Posted: September 19 2006 at 13:45 | IP Logged

I have a Carver 356 AC. A friend of mine has a 35' Bayliner, the salon of which is slightly smaller than my 356. The Bayliner has a factory installed heater which uses hot water circulated from the engines.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well.  What little heat it puts out, is rapidly dissipated in the large salon area.  Boat salons are not very well insulated, and consequently, heat is quickly lost, not to mention what the cold water under the hull draws out.

If you were determined to install one, I think there might be enough room under the aft dinette seat.  In my boat there is quite a bit of room under there, although you would have to enlarge the access hole.  You could vent it out into the cabin through the area under the seat, either forward or to port.

Good Luck..........

Posted: September 21 2006 at 10:40 | IP Logged

I had the same idea since my hot water system is heated already by the engine's hot water from the starboard engine. My thought was to use the port engine's outlets just as the starboards to pump water through a radiator from a vehicle. After a good deal of thought I gave up the idea. The primary reason was an incident where the inlet hose to my domestic hot water system failed and I was pumping hot water into the bilge. The hose failure was underneath the master bed in the master stateroom and was totally out of sight. Where it not for the fact that 1. the bilge pump did its job well and 2. my routine every 1/2 hour inspections of all bilge areas of the boat revealed the problem in a timely manner it would have easily sunk the boat.

Just as in a car, these hoses fail regularly. If you choose to do the installation I would advise you to take every precaution possible including installing an appropriate water flow alarm and a high water alarm in the system.

Posted: October 03 2006 at 13:55 | IP Logged

My previous boat was a 350 aft and I installed an Ardic diesel heater under the sink counter with a 4 outlet fan coil under the galley table by the hot water tank. This I then ducted to outlets under one of the seats and one in the salon on the port side behind the fridge (there is space for a 2-1/2" duct). I also ran a duct to the aft cabin. For return air I installed a ducted inlet to the fan coil. I located this at the bottom of the stairs in the galley. The heater had a rating of 19,000 BTU's which in the north west still worked very well.

Keep in mind that if you take heat off the engine without a small plate heat exchanger you are in danger of loosing an engine if a heater hose starts leaking as you will loose all your coolent. Some engine manufactures are voiding warrantees because of this.

For info Hurricane heaters have just release a small 25K BTU heater which would be ideal for a boat of your size. It also provides instant hot water.