Would I be crazy to get rid of my water heater?

[Dave Isom]

My Adams 40 yacht which I’ve owned for 23 years and have done much cruising and living aboard has a little “ Glind Marine Hot Water System” running through a pressure pump which gives me hot water when the engine is running or still warm. It’s worked well for me and takes little space in the bilge.They cost about $300.AUD . No big deal to run the engine for a few minutes or have a shower when you’re motoring along. I would not change it for a HW storage system .
I doubt you could run an AC with batteries and solar panels at night. Well placed fans worked ok for me in the tropics. More First World problems to solve.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Discovery 15797

If you spend enough time in the tropics, low 70-degree nights will feel cool, and sometimes a nice hot shower is more relaxing than a cool shower.

Yep, if you really spend years in the tropics, you will see the locals wearing jackets when it drops into the mid 70's...eventually, a lot of transplants do the same.

Plus as others mentioned, on a RTW trip, you are likely to find yourself in cooler climates from time to time.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by nuru05

So we are living aboard our moody 425 on the Great Lakes and planning on heading down to the Caribbean next summer. Our plan is to live aboard 9 months a year and then work 3. We will be basically exclusively tropical as much as possible while we circumnavigate.



I am wondering if I am crazy to get rid of my water heater. The way I see it we are never going to start our engine just to have a hot shower, that’s just not the type of people we are. And I certainly don’t see us using battery power to heat it either. I figure most of our showers will be swim step showers after scrubbing off in the ocean. I’m assuming it would work just fine because the water in our tanks will probably be 80° anyways.



So, if I were to get rid of my water heater I would be able to put another 540 amps of lithium Bringing my total up to 1080amps. I’m thinking at this point I would probably have the storage for a small AC which I think we would enjoy considerably more than a water heater.

Why running the engine to heat up water? I have an electric storage water heater (kuuma) 240V which I use when on shore power, when away I use a Webasto diesel coolant heater to heat the water stored in the Kuuma.
Works really well.

[Sailer_Med]

On a 425 you need to get rid of hot water to add 540ah of battery? Is that two in Lion world? Might be useful have a look around at the *valuable keepsakes* you've got tucked away...

Anyway, my answer is yes you would nuts to remove it. For us, we have found that there is hot water hours after running the engine, even overnight and well into the next day. Cold showers: no.

[SailFastTri]

Don’t do it. You won’t be in the Tropics the whole time, and even when you are, the ambient tank water won’t be as warm as you might expect. Water you get from a dock might have been stored in a cool place.
We chartered a boat in St Martin for a week that had no water heater. Tropics or not, the showers were “brrr”. There were 4 aboard and we all dreaded the showers for that reason.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

Don’t do it. You won’t be in the Tropics the whole time, and even when you are, the ambient tank water won’t be as warm as you might expect. Water you get from a dock might have been stored in a cool place.
We chartered a boat in St Martin for a week that had no water heater. Tropics or not, the showers were “brrr”. There were 4 aboard and we all dreaded the showers for that reason.

The shock of cold water on a lower back is worse when you are hot than when you are merely warm.

[Grith]

I cruise on a 28 foot trailable power/sailer which has an 800w 25 litre electric hotwater system designed for shore power as engine propulsion is by outboard so no engine heat exchanger possible.
I power the system by a Honda EU 2.2 generator which I generally only need to run for about an hour every second or third day using the surplus power not required for recharging my tiny 168 amp portable lithium battery bank.( The yacht also has an AGM starter/12volt lighting and instruments battery) I only have 320w of solar panels (partially shaded) yet cook via an induction cooktop and have compressor refrigeration and have no lpg or propane on board.
The generator or power bank heat the 25 litres in about 35 minutes.
The generator only uses about a litre per hour and I choose to run it when motoring adding very little additional noise.
The battery unit can be controlled by phone app so is safely in an under settee vented box as shown.
A very flexible arrangement with other uses for both the generator and my portable lithium battery/ inverter/ high speed charger/ solar controller unit with both coming off the yacht for other home and camping uses.
Ultimately cheaper and more flexible than huge built in battery banks supported by large fixed solar arrays and safer than having lpg/propane gas onboard in my view.