Issues with Condensation!

[Liberty Tambien]

Currently dealing with WINTER.. yayy

Ive been dealing with lots of condensation on the ceiling and walls and its Getting the inside soaked, ive been doing my best to keep the bilge dry but the rain finds its way down there almost daily, and i dont have enough fuel to heat the boat 24/7 to keep it Toasty warm.

Is anyone else have a hard time with this?

Any brilliant solutions?

I cruise around, and stay on anchor giving me limited electricity; so electric heaters and electric dehumidifier's take to much power.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by Liberty Tambien

Currently dealing with WINTER.. yayy

Ive been dealing with lots of condensation on the ceiling and walls and its Getting the inside soaked, ive been doing my best to keep the bilge dry but the rain finds its way down there almost daily, and i dont have enough fuel to heat the boat 24/7 to keep it Toasty warm.

Is anyone else have a hard time with this?

Any brilliant solutions?

I cruise around, and stay on anchor giving me limited electricity; so electric heaters and electric dehumidifier's take to much power.

It is a lot of work to install, but insulation makes a big difference.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by wholybee

It is a lot of work to install, but insulation makes a big difference.

What kind of insulation would you recommend?

There are foam boards lining the hull but thats all that im aware of, so nothing great as of now.

[Stu Jackson]

What do you have for heat?

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

What do you have for heat?

A small wood stove center of the boat and a propane stove in the galley.

[disputin]

Hmm, electricity helps a lot. If you aren't in a marina and don't want to pay marina fees, even coming in to tie up in a marina once a week, can be helpful. This allows you to run electric heaters to dry out the boat as much as possible. There is a lot of guest slip availability in the winter in the PNW.

Keep all your hanging lockers and cabinets open to increase airflow. We're tied up to a dock and we still use VacPlus Moisture Absorber Boxes in our cabinets and other spaces near the hull.

moisture management is more about moving air than heat, In the places you have condensation, get the air moving, fans can help a lot.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by disputin

Hmm, electricity helps a lot. If you aren't in a marina and don't want to pay marina fees, even coming in to tie up in a marina once a week, can be helpful. This allows you to run electric heaters to dry out the boat as much as possible. There is a lot of guest slip availability in the winter in the PNW.

Keep all your hanging lockers and cabinets open to increase airflow. We're tied up to a dock and we still use VacPlus Moisture Absorber Boxes in our cabinets and other spaces near the hull.

moisture management is more about moving air than heat, In the places you have condensation, get the air moving, fans can help a lot.

Fans, Thats something i overlooked and will definitely look into. Most of my lockers are slotted and allow airflow, so im not sure if having them open would make a huge difference, but i'll try and report my findings after a week or so. as for docking, might be a bit more difficult, currently without engine power until i get some parts from the machine shop, but perhaps if the wind permits i could try.

[disputin]

Our lockers are slotted too, you want as much airflow in areas near or connected to the hull as possible. Open the lockers.


Sean

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Liberty Tambien

A small wood stove center of the boat and a propane stove in the galley.

i’m doing the same thing you are right now. i’m at anchor too, just like you, without power, completely off grid. Arguably, I am in colder weather also in new england

here are some things you need to do.

1) definitely see if you can get insulation over the spots that are getting condensation. Ideally this would be from the outside of the boat. because if it’s not a vapor tight barrier between the Inside air and the insulation, the warm moist inside air will get behind the insulation and you’ll have mold back there. That can be bad for your health. ports can be insulated from the outside just as well as the inside and you will find it’s better to do that from the outside. If it’s large stretches of fiberglass that are dripping, that’s a different story and will be difficult for insulating at all due to the shape of the hull

2) don’t even think about using that propane indoor cooking stove to heat. All that’s doing is piling water into the air. What is the product of combusting propane? water! In an ideal world that’s all that comes out the other end. Realistically it water with carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides. But it’s a lot of water. So stop using that stove for heat no matter how cold you are.

3) have some way to generate power. Small generator. Your alternator. I don’t know what you are using. But start making power with some kind of fuel powered system. You are going to have some heating and air movement electrical demands on your batteries that you don’t normally have and you have to keep up with those.

