Finally took the plunge and installed a forced air diesel/kerosene heater. Thought I'd share the experience so far.
I went ahead and purchased a Russian made heater (Planar) which is 13K BTU. It looks like a copy cat of the Espar unit...we'll see how it lasts. But it was only $500 - so a heck of a lot cheaper than the other brands. My only gripe so far is that the control panel is rather cryptic to operate (non intuitive) which I can deal with being a techie, but the wife is going to find it a little bit of a learning curve. Mode status is just an array of LEDs that are not labeled, but you have to memorize (ok, there are only two modes, power and temperature set; but you have to memorize which LED represents what) and the other fact that everything is in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.
Since I have twin Gas 305's...I needed to deal with the separate fuel tank and wanted to keep it out of the engine compartment given I have Gasoline. I found the best place to install everything is up in fly bridge.
On the Starboard side of the fly bridge, there is a shelf made from fiberglass that is built-in to the wall. I removed that and there was just enough space to place the heater in that location.
I had to build a shelf for the heater to mount to. I used a piece of 16g aluminum which was bolted down to floor. The heater was mounted so that the supply air and the exhaust went forward; while the cold air & intake (for heat chamber) went towards the stern.
Here is what it looks like mounted:
In order to get it down to the cabin, I need to drill a 4.5" hole with a right angle drill to get the 4" supply ducting down. I drilled the hole right behind the Power Control panel inside the cabin (there was enough room to run it there and place ample insulation around the entire ducting.
Once inside the cabin (behind the electrical panel) I used a couple of adjustable elbows to make the turn into the side of the cabinet inside the cabin. I used another elbow instead of the cabinet to go down behind the seat to get down in the bilge area below the seats. From there it was a piece of cake to T-off and add two hot air vents in the cabin and one in the bath room.
while I was at it, I drilled another hole going down behind the panel to mount the heater control and the temperature sensor.
Then came the intake and exhaust for the combustion chamber. That was fairly easy. I had to pick up some better heat rated insulation, since what came with the Planar kit was not adequate and a trip to West Marine to get some better 3/4" hose for the intake. Additionally, I had to pick up a an exhaust thru-hull fitting. When starting the heater and running for an hour, the insulation works very well; as I can actually hold my hand on the insulation of the exhaust pipe. As extra insurance, I placed a piece of concrete backer board on the bottom of the floor below the heater as a heat shield. It doesn't even get hot, but I wanted extra insurance to have a heat blocker between the heater and various wiring that traveled along the floor.
Here is a picture of the intake and exhaust on the outside of the boat.
As far as the fuel tank, I placed that and the fuel pump under the forward guest seat on the fly bridge. Since the fuel pump makes a ticking noise, this does help to dampen this and it keeps the fuel tank separate from the heater area and is easily accessible.
The only thing I have left is to fabricate a cover for heater and include a cold air vent with a filter. My idea was to be able to suck fresh air from the outside (or at least from the flybridge) and supply that to the cabin.
It was a lot of work (more than I expected) to get this thing mounted in here and to get the duct work routed through the boat. Now I understand why boat yards charge so much for the install...
But it seems to work really well on heating the boat and the bathroom is nice and toasty. The heater is rated to run Highway diesel, but I've only ran Kerosene in it so far. So there has not been any smell to speak of. The only smell has been the initial heat smell with all the new parts (including the heat insulation around the exhaust pipe which gives off an odor for the first few hours of initial operation).
We'll see how this heater holds up to use.
Just thought I'd share this process since it seems like there is not a lot of heater install experiences shared on the internet...especially for Carvers.
I went ahead and purchased a Russian made heater (Planar) which is 13K BTU. It looks like a copy cat of the Espar unit...we'll see how it lasts. But it was only $500 - so a heck of a lot cheaper than the other brands. My only gripe so far is that the control panel is rather cryptic to operate (non intuitive) which I can deal with being a techie, but the wife is going to find it a little bit of a learning curve. Mode status is just an array of LEDs that are not labeled, but you have to memorize (ok, there are only two modes, power and temperature set; but you have to memorize which LED represents what) and the other fact that everything is in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.
Since I have twin Gas 305's...I needed to deal with the separate fuel tank and wanted to keep it out of the engine compartment given I have Gasoline. I found the best place to install everything is up in fly bridge.
On the Starboard side of the fly bridge, there is a shelf made from fiberglass that is built-in to the wall. I removed that and there was just enough space to place the heater in that location.
I had to build a shelf for the heater to mount to. I used a piece of 16g aluminum which was bolted down to floor. The heater was mounted so that the supply air and the exhaust went forward; while the cold air & intake (for heat chamber) went towards the stern.
Here is what it looks like mounted:
In order to get it down to the cabin, I need to drill a 4.5" hole with a right angle drill to get the 4" supply ducting down. I drilled the hole right behind the Power Control panel inside the cabin (there was enough room to run it there and place ample insulation around the entire ducting.
Once inside the cabin (behind the electrical panel) I used a couple of adjustable elbows to make the turn into the side of the cabinet inside the cabin. I used another elbow instead of the cabinet to go down behind the seat to get down in the bilge area below the seats. From there it was a piece of cake to T-off and add two hot air vents in the cabin and one in the bath room.
while I was at it, I drilled another hole going down behind the panel to mount the heater control and the temperature sensor.
Then came the intake and exhaust for the combustion chamber. That was fairly easy. I had to pick up some better heat rated insulation, since what came with the Planar kit was not adequate and a trip to West Marine to get some better 3/4" hose for the intake. Additionally, I had to pick up a an exhaust thru-hull fitting. When starting the heater and running for an hour, the insulation works very well; as I can actually hold my hand on the insulation of the exhaust pipe. As extra insurance, I placed a piece of concrete backer board on the bottom of the floor below the heater as a heat shield. It doesn't even get hot, but I wanted extra insurance to have a heat blocker between the heater and various wiring that traveled along the floor.
Here is a picture of the intake and exhaust on the outside of the boat.
As far as the fuel tank, I placed that and the fuel pump under the forward guest seat on the fly bridge. Since the fuel pump makes a ticking noise, this does help to dampen this and it keeps the fuel tank separate from the heater area and is easily accessible.
The only thing I have left is to fabricate a cover for heater and include a cold air vent with a filter. My idea was to be able to suck fresh air from the outside (or at least from the flybridge) and supply that to the cabin.
It was a lot of work (more than I expected) to get this thing mounted in here and to get the duct work routed through the boat. Now I understand why boat yards charge so much for the install...
But it seems to work really well on heating the boat and the bathroom is nice and toasty. The heater is rated to run Highway diesel, but I've only ran Kerosene in it so far. So there has not been any smell to speak of. The only smell has been the initial heat smell with all the new parts (including the heat insulation around the exhaust pipe which gives off an odor for the first few hours of initial operation).
We'll see how this heater holds up to use.
Just thought I'd share this process since it seems like there is not a lot of heater install experiences shared on the internet...especially for Carvers.
