We have propane heaters. Why no gasoline/petrol heaters?

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I’ll raft up with you. Lol
My installation has been just fine for 6 years now. And guess what?? I have insurance.

It’s all fear mongering here by people who don’t actually understand gasoline installations on boats.

Tell me how to do a correct installation and maybe I’ll listen to all the fear hype.

I’m sure none of the nervous nellies can begin to describe a proper below deck gasoline installation.

Instead confusing it with jerry cans, ignition sources in places with gasoline, engine rooms and engine room blowers, gasoline inboards, etc.

No clue about an actual installation. Or my installation, which is outboard powered.

And literally none of the nervous nellies are on topic anyway. The topic was gasoline heaters. We found em. They are used in aircraft and are of higher quality than marine heaters.

Sorry to see your friend’s boat up in flames. Electric fire like most boat fires?

Cracked fuel line near injector. He had the boat since new about 12 years and is pretty careful about maintenance.

As mentioned in my first post, I have had a gas heater in a van. There's a reason they are hard to come by. They are not safe. To each their own.

Peter

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by AndyEss

I suspect the differences in safety between gasoline and propane are mostly due to the fact that gasoline is a liquid at room temperature (and pressure) while propane is a gas at atmospheric pressure. Gasoline volatilizes easily and forms a heavier than air vapor, similar to the heavier than air vapor of propane.
Gasoline flow, being initially in liquid form, is totally controlled by gravity, while gas phase propane is readily effected by air currents.
US boat standards include all propane storage to be in a separate compartment vented to the outdoors, not into the boat hull. I don’t believe gasoline storage tanks (due to weight and size restrictions) have this same requirement

Gasoline tanks that are a permanent part of the boat (not portable tanks) do have to be vented to the outdoors. So do diesel tanks.

Portable tanks should not be stored below as a matter of common sense.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Cracked fuel line near injector. He had the boat since new about 12 years and is pretty careful about maintenance.

As mentioned in my first post, I have had a gas heater in a van. There's a reason they are hard to come by. They are not safe. To each their own.

Peter

High pressure spray of anything flammable is bad, gas or diesel. And as great as fuel injection is, having gas under that much pressure on a boat makes me a little nervous. On the other hand, my carbed gas engines only have a short run of metal tube from the fuel pump to the carb and only at about 5 psi. Nothing else is under pressure, so less things that can go badly before you even know about the problem.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Cracked fuel line near injector. He had the boat since new about 12 years and is pretty careful about maintenance.

As mentioned in my first post, I have had a gas heater in a van. There's a reason they are hard to come by. They are not safe. To each their own.

Peter

Ah. A shame. Unfortunate that he had fuel and an engine inside his boat.

As you can tell I’m being a bit laborious on that point. An engine inside a boat caused his fire. A fuel system delivering something under high pressure in an environment where it could be ignited. I have none of that.

My boat is 1000x more safe. No engine below decks.

I’ll grant you these heaters need lots of required inspections. At 500 hours, you must dismantle, test and inspect it. Made in the USA from stainless steel vs Chinese diesel heaters everyone is using on this forum to heat their boat? Kind of a toss up on safety even factoring in gasoline leaks being more dangerous than diesel leaks. Both just as bad under pressure spraying out.

Why wasn’t your gas heater in your van safe? Who made it? What happened to it that caused you to find it wasn’t fit to run in your van?

I’ll let you in on my installation to see what you can find that’s not safe:

3x 50 gallon moller below decks gasoline tanks
3x deck fills and vents
3x fuel level senders
3x shields A1 Marine fuel lines - one from each tank, attached to pickups at the top of each tank. They go uninterrupted, out into the on deck propane locker. Locker vented to open air and ocean.

In the propane locker:
Fuel pump
Racor filter/water fuel separator
3x ball valves to allow you to choose which of the 3 tanks you are drawing from


To install a gasoline heater:

Uninterrupted metal fuel line from fuel manifold in propane locker to heater with 7psi pressure.
Heater located ON DECK in small locker vented to the open air exactly like propane locker.

Heating conduit run from heater into boat to pipe 50,000 btus down into the ends of each hull at cabin sole level.

No heating needed at bridge deck level as heat will rise up.

Tell me how this is not going to be safe.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Chotu

There is already 150 gallons of gasoline below.

Why are people so petrified of these things ?