4) after you have figured out how to generate power, get yourself an electric blanket. use the electric blanket to keep warm instead of the propane stove. they use very, very little energy. Get a Sherpa blanket and put it over the electric blanket and you can leave the thing on one all night and be almost too hot. get blankets and sleeping bags. Also wear thermal underwear and a hat around the boat with some sweats or warm pajamas. heating your personal self can go along way if it’s a little chilly. You are going to need a pure sine inverter if you get a standard electric blanket. Otherwise get a 12 V blanket and use that.

5) The woodstove is your ally. When it pulls air up the chimney it pulls fresh air in from cracks to replace it. Use the woodstove. Crank it up. Use fans to blow the heat where you need it. The fresh air that comes in to replace what goes up the chimney will keep your boat dry. also, heat needs to start at the bottom of the environment. Either the woodstove needs to be near the cabin sole, or you need a fan to blow the heat down to the cabin sole. That’s where it should start. It will rise up naturally.

6) get yourself a heater. Grab one of the Chinese diesel heaters off Amazon. I have three of them heating my boat and they are pretty good. vevor brand works. they are very cheap. Get two of them so you have a spare if one breaks or has to get taken apart to clean.

7) Open everything up. Don’t have closed areas. Don’t try to heat just a small part of the boat. Heat the entire boat. when you try to have areas that are not heated, the warm moist air from the heated parts still makes its way over there but then it condenses on the cold areas. Open up all of your lockers. Open up any dead air space and get the heated air in there. If there is some area that you are deciding not to heat, you absolutely have to seal it up 100% airtight with plastic and tape. No air should be able to get in there. Otherwise you have to open it up and let all of the air in there.

8) while you are on Amazon, grab a thermometer/hygrometer. Pay attention to the humidity. Keep it in the right zone. Keep it dry in there. you’ll see that having more ventilation or blasting that woodstove dries things out. running the diesel heater would help as well because as it heats the air, the relative humidity drops. however, you have to get that hot air to the areas that are too cold and heat them as well. As long as the surfaces in those areas remains above the dewpoint temperature, you’re not going to get condensation. So heat everything up not just some things.

9) counter intuitively, more ventilation keeps it dryer unless you have a lot of fog or rain falling. Sometimes the outdoor air can be too wet to bring in.

10) don’t cook big pasta meals and shower in the boat. If you have weather gear">foul weather gear that got wet leave it outside to dry.

11) this should be number one on the list. You cannot have leaks. You absolutely have to fix any drips or leaks of water that are coming into the boat. It sounded like you were describing leaks as well. You were talking about keeping the bilge dry. if it’s the cold water making the bilge cold and that is causing it to be wet from condensation, OK. No problem. Just get the air flowing down there. If you are talking about rainwater getting in? You have to stop that. You’ll never dry out if you have water continually coming in the boat.

12) if you have large window areas, use that plastic window sealing stuff they sell in all of the hardware stores. The shrink stuff. They have a kit with double-sided tape that you can put around the windows then put the plastic over the windows and shrink it. I have that on some of my windows that I did not close off with insulation since i may need to navigate.



attached, you can see the temperature and humidity in my boat at any given time. This is about where I keep it. I can do this in 22F weather with ease. i’m sure I can do it even lower because I haven’t even put the heaters at more than 70% at 22F to do that.

You have to get this under control. you should have done it before winter and planned ahead so that you didn’t have to do it in the bad weather, but hindsight and all. Lol you’re going to have to get it under control because if you live in there with mold growing all winter you’re going to end up coming out in the spring with asthma and other types of health issues. It’s happened to me in the past and I didn’t know any better. So don’t be like me. Get that environment under control before you have health issues.

[Chotu]

I just looked your boat up. Definitely insulate all of those little round ports from the outside. See if you can insulate the big square windows on the sides from the outside. Put plastic over those windows from the inside. that will keep all of those from at least condensing. same with that big box hatch thing on deck forward. Insulate that from the outside.

praying that you don’t have leaky teaky decks screwed through the fiberglass leaking on you. Because screwed will be the Operative word.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by Chotu

i’m doing the same thing you are right now. i’m at anchor too, just like you, without power, completely off grid. Arguably, I am in colder weather also in new england

here are some things you need to do.

