Summer Cabin Heat

[Pete]

Living on coastal, central North Carolina, we get some pretty hot weather in the summer. 95 to 97 days are not unusual. Naturally the boat being closed up on some of these days, the interior temperature gets near or at 100 degrees. Couple that with my reluctance to run the onboard sea water cooled AC when the boat is alone,for fear if any of multitude of hoses/clamps/condenser units spring a leak it is salt water shower time or worse. I do run two dehumidifiers year round, one on each level so humidity is not a problem.

With that background the question is, what if anything on the boat, excluding personal items, is likely to have a problem with this level of heat? The refrigerator may, but I will take that risk as I think it is low. Any thing else to be concerned about. My solution if I decide to cool the interior is probably to use a household portable unit, the kind that requires only a 4" dryer hose to the outside.

Something to work on, or am I out getting carried away about a non problem?

Pete

 

[EdC]

The way I look at it is marine acs are made to run.I live in NW fL and when June gets here it is hot.
I will set the tstats warmer if boat is sitting.The dehumidifier mode is okay on some days.I feel the
interior of the boat suffers if the ac is not run.The fridge doesnt like hot ambient air either.One
problem is keeping rw strainers clean.I clean mine once a week.another consideration is the amount
of time and energy it takes to cool down a hot interior.
Good Luck !!
Ed

 

[Finalee]

I have been looking at boats lately and will say this. Several of them have experienced clogged condensate drains that resulted in mini floods in the cabin. The damage was obvious because the water line left behind was only in the area that housed the evaporator. I personally have left vents open to circulate the air in all my boats. No damage as a result. The possible damage from an A/C related failure could include sinking. My vote is leave the A/C off if away from the boat more than a day.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Any way to ventilate the boat and just leave fans on? I would not leave the AC on if you are away from the boat.

 

[eze2bme]

Also keep in mind that dehumidifiers create heat when removing moisture. OK in the winter but extra heat in the summer.
I have a "home" style portable AC/Heat unit on my aft deck with the 4 inch "hot air" vented overboard as well as the condensate line. Works well but certainly won't drop the temps below about 10 degrees from surrounding temps due to all the glass.

 

[Angela]

You'll likely get different responses depending on the geographic location of fellow owners. I know that folks up north are reluctant to run AC when they are away from the boat. Folks in the deep south, South Florida for example, are quite used to letting the AC run when they are away. We just can't live without it, and it takes too long to cool a hot boat. Last August, I went to North Carolina for a few days to visit Blind Cat Rescue. I turned off the AC (for the first time) as an experiment, I suppose. When I got home, it was well over 100°. The thermostats only went to 99°. When I first started up all of the AC units, each of them kept going into HP, meaning they didn't have the capacity to cool the coils, given how warm the water was coupled with the incredibly hot air in which they sat. They are all completely separate units, sharing nothing, not even a pump, so it was not just an equipment failure. I opened all the windows and doors and set up some fans to push the 90 degree air from outside to the inside. Once I got the temperature down into double digits again, the AC units ran properly. Nothing else on the boat seemed compromised due to the build up of heat inside, but I'm sure the refrigerator ran its ass off the whole time I was gone. I wouldn't want to abuse the refrigerator like that again.

 

[Pascal]

If you have ever worked on your AC system you know how hard it is to pull hoses from barb fittings... If your hoses and clamps are in good shape and most importantly as long as you don't have any brass fitting in the system, just let the AC run like most people do down south.

Yes condensate drains can clog because most builders including Hatteras don't run them properly but blow them out every couple of years and they ll be fine.

 

[roundIII]

In Florida it is a must. Have left one A/C unit on set at 81 degrees. Never had a problem and I leave the boat for weeks at a time. I do have to have the strainers cleaned minimum once every two weeks.

RoundIII

 

[thoward]

We cut some R-Max for each of the port holes and keep the curtains closed. If you are going to be away from the boat more than a day or two, I would not run the AC system. I'm not an AC guy but I can't imagine it is healthy for a unit to shortcycle for days on end. There is another option which we are looking at now, the smart home hub/sensors.

 

[Milacron]

On a 65 footer with 5 Cruisair units how many raw water intake strainers would you expect to find typically?