Do you just imagine some jerry cans half leaking sitting below? Or do you understand that the gasoline tanks (50 gallons each) are built by Moller, attached to deck fills and vents, have fuel gauges, pickups out of the top of the tank and use uninterrupted, heavy duty marine fuel lines to an outdoor area (like a propane locker) that has all the plumbing in it?

Don’t just regurgitate what you read on this forum. Think.

Do you really think a boat of that caliber has just some random crap tank a step up from a jerry can below decks with gasoline done wrong?


One of the recent posts is comparing gasoline and propane is if they are just spraying out all over the place. Who is going to have a system like that?

Gasoline is inside metal plumbing in the case of supplying a heater. With no joints. A single, uninterrupted piece of tubing from the propane locker area to the heater. Exactly like you do with propane.

Gasoline powered equpment must not be subjected to a non-ignition protected environment, hard to do in your accomodation spaces.

Combustion air must be drawn from outside the vessel and not close to any door, port or vent, not as easy as it sounds.

Exhaust air must be directly exhausted outside and again there are minimum distance requirements for that the exhaust has to be from doors, windows and vents... not as easy as it sounds

Go for it.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Chotu

There is already 150 gallons of gasoline below.

Why are people so petrified of these things ?

Do you just imagine some jerry cans half leaking sitting below? Or do you understand that the gasoline tanks (50 gallons each) are built by Moller, attached to deck fills and vents, have fuel gauges, pickups out of the top of the tank and use uninterrupted, heavy duty marine fuel lines to an outdoor area (like a propane locker) that has all the plumbing in it?

Don’t just regurgitate what you read on this forum. Think.

Do you really think a boat of that caliber has just some random crap tank a step up from a jerry can below decks with gasoline done wrong?


One of the recent posts is comparing gasoline and propane is if they are just spraying out all over the place. Who is going to have a system like that?

Gasoline is inside metal plumbing in the case of supplying a heater. With no joints. A single, uninterrupted piece of tubing from the propane locker area to the heater. Exactly like you do with propane.

Gasoline powered equpment must not be subjected to a non-ignition protected environment, hard to do in your accomodation spaces.

Combustion air must be drawn from outside the vessel and not close to any door, port or vent, not as easy as it sounds.

Exhaust air must be directly exhausted outside and again there are minimum distance requirements for that outlet from doors, windows and vents... not as easy as it sounds

Go for it, although your insurance company probably won't but you can always tell them " it's ok I know what I'm doing ".

[Westcliffe01]

On cars, the Espar. Heater is mounted outside the passenger compartment usually underneath the vehicle. If there were gasoline vapors that did not ignite, they would flow down onto the ground or be swept away by the wind. There is no safe place for such a device inside the hull of a boat.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Gasoline powered equpment must not be subjected to a non-ignition protected environment, hard to do in your accomodation spaces.

Combustion air must be drawn from outside the vessel and not close to any door, port or vent, not as easy as it sounds.

Exhaust air must be directly exhausted outside and again there are minimum distance requirements for that the exhaust has to be from doors, windows and vents... not as easy as it sounds

Go for it.

I was kind of waiting for you to jump in. You always find the safety issue.

The proposed installation meets the conditions above.

It’s outside in a locker similar to a propane locker. I’ll give it a dedicated locker.

My propane locker is better than most. It’s a catamaran and the locker is outdoors on the bridge deck.

It’s a box with 6(qty) holes in the floor of the locker. Each hole is 3” diameter. Each hole is simply a hole in the bridge deck leading to open air and the water below.

So I plan to put one of these heaters in a box like that.

I don’t have any ignition protected environment inside boat because I don’t have any equipment inside the boat. Everything is outside.

I do have 150 gallons of gasoline in one of the hulls, but that has its own airtight enclosure box around it with passive ventilation. There are no sources of ignition in that box either since the tanks are the only contents of the box.

Main point is I have 4 pieces of gasoline powered equipment in this case if I do the proposed installation.

Two Outboards, a generator and this heater. All of them outside.

I’m pretty sensitive to mold and nasty chemical smells and stuff I also don’t like excessive heat and stink of any type in my cabins. So, every single mechanical device is outside. It’s been a design philosophy from the start

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Westcliffe01

On cars, the Espar. Heater is mounted outside the passenger compartment usually underneath the vehicle. If there were gasoline vapors that did not ignite, they would flow down onto the ground or be swept away by the wind. There is no safe place for such a device inside the hull of a boat.

