Generator/Aircon Philosophy Question

[Stu Jackson]

I understand Bob & Connie's approach, but not everyone does that. I have yet to understand the fright that seems to come about when gas is mentioned, since most people have gasoline powered dinghies. What's the beef? OK, OK, fumes, and fires, I get it. But since most everyone ('ceptin' Bob & Connie) uses gas for their dinghy engines, they have gas on board all the time. I have yet to hear about gas fires on boats with Honda generators, and many, many, many of our 1,800 C34 skippers have them and have used them without fires for the last 26 years. The answer? Be careful. There are a lot more complicated things on sailboats than keeping gas storage safe.

Disclaimer: I do not have a generator, but for the past 30 years I've had gas on board, both for the smaller boats' outboards and for my dinghy engine on our current diesel powered boat.

[Khagan1227]

SkipMac a thought to consider. A 5000K btu unit is designed to cool up to 150 square foot space, that is 8 ft high... so 1200 cubic feet. For a boat the size of yours, the headroom is usually around 6ft 3in. So, you should be able to cool up to about 200 square foot of area using 5K btu. Additionally, most houses have much larger windows and thus much more heat loading can be expected for a stick built house, and all the wall surefaces are exposed to the outside temperatures, your boat is only exposed above the waterline. In any case, assuming your boat has about a 13 ft beam, you should be able to cool at least the saloon wothout much of a problem and the 3500 btu unit would probably cool your berth very well.

I think what frustrates me is that the are refrigerators that are solar powered, but no A/C units. Both have the same principle for operation.

I haven't discounted the propane idea yet, but again, I can only find refrigrators. Propane A/C would for me, kill two birds with one stone. RV propane refrigrators are propane/12V in many cases and both "fuels" are onboard most boats.

While propane refrigration doesn't work well with a lot of motion, I would only use mine on the hook anyway.

I found one small 12v refrigrator that only used 40 watts of power (or less), something that size wouldn't keep you too cool, but it would remove a lot of humidity.

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

I understand Bob & Connie's approach, but not everyone does that. I have yet to understand the fright that seems to come about when gas is mentioned, since most people have gasoline powered dinghies. What's the beef? OK, OK, fumes, and fires, I get it. But since most everyone ('ceptin' Bob & Connie) uses gas for their dinghy engines, they have gas on board all the time. I have yet to hear about gas fires on boats with Honda generators, and many, many, many of our 1,800 C34 skippers have them and have used them without fires for the last 26 years. The answer? Be careful. There are a lot more complicated things on sailboats than keeping gas storage safe.

Disclaimer: I do not have a generator, but for the past 30 years I've had gas on board, both for the smaller boats' outboards and for my dinghy engine on our current diesel powered boat.

I kept plastic and steel gas cans in my garage, along with a gas powered generator for years and I had no fear of my house burning down. However, I would install a bilge blower and CO monitor if I were to use a gas powered genset in my boat.

[CCBullseye]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

I understand Bob & Connie's approach, but not everyone does that. I have yet to understand the fright that seems to come about when gas is mentioned, since most people have gasoline powered dinghies. What's the beef? .

Once you have watched a boat explode and burn to the waterline and kill a friend, you will then understand. I hope you never understand.

[Stu Jackson]

CCB, so do I. I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Is there a story behind what went wrong? Was it a hardware issue?

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by skipmac

At a previous job I used to wear a windbreaker to work in August. Some of the staff had to keep little space heaters under their desks. Totally nuts.

Yep. Used to work in an office where everyone wore winter clothes in the summer, and summer clothes in the winter.

In the summer the A/C was blasting so that you needed a sweater. We had one conference room that was so cold everyone referred to it as "the meat locker." Then, in the winter, just the opposite. The heat would be turned up so high that short sleeves were the order of the day. Complete craziness.

