willhave1day-
No, such ideas are not unrealistic or impractical from the get-go.
A lot of what would be possible would depend on:
1. The available heating and other units available commerically ready to go.
2. Modifications you could make to adapt them to your specific uses.
3. How they could be integrated to perform all desired functions.
4. Space available considerations in the boat.
5. And some thoughtful reflection on the KISS Principle, and whether a good gas generator and using an all electric appliance approach to the various tasks would in the long run be a lot simpler to design, implement, and carry the fuel for, since you could just tap into the main gast tanks with the generator.
I've got a Wedgewood propane 3 burner cooking stove, a Force 10 Cozy Cabin Propane Heater, and now a Honda 1000iea generator, which I'm presently tying into the main gas tanks. I also have an electric heater and system for dockside use, and few electric apliances like a fan, and even a mircrowave on the ready in the garage.
Things are getting a bit complicated. It's my guess that a generator / electric system would be simpler, lighter, cheaper, and easier to design, build, and maintain than a multi-source energy system with the requisite appliances.
Electric appliances are generally smaller, lighter, cheaper, more varried in functions available, and are also more easily removed and added from the cabin as seasonal and cruising requirements vary.
The biggest problem with the generator approach is finding a suitable mounting place on the boat (usually the cockpit) which will not interfere with other uses, like fishing, and which will afford a safe mounting place in terms of carbon monoxide disbursement and the prevention of theft.
However, since it's your major energy source or powerplant, building and dedicating a platform and a lock box around it shouldn't be that much of a problem to overcome.
The biggest drawback of the generator / electric approach is probably the noise issue, but the new inverter style ones are very quiet, comparted to the older ones.
You also only need to run the generator when the batteries are down or when you're specifically using a big draw 120 v appliance. Then too, by adding an inverter, you can run the 120 v stuff off the batteries w/o starting the generator for at least a reasonable time.
If yoiu have an electric system, you'll also find the dockside use with shore power a simpler switch over than if you're using multiple soures of energy.
Most of the boat, including a refrigerator, can be run off of the 12 v house battery(s), and adding a few more of those can increase your quiet time between runnings to hours at a time. (I have four group 27's now, and have never hit the bottom of the "electrical barrel".
Another consideration: With the generator outside and the appliances smaller and inside, you also free up a lot of space under the cabinets for storage that would have gone into stoves, heater, converters, etc.
If I was a betting man, I'd bet you could design and build an electric system a lot easier and for a lesser cost than the multi-energy source approach, but who knows?
So by all means, please go ahead and see what you can come up with! It might just be possible to find a simple elegant solution to all of these problems.
For those who can't stand the thought of all this stuff aboard a small boat, we'll offer the following:
How about a simple, Alaskan style cast iron wood / coal stove, some pots to heat water in, and a brass keroscene lantern? Certainly more ambiance in there there than in the putt-putt powerplant approach!
Let us know what you come up with! This stuff is fun to think about!!!
Joe.
