Now that I have the boat floating, I have been attending to the many of little the items that need to be checked out. This summer has been a hot one up here in the Buffalo area for all of August. Everyday has been in the mid 80's with high humidity. I know for many of you that is not hot but for us northerners those temps are something it takes a lot to get used to. I have never been a hot climate person so for me it seems even worse. I also suspect that since acquiring Lyme disease last spring the heat has become more of a personal issue for me.
So... I have had this small (7000 btu) Ac unit knocking around that I was asked to remove from a customers boat. In an effort to make my boat reasonable inside, I perched it up on the port side V-berth cushion, and ran a hose from my head faucet for the IN and ran a long hose to the galley sink drain for the OUT (my head sink drain goes to the shower sump system). That small 7000 btu unit does indeed make the boat reasonable to spend time on. I looses ground during the heat of the day but regains ground at night satisfying the 70 degree set point of the thermostat I stole out of our showroom (we don't need heat this time of year). I simply run a hose from the condensate drain on the units drain pan to a 1 gallon plastic jug on the floor. I have been collecting on average one gallon of condensate per day on average.
My question is to those who have this incredible luxury aboard, did you opt for one large unit or two (or more) smaller units, and where did you shoe horn them in? The kicker is that the price differential between smaller BTU units and larger units is very small, which makes the installation of one large unit more cost effective. I am thinking that adding another unit would provide redundancy, add flexibility and cover more of the boat evenly by having two location positions. I like the location of the current unit as I can close the V-berth door and "freeze" that area if needed.
I know I should be sailing the boat but puttering in the AC has been very nice. Hopefully by next week we will have a reduction in our temps and my requirement for a reasonable working conditions will be much less. Please let me know what has worked or not worked for you.
Dale
Dale-sorry i can't help with that. I suggest a cruise to Maine...had to run the heater a few nights while I was up there:)
Oh, I would take heat over AC any day.
I do not like the heat of the summer however. I have an Espar aboard if you are talking heat.
Nothing better than sticking your head out of the companionway on a brisk chilly night in a lumpy anchorage and scurrying back into a nice toasty warm bunk.
Dale
Spent 2 summers here in Florida working nights and trying to sleep onboard at night.
Bought a small window unit and had it in the hatchway.
Then moved it to the cabin top and ducted it into the main hatch via a plywood enclosure. Looked ghetto as hell, but it worked well. I have seen RV style Dometics installed over hatches on a few boats here. Still gotta remove before sailing I think.
Dirk's Evening Ebb had an aircooled unit under the companionway stairs that exhausted into the starboard lazzarette I believe.
The marine Dometic 8000 BTU we have in our current boat would fit nicely under the port V-berth in a 365. (Our holding tank was starboard) Raw water from a seacock and a drain, so out of water install for sure.
Dale,
I have an older 16000 BTU "Arctic Marine Air" AC/heat pump that does a good job keeping the boat cool in the heat of Gulf Coast summers and taking the chill out of winter time mornings. It's squeezed into the port v berth locker and was installed by a PO. It was a tight fit and all four corners of the opening has to be trimmed square by about 1/2".
There are three outlets: One in stbd v berth bulkhead (duct ran up, outboard of the drawers), another one, the largest, at the fwd end of the port settee (up high, in line with the upper cabinets), and a small one in the head. It does a good job cooling the boat, except when small fish get sucked up in the raw water intake and get stuck.