Ventilation and Heating

Now that summer’s on us there isn’t much need for a heater on board so I took everything in that category off the boat a couple weeks ago.  I used two, small, oil filled, radiator heaters all winter and that kept everything pretty reasonable – probably not for full-time living aboard but nice enough for doing work during the day and also to keep the mildew down.

I also have a small fan-assisted heater from West Marine that is useful to move air around the cabin.  Moving air – getting fresh air into stale pockets –  is as necessary for mildew prevention as heat is.  I found that I could push air into the forward bilge area, under the v-berth step, and get air circulating through the bilge and through most lockers.  To make the most of this I installed several 1–inch “locker vents” from Perko in various dead spaces.

I laid a West Marine fan-assisted dehumidifier on the v-berth step, upside-down, so that it pushes air down into the forward bilge space and from there throughout the boat.  This kept the lockers dry throughout the winter.  I still have the dehumidifier running in the warm weather and am also using the heater/fan unit, with only the fan running, to push air down into the large part of the bilge.

Now that I’d like to move cool air into the cabin I’ve got a windscoop for the foredeck hatch and two 12 volt fans from Caframo. I took a nice breezy nap the other day in the v-berth under the windscoop.