, some things totally melted, destroyed.

My neighbour had emptied hot ash into a bag on the way out of the boat and forgotten to take it. It was on the wooden floor. We reckon it had taken a whole five hours to set the boat alight. So, take it from our experience, never, ever engineer a situation where hot ash is temporarily on the boat. Take it outside, immediately. Treat hot ash with respect, it should be in a lidded metal bucket, kept outside, away from vents and allowed to fully cool.

Don't ever ignore an annoying alarm. A few months back, a friend heard the same type of alarm when cycling and ended up pulling a young girl out of a boat, unconscious. She could have died. Always go and look for it, try to find where it is.

Could have been far, far worse. Boat is badly fire damaged in the bow cabin, lots of clearing up to do, but the main thing is our neighbour is ok. I can't tell you the awful feeling you get when you see the flames and you think they might be inside.

Excellent work. With hindsight available, would you take the time to dial 999 next time, before tackling the fire?

 

There could have been a trapped boater in there and you MIGHT have been unable to put out the fire on your own.

 

However, this is not to detract from your heroic efforts. 5 star.

Think I saw this on Dragons Den a couple of years ago( or something very similar )I don't think they got an invested.bunny

[Sierra2]

Think I saw this on Dragons Den a couple of years ago( or something very similar )I don't think they got an invested.bunny

You'd be surprised how many 'deals' fall through. My friend was on for Jog Post (leaflet delivery service). Debrough Meaden was choosen to invest (all five dragons made an offer) but after a month nothing happened. He done very, very well just from the air time

[OldGoat]

Skirting heating looks great - until you realise the poor heat output per unit length. I have it at home - great in the main 'sitting room' and useless anywhere else. I considered it for the boat - but realised that conventional radiators fitted just as well in the dead are betwixt the floor and gunnel. My fit-out was designed to be functional rather than pretty - and the rads: give an excellent area to air things or dry wet clothes.

 

If you have Ebbersplutter type heating, you need a good heat sink (volume of water) and a system that can absorb the maximum heat output of the unit - else you're liable to hunting of the unit and inevitable coking.

 

We like the idea of heat zones - The Management likes a cool bedroom - so that would make skirting heating at bit more problematic.

[blackrose]

You'd be surprised how many 'deals' fall through. My friend was on for Jog Post (leaflet delivery service). Debrough Meaden was choosen to invest (all five dragons made an offer) but after a month nothing happened. He done very, very well just from the air time

 

Yes, I'm sure nothing is legally binding on Dragons Den until contracts are signed.

 

I'd like to go up the lift and jump out wearing a balaclava, brandishing a sawn off shotgun and make those slags put all that money in my bag!

 

[NMEA]

They seemed like an elegant solution so I looked into them carefully, unfortunately the numbers do not add up in marine usage, either from an output point of view or providing sufficient loading to keep a small Webasto, Mikuni, Eber etc happy. I was really rooting for them to work but in the end they are really a no go.

Edited January 6, 2016 by NMEA

[Sierra2]

Can anyone recommend a small skirting type radiator that they do use and works?

[OldGoat]

I won't be dogmatic (not) but it's like the holy grail - it just doesn't exist..

It's all about the surface area of water in contact with its container and that's what most folks call a radiator. You can improve heat transfer a bit by forcing air through a matrix - but the speed of the water going through the matrix has to be faster than in a conventional system. An adapted car heater would do the job, but noisy and bulky.

 

Do let us know if I'm wrong.....