Recently, I have had plenty of opportunity to put Creeky’s insulation to the test. On most days I am able to keep the inside temp in the mid 50’s with a single 15 amp space heater on the low setting, and up above 60 with it on high. Not too shabby. When the temps get closer to zero, however, and the wind picks up, it’s not quite as cozy down below. Last night the outside temp got down to about 5 degrees. That brought the inside temp down into the 40’s, despite the heater being on full blast and me and Jennilee being curled up under a heated blanket. Not quite cutting it.
Enter the Webasto Air Top Evo 5500 diesel forced hot air heater that I bought several months ago. I finally had some time to install it after returning from Vietnam jobless. These next few days should help me to either justify or regret the investment. Hopefully I should at least be able to stay warm, whether I can afford to put food on the table or not.
More pics to be added, but here are a few to get you started.
Drilled a hole to realize that where I planned to put the heater controls there was an oak counter support. Oops…
After cutting the hole a bit lower the controls are in.
This should do until I have time to replace the plywood behind it.
This is my temporary fuel bottle.
A little hole for a tube.
Poof!
A hole for a duct.
Some duct work.
Heating vent.
Should have sailed the thing to Florida Slagle. Its only a low of 36 here.
B.konrad
Should have sailed the thing to Florida Slagle. Its only a low of 36 here.
B.konrad
Florida goes to red alert when the temperature gets below 60. I think its safer here. I hope you are surviving the chaos. Has looting begun yet?
Florida goes to red alert when the temperature gets below 60. I think its safer here. I hope you are surviving the chaos. Has looting begun yet?
Hello Brendan, nice blog. I just realised that webasto evo air top 550 is installed by default to circulate cabin air, and in the normal boat installation where you suck in outside air, the remote temperature sensor is indeed. I also suspect that it is missing from my installation. Can you specify which thermistor you used?
Hi Tuomas,
Sure, no problem. I used a 10K ohm thermistor from sparkfun.com Part # SEN-00250 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/250). I think any 10K ohm thermistor should work, but they are hard to find on big supply websites, and difficult to buy in small quantities. It works great. You'll notice that the heat cycling is a little different than with the internal sensor. I imagine that is due to the fact that the unit does not need to draw air across the sensor to detect the temperature. I made sure to solder the thermistor leads with heat shrink tubing over my work leading right up to the base of the thermistor to make sure they couldn't accidentally touch. I also used a larger length of heat shrink tubing over everything to make it extra rugged (probably overkill). Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like more details, pictures, etc… Hope this helps!
– Brendan
Brendan – thanks a lot! -Tuomas