Wrong.

My bridge deck is precisely the same installation.

Only difference is I may have an environmental cleanup bill when unburnt fuel drips into the sea. However, this has a safety shutoff like a proper propane stove too, so only a couple drops would drip. No flame means the fuel is cut by a solenoid actuated valve.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Ah. A shame. Unfortunate that he had fuel and an engine inside his boat.

As you can tell I’m being a bit laborious on that point. An engine inside a boat caused his fire. A fuel system delivering something under high pressure in an environment where it could be ignited. I have none of that.

My boat is 1000x more safe. No engine below decks.

I’ll grant you these heaters need lots of required inspections. At 500 hours, you must dismantle, test and inspect it. Made in the USA from stainless steel vs Chinese diesel heaters everyone is using on this forum to heat their boat? Kind of a toss up on safety even factoring in gasoline leaks being more dangerous than diesel leaks. Both just as bad under pressure spraying out.

Why wasn’t your gas heater in your van safe? Who made it? What happened to it that caused you to find it wasn’t fit to run in your van?

I’ll let you in on my installation to see what you can find that’s not safe:

3x 50 gallon moller below decks gasoline tanks
3x deck fills and vents
3x fuel level senders
3x shields A1 Marine fuel lines - one from each tank, attached to pickups at the top of each tank. They go uninterrupted, out into the on deck propane locker. Locker vented to open air and ocean.

In the propane locker:
Fuel pump
Racor filter/water fuel separator
3x ball valves to allow you to choose which of the 3 tanks you are drawing from


To install a gasoline heater:

Uninterrupted metal fuel line from fuel manifold in propane locker to heater with 7psi pressure.
Heater located ON DECK in small locker vented to the open air exactly like propane locker.

Heating conduit run from heater into boat to pipe 50,000 btus down into the ends of each hull at cabin sole level.

No heating needed at bridge deck level as heat will rise up.

Tell me how this is not going to be safe.

Van heater was more than 25 years ago and operated more or less like an Espar diesel heater does - small spray and an ignitor. Sometimes there would be a slight delay in the process and a pretty large whoosh. It did have an auto shutoff to prevent gasoline from continuing if it didn't light. I never had a true issue with it, but even as a young guy who didn't know better, it clearly wasn't a satisfactory heat source, but that may have been due to design or perhaps installation. I was pretty green back then. But I do recall they were very difficult to find even that long ago. In hindsight, it's probably difficult to get past legal product liability issues in the US.

I cannot envision the OPs installation to keep the heater above decks. I just don't know. It's possible I suppose, and gasoline heaters are available, just not nearly as available as propane and diesel so sounds like choices are narrow. Marine gas engines have spark protection gear all over them and I'm guessing few of the gasoline heater manufacturers have the resources to apply that standard.

I'll also say I don't think the diesel drip heaters like the 17k btu Dickenson I had for years are safe either and should not be left unattended, including sleeping with them on unless there are dead calm conditions.

Finally, diesel pressure injector lines do crack. I have had one happen on an old Detroit 671, and watched a YouTube of a guy a couple years ago on a Diesel Duck trawler who's single diesel stopped mid pacific ocean due to a cracked fuel line. In both instances, the biggest issue was the engine stopped which isn't ideal on a single engine powerboat 1000 nms from land (he scavenged a line from somewhere, I forget how he got it fixed). Clearly a better outcome than my friends gas powered boat that burned to the waterline. Amazingly, he bought another gas powered boat.

Thanks for the discussion Chotu. You always have some interesting perspectives. Stay warm. Just not too warm.

Peter

[Dockhead]

Gasoline -- heater -- boat . . . what could possibly go wrong?

Well, that's flippant, sorry.

A heater is external combustion, so inherently more dangerous -- open flames. Also more uses of an inherently dangerous fuel (inherently dangerous on boats), more piping, more joints and valves, more volume of fuel handled = more risk.

On top of that, it's costly to run.

What Chotu proposes to do sounds actually pretty well thought out, but I just wouldn't do it. I would use a normal diesel heater of one kind or another, and a separate tank for home heating oil or kerosene or waste jet fuel. The Espar/Webasto type heaters run much cleaner and better on kero, than on diesel fuel, which is usually cheaper than diesel fuel too. No need to put that heater in a box on deck, either. Installation will be simpler, will be cheaper to run, will be safer.