1) definitely see if you can get insulation over the spots that are getting condensation. Ideally this would be from the outside of the boat. because if it’s not a vapor tight barrier between the Inside air and the insulation, the warm moist inside air will get behind the insulation and you’ll have mold back there. That can be bad for your health. ports can be insulated from the outside just as well as the inside and you will find it’s better to do that from the outside. If it’s large stretches of fiberglass that are dripping, that’s a different story and will be difficult for insulating at all due to the shape of the hull

2) don’t even think about using that propane indoor cooking stove to heat. All that’s doing is piling water into the air. What is the product of combusting propane? water! In an ideal world that’s all that comes out the other end. Realistically it water with carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides. But it’s a lot of water. So stop using that stove for heat no matter how cold you are.

3) have some way to generate power. Small generator. Your alternator. I don’t know what you are using. But start making power with some kind of fuel powered system. You are going to have some heating and air movement electrical demands on your batteries that you don’t normally have and you have to keep up with those.

4) after you have figured out how to generate power, get yourself an electric blanket. use the electric blanket to keep warm instead of the propane stove. they use very, very little energy. Get a Sherpa blanket and put it over the electric blanket and you can leave the thing on one all night and be almost too hot. get blankets and sleeping bags. Also wear thermal underwear and a hat around the boat with some sweats or warm pajamas. heating your personal self can go along way if it’s a little chilly. You are going to need a pure sine inverter if you get a standard electric blanket. Otherwise get a 12 V blanket and use that.

5) The woodstove is your ally. When it pulls air up the chimney it pulls fresh air in from cracks to replace it. Use the woodstove. Crank it up. Use fans to blow the heat where you need it. The fresh air that comes in to replace what goes up the chimney will keep your boat dry. also, heat needs to start at the bottom of the environment. Either the woodstove needs to be near the cabin sole, or you need a fan to blow the heat down to the cabin sole. That’s where it should start. It will rise up naturally.

6) get yourself a heater. Grab one of the Chinese diesel heaters off Amazon. I have three of them heating my boat and they are pretty good. vevor brand works. they are very cheap. Get two of them so you have a spare if one breaks or has to get taken apart to clean.

7) Open everything up. Don’t have closed areas. Don’t try to heat just a small part of the boat. Heat the entire boat. when you try to have areas that are not heated, the warm moist air from the heated parts still makes its way over there but then it condenses on the cold areas. Open up all of your lockers. Open up any dead air space and get the heated air in there. If there is some area that you are deciding not to heat, you absolutely have to seal it up 100% airtight with plastic and tape. No air should be able to get in there. Otherwise you have to open it up and let all of the air in there.

8) while you are on Amazon, grab a thermometer/hygrometer. Pay attention to the humidity. Keep it in the right zone. Keep it dry in there. you’ll see that having more ventilation or blasting that woodstove dries things out. running the diesel heater would help as well because as it heats the air, the relative humidity drops. however, you have to get that hot air to the areas that are too cold and heat them as well. As long as the surfaces in those areas remains above the dewpoint temperature, you’re not going to get condensation. So heat everything up not just some things.

9) counter intuitively, more ventilation keeps it dryer unless you have a lot of fog or rain falling. Sometimes the outdoor air can be too wet to bring in.

10) don’t cook big pasta meals and shower in the boat. If you have foul weather gear that got wet leave it outside to dry.

11) this should be number one on the list. You cannot have leaks. You absolutely have to fix any drips or leaks of water that are coming into the boat. It sounded like you were describing leaks as well. You were talking about keeping the bilge dry. if it’s the cold water making the bilge cold and that is causing it to be wet from condensation, OK. No problem. Just get the air flowing down there. If you are talking about rainwater getting in? You have to stop that. You’ll never dry out if you have water continually coming in the boat.

12) if you have large window areas, use that plastic window sealing stuff they sell in all of the hardware stores. The shrink stuff. They have a kit with double-sided tape that you can put around the windows then put the plastic over the windows and shrink it. I have that on some of my windows that I did not close off with insulation since i may need to navigate.



attached, you can see the temperature and humidity in my boat at any given time. This is about where I keep it. I can do this in 22F weather with ease. i’m sure I can do it even lower because I haven’t even put the heaters at more than 70% at 22F to do that.