 

[fissioneng]

I've found that anything that has the sticky 3M type foam tape attached to it will fatigue from the heat and let go. There are a lot of Hatteras cable ties that are stuck with this stuff, mostly in the electrical panels. However, if you've used it to stick anything else down, like a photo, or a smoke detector to avoid drilling holes, the heat can make it give up its "stick."

Lots of Velcro pads are stuck on with this stuff too.

 

[Boatsb]

I've found that anything that has the sticky 3M type foam tape attached to it will fatigue from the heat and let go. There are a lot of Hatteras cable ties that are stuck with this stuff, mostly in the electrical panels. However, if you've used it to stick anything else down, like a photo, or a smoke detector to avoid drilling holes, the heat can make it give up its "stick."

Lots of Velcro pads are stuck on with this stuff too.

Cables should not be secured with glue. They should have screws securing them.

the last thing you need is a short from a warm cable getting worse.

 

[thoward]

On a 65 footer with 5 Cruisair units how many raw water intake strainers would you expect to find typically?

My 60C had a single intake for the 5 ac units. I could see sound reasoning for 2 intakes.

 

[Angela]

On a 65 footer with 5 Cruisair units how many raw water intake strainers would you expect to find typically?

It depends on how it’s set up. If you have 5 independent AC units, then you will have 5 raw water intake strainers, assuming you have any strainers at all. It’s common these days to simply have the “strainer scoop” and eliminate the interior strainer basket. If your boat is set up with one pump to serve all of the AC units (I call that the “all your eggs in one basket” set up), then, you would have one raw water intake. You need to inspect the equipment to determine what you have, and then follow the plumbing back to the source. My boat currently has 5 raw water intakes because I chose to separate my systems so that I would not have a total failure should one component go tits up.

 

[jim rosenthal]

So to speak.... never a dull moment around this gang....

 

[SeaEric]

So to speak.... never a dull moment around this gang....

LOL. I love it when Ang talks dirty...

 

[magnawake]

There's no way I'm leaving the boat with a/c's running. I've been in florida for almost two years. BTW, glad to be back in the carolinas. I've sucked up an eel, had both condensate hoses plug up and I figure too much risk. My friend filled his engine room with water because his eldow broke. Not the hose clamp or hose. Go figure.....Murphey is alive and well on my boat. It only takes me 15 minutes to cool everything off. Even when I work 12 hrs at the plant, I turn them off. I tell people around my boat that if they see water discharging anywhere over board, and I'm not there something is wrong. Yeah call me paranoid.

 

[GJH]

We summered the boat in North Carolina for a few years, and did not hesitate to have the AC running when we were away a few days. I set it to about 80 degrees in in just two of the five zones on board. Now, I must say that I had completely replumbed the entire raw water system from end to end, including a new manifold and all new hoses, fittings and clamps. Had the units serviced on a regular basis, emptied the strainer before leaving the boat.

 

[34Hatt]

If you have ever worked on your AC system you know how hard it is to pull hoses from barb fittings... If your hoses and clamps are in good shape and most importantly as long as you don't have any brass fitting in the system, just let the AC run like most people do down south.

Yes condensate drains can clog because most builders including Hatteras don't run them properly but blow them out every couple of years and they ll be fine.

But yet so many are afraid of leaving the fresh water hooked up and on. With a 30 psi regulator inline.
Many of your A.C units could pump more water into the boat than the fresh water

 

[rsmith]

There's no way I'm leaving the boat with a/c's running. I've been in florida for almost two years. BTW, glad to be back in the carolinas. I've sucked up an eel, had both condensate hoses plug up and I figure too much risk. My friend filled his engine room with water because his eldow broke. Not the hose clamp or hose. Go figure.....Murphey is alive and well on my boat. It only takes me 15 minutes to cool everything off. Even when I work 12 hrs at the plant, I turn them off. I tell people around my boat that if they see water discharging anywhere over board, and I'm not there something is wrong. Yeah call me paranoid.

Exactly! I'm not as worried about sinking as I am short cycling the units. My intake seems to find every ice bag floating around the harbor. I constantly see these idiots leave the ice on the dock,it melts water drains out of the bag then the bag blows in the water.