Engine room blower croaked, and what is proper use?

[Bob Quinn]

So my port side engine room blower apparently bit the dust, I see they have them at same for around $470. So I have ben mulling over the possibly of doing that or finding something more powerful to put in it's place.

The question I have however is on proper use of the blowers. Do you all leave them on while under way or just as a means to cool things down after the fact?

I have a 10 hour run from Algonac to Lexington to do later this week and I am concerned without having the blower if I might cause a heat issue in the engine room. I normally leave the blowers on while under way.

Thoughts?

 

[Captain Ralph]

Gas or diesel, bilge blowers help remove dangerous fumes and stink. Underway, IMO the boats ventilation should work and blowers are not required.

Some boats have in addition to bilge blowers have high mount blowers in the engine room(s).
These would remove heat from the engine room(s) overhead. Underway, IMO the boats ventilation should work and blowers are not required. I know of some operators that let their 120Vac, continuous duty blowers run at all time when the engines are running. On our boat, these run from a thermostat in the ER overhead.

I would recommend discovering the duty cycle (engineered life span) of your blower motors to help you answer your question.

I do not believe continuous fan motors were standard equipment.
32Vdc continuous motors are not available anymore.

 

[krush]

An engine is a pretty darn big air pump. It usually doesn't get really hot until you shut them down.

 

[Glory]

An engine is a pretty darn big air pump. It usually doesn't get really hot until you shut them down.

Ditto, no need to use a blower under way.

 

[JD5652]

An engine is a pretty darn big air pump. It usually doesn't get really hot until you shut them down.

Well.... if you live and boat in Florida in the summertime ... that's not necessarily the case.

I've run my 58LRC with two engines (671's) and one generator (20 kW) running 10-12 hours a day ... days on end... and the ER gets heat soaked and you need all the air circulation you can get. I've measured ER wall surface temps approaching 120 degrees in this scenario.

Personally, I run my ER blowers whenever I run my engines. Makes about a 5-10 deg F decrease difference in ER ambient temps.

 

[SEVEN]

My Surveyor told me to remove the hose that was going into the bilge because these blowers were meant to blow out the heat and not worry about the fumes from the diesel. Not sure if anybody agrees with that, but my engine room is cooled down quite quickly because the heat is always towards the ceiling and it blows it right out.

 

[jmooney]

We have two sets of engine room blowers , DC for battery fume elimination and two AC blower
s with aluminum housings. These pull air from the engine room ceilings . I only use them after we dock the boat to help remove heat . I don’t think that they would do much while underway . I am only guessing, but if you want to cool the engine room underway. I would think it would take two 12 inch axial blowers in each engine room , one intake and one exhausting air.

 

[Bob Quinn]

I would love to be able to hook one or two of these in. They blow like mad



.

 

[bostonhatteras]

Check this out https://deltatsystems.com/

 

[Briankinley2004]

I would love to be able to hook one or two of these in. They blow like mad



.View attachment 76267

I have this identical blower in my engine room. Stays on 24/7 even when underway. I use it because I found on my 55 that things in the ER would "sweat" in our humid weather and rust, etc. With the blower circulating I don't have any issues with condensation and it helps cool the ER down sooner after a days run. It also helps cool me off when working down there.

 

[Bob Quinn]

I have this identical blower in my engine room. Stays on 24/7 even when underway. I use it because I found on my 55 that things in the ER would "sweat" in our humid weather and rust, etc. With the blower circulating I don't have any issues with condensation and it helps cool the ER down sooner after a days run. It also helps cool me off when working down there.

Interesting Brian, how did you mount it?
I'm thinking about removing the rubber feet and screwing it to a couple pieces of aluminum bar stock, maybe 1/4" thick, 1 to 1.5" wide and the length can hang out a couple inches on either side of the blower then screw it to the ceiling pointing out the long vents in the engine room. That or screw it to a piece of ply wood then screw that into position somewhere.

Did you do something like that?

There is no great way to hook ductwork to these that I can see so it would be pulling air pretty close to where it is trying to blow it out, but I would think it would still do the trick. It sounds like it's working well for you.

 

[Sadey]

I took Rusty’s advice from a few years ago and removed the lower pick up duct so my blowers are for heat removal more then fumes. I run the blowers once we shut down after docking for as long as I can stand the noise.

 

[Bob Quinn]

I took Rusty’s advice from a few years ago and removed the lower pick up duct so my blowers are for heat removal more then fumes. I run the blowers once we shut down after docking for as long as I can stand the noise.

Some one must have done that on ours before we had it. The tubes run across the ceiling and stop near the engine room doors. Makes sense to pick up from the ceiling.

 

[rwaldrop13]

I can't find the order but I found similar blowers from Dayton on Amazon at a significantly lower price than Grainger. I had replaced my engine room 220V AC blowers and ran them whenever I ran the engines.

Here's the link to Amazon for the 110V version of the blower fans I installed.

1TDT2, 1TDT2A, 4C445 Dayton Direct OEM Interchange Replacement Blower - Amazon.com

 

[Briankinley2004]

Interesting Brian, how did you mount it?
I'm thinking about removing the rubber feet and screwing it to a couple pieces of aluminum bar stock, maybe 1/4" thick, 1 to 1.5" wide and the length can hang out a couple inches on either side of the blower then screw it to the ceiling pointing out the long vents in the engine room. That or screw it to a piece of ply wood then screw that into position somewhere.

Did you do something like that?

There is no great way to hook ductwork to these that I can see so it would be pulling air pretty close to where it is trying to blow it out, but I would think it would still do the trick. It sounds like it's working well for you.

I just have it sitting on top of one of the battery boxes in the center of ER. Its not connected to any duct work. I use the flange mount blowers too when I have been running the engine but the blue fan stays on all the time.

 

[SEVEN]

I can't find the order but I found similar blowers from Dayton on Amazon at a significantly lower price than Grainger. I had replaced my engine room 220V AC blowers and ran them whenever I ran the engines.

Here's the link to Amazon for the blower fans I installed.

You forgot the link.

 

[rwaldrop13]

You forgot the link.

Odd behavior from the site or my PC... Probably my PC. When I edited the post to include the link yesterday, apparently it didn't save with the link.