Keeping a Cat Warm in New England????

[SelkirkGrace]

Originally Posted by miatapaul

Stick to electric, or if you must use combustion make sure it is properly vented. I once saw an old house boat that had a big 4 foot high pot bellied stove in the salon. Got the boat nice and toasty. But every one in the harbor hated it because it dumped soot all over the other boats.

If you have to use a combustible, a pellet stove will do the job nicely. No ash and very little CO.

[LittleFlower]

I really thought you meant a pet cat. I was excited because I liveaboard in Mass with my kitten, and have neighbors across the dock who also live on their boat with their cat. It is possible to keep yourself, your cat, and your boat cozy enough to live on. Are you at a dock, mooring, or anchored for the winter?
Teresa
sailingsimplicity.com

[sailingdog]

Teresa-

You should be able to do that. Having a boat with a cored hull and deck makes it easier, since the core material does act as an insulator. What kind of boat do you have and where do you keep it? Do you have a heater installed or do you use an electric heater??

[Captsomer]

I have lived on a 37' trawler in Cincinnati for over 8 years now. I use a Hurricane hydronic heating system that I installed. It was expensive (just the hurricane is around $3000) but well worth every penny. I leave it on 24 hours a day all winter and it has never let me down. All it needs is an occasional fuel filter change. No big deal.

I run the glycol mixture through a radiator mounted in front of my cold air return for my AC system for the forced air in the cabin. Then it coils under the floors (warm feet when I get out of bed. No slippers required.), goes under my bunk (when you pull back the sheets to get in bed, the bed is already warm), into the head and under the floor in the shower (no cold feet in the shower either), into the engine room (engines like to be warm too), and all over the rest of the boat.

Right now its 4 degrees outside and its still 72 inside. Right where I set it. I'm sure it would keep your cat very warm and comfortable for a long time.

I've tried all kinds of heating systems over the years. Its not worth messing around with half assed systems. If you're going to be a liveaboard, do it right. Its worth it. Other cheaper systems let you down too often and turn into cold, sleepless nights spent desperately trying to fix a failed unit in the cold. Pretty soon you realize that you need a spare part and that UPS will take 3 - 4 days to get it to you. That means 3 - 4 more cold days. After you've gone through this a few times, you're mad, your spouse is REAL mad and the next thing you know, your grand dream of romantically living aboard in bliss is all but sunk and you find yourself living in an apartment and cursing boats. Don't let this happen to you! Spend the extra money up front and do it right the first time.

Don't let anyone tell you that living aboard is cheap. It ain't! We do it because we love it, not to save money. But if done right, it is one of the most rewarding things you can do...

Good luck

[pdqaltair]

The danger of carbon monoxide is too great. The instructions should be clear about this.

The condensation issues can be more than a curiosity in truly and sustained cold weather. Alvah Simon wrote a book "North the the Night" about wintering over way up past Hudson Bay somewhere. A good read. Clear, his cold vs. the cold of coastal Maine are very different, but he had a lot of problems with condensation and you might find it interesting.

Moisture control will be an issue. Cooking will require venting and covered pots. Showers are probably a mistake. Although insulation of all types will help, you can't insulate the hulls water contact, so there will be condensation below the waterline unless you keep the dew point in the 50s - very dry.

An obvious solution is a dehumidifier. A dehumidifier puts out the same amount of heat per unit electricity input as any electric heater; the fundamental law of energy conservation promises that all electric heaters or appliances convert exactly 100% of the input to heat. I bet if you consider a dehumidifier as one of your heat sources the condensation problem is gone.