OEM water heater finally leaks

[Pascal]

The pipes are all under the docks and in the shade. I never connect to dock water anyway and when filling wait a minute till the water is cool. A coiled dark hose will be like a water heater and will heat the water between fills in the washer

[PeterK]

I too feel your pain. Had to change mine before we even left the dock where we bought the boat. Pulled the guts out of the old one and crushed the metal to remove. Due to the quirks of our layout, had to cut one side of the ER door casing as well as the master stateroom door casing to get it in. The clearance at the top was soooo tight it took hours to get the pipe hooked up to the unit. Seemed to feel seated but the threads wouldn't catch. The admiral did not see the joints I made when I put the casings back together so all was good.

The worst part about it was the marina had an unbelievably gross shower so I ripen for five days before we finally got the heater in. Dock water in RI in late October was a little chilly for bathing...

[davidwigler]

I just realized this would be a perfect time to improve the starboard list by moving the WH to the port side of the Ginny room forward of the battery bank. The hot water travels too far anyway from the aft stateroom all the way to the generator room before returning to the aft heads on the port side.

What’s a good reasonably priced rectangular marine heater? I don’t need a heat exchanger.

They come with an adjustable thermostat? I had one on the last boat they could not be adjusted and was way too hot.

[Boatsb]

120 or 240 volt. How many watts. How many gallons.

What's the size of the are you want to put it in

[davidwigler]

240 volt 20 gallons

[davidwigler]

There’s plenty room to build a shelf over the stringers.

[racclarkson@gmail.com]

The pipes are all under the docks and in the shade. I never connect to dock water anyway and when filling wait a minute till the water is cool. A coiled dark hose will be like a water heater and will heat the water between fills in the washer

Well, I guess you be know'n more about my situation than I do. Someone must've crossed a hot water line 'causing it's hot hot hot all shower long despite using a short white dock water hose.

[Angela]

240 volt 20 gallons

Are you sure you want to downsize to only 20 gallons? That’s pretty small for a 4-stateroom boat. I have (had) the 39 or 40 gallon one and would still run out of hot water from time to time.

[jim rosenthal]

Look in Defender- they have a lot of water heaters for boats, with and without the HE (which you don't have to hook up in any event, you can leave it unused), and some of them are shapes specifically designed to go into engine rooms or small spaces. I think they have them up to 20 gals but not sure. Bigger than that I don't know about. I have a Seaward, which is not an expensive one, but it's gone for years now. When it goes I will probably get an IsoTemp, which are a better shape, but the Seaward, which is a cube, fits fairly well, too.

[jim rosenthal]

The advantage of the heat exchanger is that it can be hooked up to run off any FW cooled engine- this includes the genset diesel as well as the mains. If you are running the genset at anchor anyway, it will keep ther water heater hot if the HE is plumbed in, without putting a load on the genset. And the hot water is HOT- so it lasts longer, you don't need much to shower. It's like 180 degrees.