You have to get this under control. you should have done it before winter and planned ahead so that you didn’t have to do it in the bad weather, but hindsight and all. Lol you’re going to have to get it under control because if you live in there with mold growing all winter you’re going to end up coming out in the spring with asthma and other types of health issues. It’s happened to me in the past and I didn’t know any better. So don’t be like me. Get that environment under control before you have health issues.

This is exactly the information i was looking for! i appreciate the greatly detailed advice and instructions, will be getting on top of it asap!!

[daniTS]

Originally Posted by Liberty Tambien

What kind of insulation would you recommend?

There are foam boards lining the hull but thats all that im aware of, so nothing great as of now.

We've insulated our boat (which was definitely easier for us as we started from a bare hull/doing a lifeboat conversion and did it before we put up interior walls) with Havelock Wool (https://havelockwool.com/) and I can't recommend it enough. It can hold something like 60% of its weight in water before it loses insulative properties, is mold and fire resistant, non toxic, easy to work with, and SO cozy. They do a ton of stuff for vanlife and we figured since metal vans are so brutal for condensation that it would be good on the boat. Before we put any in we took a sample and dunked it in sea water completely, then let it dry and had a look--it puffed right back up and had no odor. If our boat is that wet with saltwater we have bigger problems anyway but it was a good test!



We have huge glass windows as well and I made insulated curtains for them--in the summer it was the difference between being able to be on the boat or not (she's a bit of a greenhouse!) but everywhere we have wool is an extremely big difference to where we don't.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I just looked your boat up. Definitely insulate all of those little round ports from the outside. See if you can insulate the big square windows on the sides from the outside. Put plastic over those windows from the inside. that will keep all of those from at least condensing. same with that big box hatch thing on deck forward. Insulate that from the outside.

praying that you don’t have leaky teaky decks screwed through the fiberglass leaking on you. Because screwed will be the Operative word.

lol Yes i really hope that teak decking isn't leaking on me �� to my observation it is not, for now. Haven't seen any screws coming through the fiberglass, but that doesn't mean they aren't.

I am curious on how you would "Insulate" the port windows from the outside? do you mean just sealing the seams on them? Or do you suggest covering them up? sorry if its a stupid question.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by Chotu

i’m doing the same thing you are right now. i’m at anchor too, just like you, without power, completely off grid. Arguably, I am in colder weather also in new england

here are some things you need to do.

1) definitely see if you can get insulation over the spots that are getting condensation. Ideally this would be from the outside of the boat. because if it’s not a vapor tight barrier between the Inside air and the insulation, the warm moist inside air will get behind the insulation and you’ll have mold back there. That can be bad for your health. ports can be insulated from the outside just as well as the inside and you will find it’s better to do that from the outside. If it’s large stretches of fiberglass that are dripping, that’s a different story and will be difficult for insulating at all due to the shape of the hull

2) don’t even think about using that propane indoor cooking stove to heat. All that’s doing is piling water into the air. What is the product of combusting propane? water! In an ideal world that’s all that comes out the other end. Realistically it water with carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides. But it’s a lot of water. So stop using that stove for heat no matter how cold you are.

3) have some way to generate power. Small generator. Your alternator. I don’t know what you are using. But start making power with some kind of fuel powered system. You are going to have some heating and air movement electrical demands on your batteries that you don’t normally have and you have to keep up with those.

4) after you have figured out how to generate power, get yourself an electric blanket. use the electric blanket to keep warm instead of the propane stove. they use very, very little energy. Get a Sherpa blanket and put it over the electric blanket and you can leave the thing on one all night and be almost too hot. get blankets and sleeping bags. Also wear thermal underwear and a hat around the boat with some sweats or warm pajamas. heating your personal self can go along way if it’s a little chilly. You are going to need a pure sine inverter if you get a standard electric blanket. Otherwise get a 12 V blanket and use that.

5) The woodstove is your ally. When it pulls air up the chimney it pulls fresh air in from cracks to replace it. Use the woodstove. Crank it up. Use fans to blow the heat where you need it. The fresh air that comes in to replace what goes up the chimney will keep your boat dry. also, heat needs to start at the bottom of the environment. Either the woodstove needs to be near the cabin sole, or you need a fan to blow the heat down to the cabin sole. That’s where it should start. It will rise up naturally.