Since you're not sharing the fuel with a diesel engine, you have a wider choice of fuel, and you can choose something which may be much cheaper since it may be sold tax-free, like home heating oil. Absolutely worth the extra tank, which will anyway not be more expensive or difficult to install than all the stuff which Chotu proposes to install to make gasoline work.


There is a good reason why almost no one uses gasoline heaters on boats.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by ttex

Like gasoline, propane is flammable, but has a much narrower range of flammability than gasoline and much higher ignition temperature 920- 1020 degrees vs. 80- 300 degrees for gasoline. Propane will only burn with a fuel-to-air ratio of between 2.2% and 9.6% and will rapidly dissipate beyond its flammability range in the open atmosphere-making ignition unlikely.

Flammable limits gasoline 1.4-7.6%
Flammable limits propane 2.1-9.5%

Gasoline and propane both have flame temperatures in the vicinity of 2000F, depending on the specific burner design.

Auto ignition temperature gasoline about 540F. Propane about 880F.

Not sayin' a petrol heater is a good idea, just posting the correct data. Obviously, they have been common in certain air cooled cars. This is well known. And they occasionally burned.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by thinwater

. . .Not sayin' a petrol heater is a good idea, just posting the correct data. Obviously, they have been common in certain air cooled cars. This is well known.

Yeah, I've had 'em in one or two cars. For example, my mother had a VW 412 which had one which I drove as a teenager. It had one of those.


Webasto still makes some gasoline/petrol fueled heaters:


https://www.amazon.com/Webasto-Gasol.../dp/B01M2ZCWTF


Eberspacher used to; don't know about now.


May be unobtainable in the U.S. due to liability issues.


Not saying it's a good idea.

[Chotu]

This sounds reasonable regarding the extra tank, but it weighs half a ton to keep even a couple weeks fuel aboard.

That’s way too heavy.

Otherwise that would be a fine solution.


As to the costly to run bit... I’m assuming it’s a similar cost to run (per btu) as a diesel heater. This could certainly have me changing my mind if it’s extremely expensive. What’s the part I’m missing here?

The alternative is running my gasoline/petrol generator all the time to power electric resistance heat which gets a little old and is the most expensive way to do it.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Gasoline -- heater -- boat . . . what could possibly go wrong?

Well, that's flippant, sorry.

A heater is external combustion, so inherently more dangerous -- open flames. Also more uses of an inherently dangerous fuel (inherently dangerous on boats), more piping, more joints and valves, more volume of fuel handled = more risk.

On top of that, it's costly to run.

What Chotu proposes to do sounds actually pretty well thought out, but I just wouldn't do it. I would use a normal diesel heater of one kind or another, and a separate tank for home heating oil or kerosene or waste jet fuel. The Espar/Webasto type heaters run much cleaner and better on kero, than on diesel fuel, which is usually cheaper than diesel fuel too. No need to put that heater in a box on deck, either. Installation will be simpler, will be cheaper to run, will be safer.


Since you're not sharing the fuel with a diesel engine, you have a wider choice of fuel, and you can choose something which may be much cheaper since it may be sold tax-free, like home heating oil. Absolutely worth the extra tank, which will anyway not be more expensive or difficult to install than all the stuff which Chotu proposes to install to make gasoline work.


There is a good reason why almost no one uses gasoline heaters on boats.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Chotu

This sounds reasonable regarding the extra tank, but it weighs half a ton to keep even a couple weeks fuel aboard.

That’s way too heavy.

Otherwise that would be a fine solution.

Are you sure it would be half a ton?


There is some efficiency gained by using a common fuel, but I doubt if it's nearly that much. A couple weeks of fuel in a separate tank is going to weigh about the same as a couple weeks of fuel in common tanks, with the only gain being that you might need a bit less fuel total, since the fuel is all common.


In really cold weather I burn maybe 10-15 liters a day in my 12kW Eberspacher Hydronic furnace. If I were supplying it from a separate tank I would want maybe 200 liters of tankage for that, or maybe somewhat less. But I would then be able to carry more or less that much less in the main tank. So the net weight difference is not going to be very great.


If you have three tanks, you could just convert one to kero.



It would be a lot cheaper to run, and a lot safer.


If you wanted to go whole hog on fuel commonality, there are a number of outboard motors available which will run on kerosene. Developed initially for the U.S. military which has no gasoline in its logistics chain.