On 22 Jan 2010, at 10:09, Brian on Harnser wrote: > So why not set the timer to come on at say 8 pm and off at 9pm and > then > set the thermostat to 26C that should make it run for an hour. I chose > those times to have the boat hottest at night when the weather is > coldest and not to late to disturb people with the noise.
Not a bad suggestion - except if the boat is left for a month and only 3 nights approach freezing that means that 90% of the time the energy is being wasted. Better than frost damage I agree. I think the frost (or low temp) stat is the correct solution. It worked through a 20 year extreme winter as well as each of the last 7 "normal" years. I agree it looks like a close run thing this year based on the russian roulette analysis. My maintenance was lax and the minimum burn time is still the problem I'm trying to address. Brian's timer suggestion would be OK if I lived closer to the boat and could adopt that regime for relatively short periods when the weather forecast looked averse. Beeky
