Propane locker question

A

AKscott

New member
I am thinking of using a propane heater for my winter king fishing here in Alaska. I have access to a great deal on a Dickinson P12000 propane heater. My question is about possibly using the small refillable Flame King canisters and mounting them on the outside of the cabin or better yet, at the back of the transom. The dedicated propane lockers seem to be ultra expensive and would take up space inside the boat which is already at a premium. Is there anything I'm missing? Any reason why this wouldn't be a safe practical set up?
 
The fuel consumption would be:
1 lb – 5.5 hrs
20 lb – 110 hrs gal LOW (4,000 BTU)
1 lb – 3.9hrs
20 lb – 78 hrs gal HIGH (5,000 BTU).

That would mean fairly frequent change out of 1# cal (which may or may not actually hold a pound.).

Any propane locker has to be vented overboard, not into the cockpit. If you could get a propane tank of several lbs which would fit into the Lazarette locker which is fully isolated from the cockpit, and drains overboard, it would be best.

However I believe it would be far cheaper to put in one of the diesel powered forced air heaters. They would be far more efficient in heating the boat, and a lot safer. A number of people seem to have good results with the "off brands" as well as the Espar, Webasto and Wallas. I see Walmart has a copy for $138 basic unit. (Yeh, I would not buy my "marine" heater from Walmart.). But Russia and China seem to have some good copies--hopefully some of those who are using them, will chime in.
 
I have a photo of my transom mounted propane bracket in our Sierra photo album. Those heaters are common enough on boats but you would need to add a gas sniffing alarm system and a carbon monoxide and CO2 alarm then test and maintain them. The propane always has to be turned off at the tank not the heater.
 
I have a Dickerson propane heater...and love it.....but I agree...it does use propane up quickly.. I have a propane tank in the Lazaret..the Coast Guard has rules and regulations that you must follow for a legal installation ...so I had a marine surveyor that I knew to help me install the tank, valves,regulator and lines...quite involved.

I think it would be much easier to mount a diesel heater....

Joel
SEA3PO
 
Thanks for the ideas. This is something I don't think I'd use all that much, but that might quickly change once I have one : )
Lots of guys I know use the Mr Buddy heaters, and keep a window cracked open, but I have a son with bad asthma issues so want to err on the side of caution with venting. This is why the design of the Dickinsons using air from outside really appeals to me.

Refilling a couple 1lb canisters and keeping the extra in a locker made of 4" PVC, seems fine to me. I've seen a couple bigger boats with the tall 10 lb bottles mounted on the rear of the transom, but would have to check those dimensions to see how they'd fit on my old Classic.

I'll look into the diesel forced air heaters a bit more. Is there that much advantage in diesel over regular gas?
 
thataway":3k00j9gg said:
....I see Walmart has a copy for $138 basic unit. (Yeh, I would not buy my "marine" heater from Walmart.). But Russia and China seem to have some good copies...
Click to expand...

I'm sure the Walmart one comes from China, so perhaps it is OK.
 
I'll look into the diesel forced air heaters a bit more. Is there that much advantage in diesel over regular gas?
Click to expand...

Do you mean gasoline or propane/butane/LPG?

There are forced air gasoline heaters, but for a closed cabin boat like the c Dory, I believe the safety issues preclude its use--even difficult more than propane.

Diesel fumes are not explosive in normal concentration. Diesel has more available BTU per unit. (128,488 Btu/gal of diesel, 112,114 - 116,090 Btu/gal of petrol and 84,250 Btu/gal of propane.) Diesel is the winner here. Storage of the diesel would be a small tank with refill, from a one or two gallon container (similar to Wallas Stove which uses diesel). Many outboard boats run diesel generators, because of the safety issues.

The diesel heaters take air from outside, and of course the combustion products are expelled to the outside. If there are any fumes from a diesel heater they may be more objectionable, vs the propane fumes. (neither should be inside the cabin, but sometimes the smell is there. The only time I noted an odor from the Wallas was during back drafting which was extremely rare.

The diesel heater is ducted, and vents can be run directly to area you want heated. These small diesel heater fit nicely under the galley or even a seat. Vs the Dickinson which is usually on the aft cabin bulkhead--away from the area you most want to heat. The Dickinson is a very high quality product. I had a 12K diesel fired Dickinson similar to the propane in the boat I took to Europe. My biggest complaint was getting heat distribution thru even the saloon where the heater was located, despite two fans. Ducted heat is far better for distribution.

I used a hydronic diesel heater on the Cal 46 (45,000 BTU) and never had any diesel fumes---combustion seemed to be very complete.
 
I too am looking at adding some more heat to my C-22. We just returned from a summer of boating around Vancouver Island. We boated mostly in Desolation Sound, Barkley Sound and in the Gulf Islands. We experienced more cold wet days than warm sunny ones. We have a Wallas stove with an EcoFan, which worked nicely to warm up the cabin and take out some of the moisture. The problem was in the v-berth where moisture would build up in the bedding. We slept with the hatch open a bit, but often the fibreglass was dripping on us in the morning. I need to find a solution on warming and drying the sleeping area. I am now exploring a diesel heater such as the Wabasto Air Top 2000. I would like to run one heat vent into the cabin area, probably near ground level to keep our feet warm and another with an on/off valve to blow into the berth area. I might also look into venting something onto the front windows. There are several C-Brats who have done this and I am currently looking over their photo albums, posts and poking around in my boat to see how I might do this. I am also planning to add some insulation to the boat, especially under the berth. Most of my future boating will likely be on the northern pacific coast, so heat is a definite must.

https://shopcummins.ca/collections/weba ... 6358816870
 
Peter, putting insulation or Hypervent (one of the loop vinyl mats would also work) plus insulation on the hull and under the cabin top / deck will help a lot in both decreasing condensation, as well as retaining heat better. Also with the larger air flow, and drying effect of diesel heat, there will be less moisture in the boat. Still cracking the hatch is a good idea.
 
We have a hydronic heater in our tomcat vented to many areas of the boat. However, we still had condensation in the berth until we insulted the top and sides of the hull in the berth area and added Hydro vent under the mattress. It works fantastic now.

Gene
 
After a couple weeks of intensive research I finally pulled the trigger on a Webasto air top diesel heater. I got a heck of a deal locally on a little used 2 year old set-up that included everything but a tank and the outer vent boat fitting. Will be installing it tonight. :smiled :thup :smiled
 
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