6) get yourself a heater. Grab one of the Chinese diesel heaters off Amazon. I have three of them heating my boat and they are pretty good. vevor brand works. they are very cheap. Get two of them so you have a spare if one breaks or has to get taken apart to clean.

7) Open everything up. Don’t have closed areas. Don’t try to heat just a small part of the boat. Heat the entire boat. when you try to have areas that are not heated, the warm moist air from the heated parts still makes its way over there but then it condenses on the cold areas. Open up all of your lockers. Open up any dead air space and get the heated air in there. If there is some area that you are deciding not to heat, you absolutely have to seal it up 100% airtight with plastic and tape. No air should be able to get in there. Otherwise you have to open it up and let all of the air in there.

8) while you are on Amazon, grab a thermometer/hygrometer. Pay attention to the humidity. Keep it in the right zone. Keep it dry in there. you’ll see that having more ventilation or blasting that woodstove dries things out. running the diesel heater would help as well because as it heats the air, the relative humidity drops. however, you have to get that hot air to the areas that are too cold and heat them as well. As long as the surfaces in those areas remains above the dewpoint temperature, you’re not going to get condensation. So heat everything up not just some things.

9) counter intuitively, more ventilation keeps it dryer unless you have a lot of fog or rain falling. Sometimes the outdoor air can be too wet to bring in.

10) don’t cook big pasta meals and shower in the boat. If you have foul weather gear that got wet leave it outside to dry.

11) this should be number one on the list. You cannot have leaks. You absolutely have to fix any drips or leaks of water that are coming into the boat. It sounded like you were describing leaks as well. You were talking about keeping the bilge dry. if it’s the cold water making the bilge cold and that is causing it to be wet from condensation, OK. No problem. Just get the air flowing down there. If you are talking about rainwater getting in? You have to stop that. You’ll never dry out if you have water continually coming in the boat.

12) if you have large window areas, use that plastic window sealing stuff they sell in all of the hardware stores. The shrink stuff. They have a kit with double-sided tape that you can put around the windows then put the plastic over the windows and shrink it. I have that on some of my windows that I did not close off with insulation since i may need to navigate.



attached, you can see the temperature and humidity in my boat at any given time. This is about where I keep it. I can do this in 22F weather with ease. i’m sure I can do it even lower because I haven’t even put the heaters at more than 70% at 22F to do that.

You have to get this under control. you should have done it before winter and planned ahead so that you didn’t have to do it in the bad weather, but hindsight and all. Lol you’re going to have to get it under control because if you live in there with mold growing all winter you’re going to end up coming out in the spring with asthma and other types of health issues. It’s happened to me in the past and I didn’t know any better. So don’t be like me. Get that environment under control before you have health issues.

Im not sure how rain water is getting in, i think from the
lazarette or the anchor locker.. I have done an extensive job sealing the boat up in preparation for winter but it has so much surface area its hard to get everything. honestly im kinda stumped on it, every seam and crack and place water could get through ive calked it with the appropriate sealer.

[Liberty Tambien]

Originally Posted by daniTS

We've insulated our boat (which was definitely easier for us as we started from a bare hull/doing a lifeboat conversion and did it before we put up interior walls) with Havelock Wool (https://havelockwool.com/) and I can't recommend it enough. It can hold something like 60% of its weight in water before it loses insulative properties, is mold and fire resistant, non toxic, easy to work with, and SO cozy. They do a ton of stuff for vanlife and we figured since metal vans are so brutal for condensation that it would be good on the boat. Before we put any in we took a sample and dunked it in sea water completely, then let it dry and had a look--it puffed right back up and had no odor. If our boat is that wet with saltwater we have bigger problems anyway but it was a good test!



We have huge glass windows as well and I made insulated curtains for them--in the summer it was the difference between being able to be on the boat or not (she's a bit of a greenhouse!) but everywhere we have wool is an extremely big difference to where we don't.

that stuff sounds amazing, i will look into it and give it a shot! Ive always been a big fan of wool clothing and would have never guessed to use it for insulation, but it makes so much sense.

Those curtains? how would i go about making my own, any tips that worked for yours?