New cruiserforum
member here. Thought I'd join the conversation.
** Background **
My wife and I lived aboard a
Hunter 31'
monohull at a marina in
Florida for about 2 years (Fall 2017 thru Fall 2019). We had our first child (boy) during this time and moved back to shore when he started walking around and that
boat started feeling a bit small.
Having the itch to get back on the
water, we bought a
Privilege 39
catamaran and lived on that for 6 months from Fall 2021 through Spring 2022. We had just had our 2nd child (girl) at that time. That
boat had lots of
wiring issues and I grew to feeling it wasn't safe for us to be onboard because of the
electrical issues I kept finding.
Fast forward to now, and my job has brought us up to Virginia. Since then I re-wired the boat, so
electrical is good now. That did take a minute.
Now we're planning to
live aboard again but this time will be
winter when we move aboard and we have 3
kids now. We're hoping to go cruising sooner than later, but financially it's going to be another year at lest.
**
Heating Options **
When we purchased the boat it had an older air conditioner under a
salon settee with
electric heating element. This cooled/heated the
salon and fwd 2 cabins. We used that heat during the
winter in
Florida we stayed aboard and it worked pretty well. However, the AC part of it gave me lots of trouble and the whole unit was quite rusty and old so I got rid of it as part of the boat re-wire.
One option is to install a new unit like it had. And I may still do that. But it does tie us to the
dock (unless I install a genset as well) which I'm not wild about.
I've decided to install a hydronics system. Online I haven't found many detailed build threads so thought I would chronicle mine for posterity. Most of the info I've found (esp. YouTube) has been related to van-life, which is a bit simpler.
At first I was planning to install a couple
diesel air heaters, but the ducting challenges, and more importantly the idea of open flames within our living spaces ended up making me decide against that option.
** Basic Layout **
10kw burner. Planning to use an HLN model which is like a higher end Chinese version.
4.5 gallon expansion tank.
6.6 gallon
water heater.
10 gallon buffer tank.
3 thermostat zones within the cat: main salon and each
hull.
The salon to receive the Kalori Silencio 2 radiator.
The hulls to receive a Kalori Evo 1 in each below the floorboard. These each have 4 outlets (55mm). Planning to run the 4 little air ducts to fwd
cabin, hallway,
head, and aft
cabin, respectively.
Additionally, down the road I may add heat to the
battery compartment in aft starboard
engine room and to fwd lockers that have our water
tanks (55 gallon in each hull).
Planning to use 3/4" main line that goes into a dual manifold such as
this one that will allow each zone to be controlled independently.
In the salon I'm planning to have a
control panel with the 3 thermostats as well as fan switches that control the blowers high/medium/low.
So that's the basic design. As components are installed I'll update progress.