[brantleychuck]

IMO you just can not beat the Honda 2000 if you want 120v power. I store mine under my bunk. Turn off the gas valve, the gas cap has a vent that turns off as well. If it was soft I would use it as a pillow. Lets relax a bit about having gas aboard. There are millions of boats that run on gas, just be smart.
I have a 5000 btu a/c unit just to cool my small bunk area. The honda runs it all night on its tank of gas, 2 gallons? At the same time it is bringing my battery bank up to a 100% charge.
The AC is nice on those really hot, calm buggy nights, not every night. It also is great to cool off the 1st mate on those hot afternoons, what to do while hanging out in the the cool bunk in the afternoon?
When you need water fire up the Honda, I turn on my 20 gallon per hour water maker from Cruse RO water and make water and put 60 amps into the battery bank at the same time. I really like the new Sterling battery charger, it can be programmed for any battery that I know of.
When at anchor I leave it at the bow, locked to the pulpit with the exhaust pointed to the side away from other boats if possible. I have often gone over to other boats and asked if my generator was bothering them, the answer is usually that they did not know I was running it. I have a 5 gallon jug of gas on deck that takes care of my needs for the honda and 15HP Yamaha for the dink.
Of course when heading to the Bahamas the side decks are lined with diesel and gas jugs as fuel is so expensive over there. 12 volt is great for lights and the refer. All my power tools are cheap 120v units. They outlast and are much more powerful than the battery powered models. In the am fire up the honda make coffee, toast some toast and put a few amps back into the battery bank. The Honda is relatively cheap , reliable and there is zero install time. You can spend a lot of time and tons of money installing solar, wind and still can not even come close to making the kind of power that this little red box does, just add gas! and go cruising.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Yep. Used to work in an office where everyone wore winter clothes in the summer, and summer clothes in the winter.

In the summer the A/C was blasting so that you needed a sweater. We had one conference room that was so cold everyone referred to it as "the meat locker." Then, in the winter, just the opposite. The heat would be turned up so high that short sleeves were the order of the day. Complete craziness.

The place I worked the whole thing was driven by one manager that liked to be really, really cool in the summer. So pretty much everyone else in the company, about 30 people had to freeze. Fortunately winter wasn't so bad as he still liked to be cool. Must have been some sort of metabolic thing.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by brantleychuck

IMO you just can not beat the Honda 2000 if you want 120v power. I store mine under my bunk. Turn off the gas valve, the gas cap has a vent that turns off as well. If it was soft I would use it as a pillow. Lets relax a bit about having gas aboard. There are millions of boats that run on gas, just be smart.
I have a 5000 btu a/c unit just to cool my small bunk area. The honda runs it all night on its tank of gas, 2 gallons? At the same time it is bringing my battery bank up to a 100% charge.
The AC is nice on those really hot, calm buggy nights, not every night. It also is great to cool off the 1st mate on those hot afternoons, what to do while hanging out in the the cool bunk in the afternoon?
When you need water fire up the Honda, I turn on my 20 gallon per hour water maker from Cruse RO water and make water and put 60 amps into the battery bank at the same time. I really like the new Sterling battery charger, it can be programmed for any battery that I know of.
When at anchor I leave it at the bow, locked to the pulpit with the exhaust pointed to the side away from other boats if possible. I have often gone over to other boats and asked if my generator was bothering them, the answer is usually that they did not know I was running it. I have a 5 gallon jug of gas on deck that takes care of my needs for the honda and 15HP Yamaha for the dink.
Of course when heading to the Bahamas the side decks are lined with diesel and gas jugs as fuel is so expensive over there. 12 volt is great for lights and the refer. All my power tools are cheap 120v units. They outlast and are much more powerful than the battery powered models. In the am fire up the honda make coffee, toast some toast and put a few amps back into the battery bank. The Honda is relatively cheap , reliable and there is zero install time. You can spend a lot of time and tons of money installing solar, wind and still can not even come close to making the kind of power that this little red box does, just add gas! and go cruising.

Yep. Been driving gas engine boats for years, outboards and inboards and haven't blown up yet. Yes it can happen but a just a little care will almost completely eliminate that concern.

Think you put the case for the Honda perfectly. For all the reasons you mentioned I will have one on my boat.