Here's my situation. I'm looking at several boats that have propane stoves and bulkhead mounted propane furnaces. I haven't come across any yet with diesels, which baffles me.
The boat I buy will become an immediate liveaboard.
This poses a problem for me. Propane seems wasteful and inefficient, not as much BTU bang for the buck, not to mention propane is more dangerous. It seems like a diesel stove is much more efficient, more BTU's for less dollar, and the stove can double as a furnace.
So, my thinking is I have several choices:
1) Buy one of these boats with propane furnace, keeping the propane stove, but scrapping the propane furnace and replacing it with bulkhead mounted diesel furnace. This way, I wouldn't need to make any more holes in the deck for an extra exhaust.
2) Scrap the propane stove and furnace, replace it with a single diesel stove/cabin heater, but then have the problem of:
a) needing to make a new exhaust hole above the stove, or...
b) pipe the stove exhaust across the cabin to the old propane exhaust vent (not an option, really)
3) Buy a boat with just the propane stove, no cabin heater, and replace that with a diesel furnace/stove, making only one new hole. This is logical but more costly and I may not have that money initially.
4) Wait and hope a boat comes along with a diesel just the way I want it.
Watcha think? I'm thinking of the Sigmar diesels because they don't seem to have the soot problem according to Hal Roth.
By the way, do diesel furnace/stoves make the boat smell of diesel? Not having encountered one yet, I can't sniff things out.
The boat I buy will become an immediate liveaboard.
This poses a problem for me. Propane seems wasteful and inefficient, not as much BTU bang for the buck, not to mention propane is more dangerous. It seems like a diesel stove is much more efficient, more BTU's for less dollar, and the stove can double as a furnace.
So, my thinking is I have several choices:
1) Buy one of these boats with propane furnace, keeping the propane stove, but scrapping the propane furnace and replacing it with bulkhead mounted diesel furnace. This way, I wouldn't need to make any more holes in the deck for an extra exhaust.
2) Scrap the propane stove and furnace, replace it with a single diesel stove/cabin heater, but then have the problem of:
a) needing to make a new exhaust hole above the stove, or...
b) pipe the stove exhaust across the cabin to the old propane exhaust vent (not an option, really)
3) Buy a boat with just the propane stove, no cabin heater, and replace that with a diesel furnace/stove, making only one new hole. This is logical but more costly and I may not have that money initially.
4) Wait and hope a boat comes along with a diesel just the way I want it.
Watcha think? I'm thinking of the Sigmar diesels because they don't seem to have the soot problem according to Hal Roth.
By the way, do diesel furnace/stoves make the boat smell of diesel? Not having encountered one yet, I can't sniff things out.