The only thing that I would be a little concerned about with any heater (versus a heat lamp) in your engine and bilge spaces, except one that's especially built for marine use, is the non-ignition- protected nature of the thermostat relay. I have one of those oil- filled radiators at our house for our guest bedroom and there's a clearly visible spark whenever the relay cycles the heater on or off. In enclosed spaces with fuel vapors, there's some risk of ignition. I very much like .
Rather than using thermostats and timers, I just run a few of those low-wattage (100 or 150) non-thermostatic air dryers all the time and my boat stays nice and warm and dry. I have a 36 Sport Sedan with the large-ish engine compartment below the cockpit; I use two in there (one forward, one aft by the generator), one in the compartment under the main salon where the hot water tank and fresh water tanks are, one in the main salon, one in the head, and one in the forecastle stateroom. All are 100 watt except the one in the head which is 50. So I'm drawing 550 watts (about 4.5 amps) continuously. The units in the main salon and below-salon compartment are the West Marine fan- forced units, the rest are pure convection units (I won't use a fan- forced unit in engine/fuel tank spaces). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "UnifliteWorld" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/unifliteworld?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
