Does anyone use their water heater in the Carolinas?

GJarrett

Member
Oct 3, 2006
649
Tampa, FL
Boat Info
'02 260 Sundancer
Engines
6.2 MPI
Our new-to-us '99 240 Sundancer has a water heater. We docked our prior boat very few times at a marina when we had it; spending almost all of our nights out on the hook and learning to live without shore power.... and I fashioned a large storage bin in the starboard side engine bay to store all of our spare parts, oil/fluids, tools, etc. This water heater is in the exact same place and takes up all of that area, and I'd like to use it for storage again.

I am seriously considering removing the water heater on the assumption that here in the south in the summer, the water heater would almost never get used and I'd much rather use that space for storage. To those that have one, it is something that gets used much once you get accustomed to having one? I'm thinking that we wouldn't miss it at all, but wonder if others have found them handy and a nice thing to have. Thoughts?
 
Do it and you'll regret it. Don't do it and you'll regret it. I never had a storage problem in my Regal 2465 and always had hot water. Personally, I would not do it.
 
I use mine all the time. To me that is the purpose of haing a cabin boat... all the comforts of home.
 
Gerald,

We use ours all of the time , in fact when we had a problem with it and it needed to be replaced we really missed it.

Gary
 
If you get rid of it, be prepared for The Shrinkage:

[video=youtube;BEnKLhi83J8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=BEnKLhi83J8[/video]
 
I deleted mine. Don't miss it. Use the space for storage, and an extra battery.
I find the water temp to be good enough to rinse off straight from the tank. I take my hot showers at the marina.

My uncle does a neat trick. He bought a 100ft garden hose and left it coiled up, and put it in the engine room. When he runs the boat, the engine room temp warms the water in the hose and he has plenty of "hot" water for a shower.
I might try that to see if it works for me.
 
Gerald

We rarely run ours on shore power. But there is a coil around the tank that is hooked up to the engine's cooling system and because of that we usually have hot water when we need it if we are running around on the lake. My wife in particular uses the hot water all the time especially when she uses the transom shower after swimming.

I think you should do as you see fit in terms of keeping it or removing it. If you do take it out, I might suggest you don't do anything that would prevent you from re-installing it if you decide to sell the boat.

Dave
 
If you remove it, how much do you intend to store? The boat was designed to have an equal balance, p/s. If you take out say 50 pounds of water heater and replace it with 200 pounds of battery and tools, that a balance will be effected.
 
Keep it, it improves your resale value.
 
Gerald, we love ours, we use it for cleaning up after grilling as well as showers. If you decide to dispose of the hot water heater, I will be glad to haul it to the dump for you.:grin:
 
We use ours a lot, I would miss it if it were not there. My first boat did not have one and we survived but now that we have one I would not be without it.

LK
 
Okay you've convinced me to keep it for now. If I do remove it, I plan a simple removal in such a way that I could easily reinstall it.

Balance was actually one of the issues I thought about; the prior owner installed a parallel third battery to his dual battery setup - the "house battery" at position #2 on the battery switch are now "house batteries" to make sure they don't run down overnight. So I have three batteries and a 12 gal water tank on the port side, with only the water heater on the starboard side - so I assume she's a lot heavier on the port and it would not have mattered how much I loaded on the starboard side; the more the better.

I do want to go back to my comment that we spend our time out on the hook and almost never hook up to shore power. So that means that I would be keeping this thing and not be able to use it 95%+ of the time. I do not have the owners manual to this water heater but the prior owner said it only worked on shore power, and Dave I don't see any coil around the tank to warm it up while the engine is running. However years ago I remember reading in a thread here somewhere (cannot find it now) that someone had installed an option that powered their water heater on 12vdc when not on shore power. Does anyone know how I can do this?
 
Gerald


Here is a picture of mine. Notice there are two black cooling hoses coming from the engine that are connected to the water heater. Those hoses are hooked to coil in the tank and it will heat the water in the tank if you have been running the engine. Yours may or may not have the coils but the hoses are how you can tell.

DSC02542.jpg


Dave
 
Thanks for the photo Dave. We just moved her to storage and I'm about to undergo surgery which will keep me from looking her over for another couple of weeks, but I'll look for outlets for the hose connections when I do. If I have those, I assume I will be able to hook it up to the engine and get heat that way. I'll let you know what I find out then.
 
Gerald, I've been thinking about this for abit, and I realized, the positive feedback for the water heater is coming from the big boat folks. Now, I too would enjoy the realities of a water heater, if I could actually go in the head and take a shower!!!!!! I'm not sure about you but, there just isn't room in there for me.

If you need it for dishes, or just need hot water so be it. But as far as the boating you and I do, I don't see the benefit.........so I removed mine. Justification over. haha

Oh and by the way Dave, super clean bilge man. I think your giving Todd a run for his money! haha
 
Mike the more I think about it the more I agree. If engine heat can heat it like Dave's setup I'll keep it; otherwise I think I'll just take the thing out: the only advantage I see is for the shower, and in the summertime here in the Carolinas the freshwater tank in the engine bay doesn't get cold anyway. When I need hotter water to wash the dishes I can do what I always did on Offroad Dancer - simply heat some water on the stove.

Ditto Mike's comment on your bilge, Dave. Really nice. Are you OCD? :)
 
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The Admiral is on the fence like I am. We just tried to splash her Saturday and the starboard side trim ram is stuck. I trailered her home to work on her and got another look in the engine bay. The water heater does not have engine heat so it only works on shore power. And as I keep repeating, we are almost never on shore power. In the four years we had Offroad Dancer I had her hooked up to shore power a total of three nights. So I am having a really hard time seeing the usefulness of something I cannot use. It looks easy to loop off the lines and remove in a way that it could be quckly reinstalled in case our situation changes and we look forward to a lot of marina time.

It is hard to see in its position, but it may have the hookups for engine heat. I don't know how to do that. How is that done? Are there plugs on the heat exchangers on the engine that can be utilized for an easy conversion running hoses to the heater or would it involve buying new ones?
 
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