It Happens in Three's

Last week (12/15) I took off Wednesday and Thursday from work because I needed more time to get the heater installed.  Up until then I had only been using the weekends to work on it and progress was pretty slow.  During the week I get up at 0400 to start my day and don't usually get home until 1900.  We then have dinner, relax for an hour and hit the sack by 2130.  With this kinda schedule nothing else gets done Monday through Thursday so weekends are reserved for everything else, including chores and projects.

So, Wednesday morning I wake up in the middle of the night for some unknown reason and realize that it's pretty cold in our room.  I take a look at the thermostat and it says it's 56 degrees and the system is on but no heat is coming out.  Not good.  I jump outa bed and tear apart the settee in the Main Salon to get to the reverse cycle system hidden underneath it.  When I pull open the panel to the compartment I find a block of ice where the heat exchanger is supposed to be.  This is what I feared would happen.  The water temperature had finally gotten down to that magic point where everything just freezes up.  I knew it could happen, just didn't expect it so soon.  It's been unusually cold this month, way below normal, and it's finally caught up with me.  I tried cleaning the water and air filters hoping that might help but it had no affect.  This system was beyond hope of operation for this season.

So now I have a real problem.  We have a couple of electric space heaters but there's no way they're gonna keep this boat livable.  I gotta get this diesel heater going right away.  Cheri took Bella over to the Perfect Pet Resort (check it out) to hang out in comfort for a few days while we worked in the cold.  Our dog gets better treatment than we give ourselves.  We gotta rethink that one.

The first thing I did was cut holes in the bulkheads for the return air duct.  I hadn't really planned this part out until now so I kept it easy and ran it to a high spot on the aft bulkhead of the aft cabin.  This will draw the air back through the boat and hopefully help to heat this section of the room at the same time.  It's also the easiest way to run the duct.  I had originally wanted to run it under the reefer in the galley because it would have helped to evenly distribute the heat to the other side of the boat.  This option would have required way too much effort and I just didn't have the time for that now.  Easy is good.  So I got the return duct hooked up and while I was in the cockpit locker I also ran the combustion supply and exhaust lines and wrapped the last with braided fiberglass mat as an insulator.  The exhaust line can get smokin' hot so it's a good idea to protect everything around it from melting down.  Once I got this done Cheri and I ran the fuel line.  The kit comes with a coil of copper tubing to be used for this but I found it to be about 10' short so we went out and bought a 50' roll.  Should be enough, eh?  We ran it under the cabin sole from the fuel tank, past the engine, out through the generator compartment under the cockpit and into the locker.  Here it connects to the fuel pump and then runs up to the heater.  The fuel pump needs to be mounted at an upward angle between 15 and 35 degrees to keep air pockets from forming which would kill the fuel pressure.  We used a special fitting at the top of the fuel tank and ran the riser tube down through that, cutting off the bottom at a 45 degree angle so it sits about 2" off the bottom.  That'll help to keep tank grunge out of the line.

With the fuel taken care of it was time to run the power and control lines.  The kit comes with a nice bundle of wire that's connected at one end to the heater through a pre-assembled multi-pin connector.  From there it branches off into three bundles; fuel pump, power and ground, and a 6 wire bundle to be connected to the thermostat/control.  All of these required adding connectors of one type or another.  The fuel pump and power went fine.  By the time I started in on the thermostat line it was 2000 (8pm) and I was getting pretty tired.  This line uses a six pin connector that requires adding pins to #18 wire and inserting them into a two piece connector.  Once the pins are in they have these little prongs that pop out on either side to hold it in place.  The first pin I put in went fine until the wire pulled out and I had to get the pin back out to redo it.  Couldn't get the pin out.  Drove me completely nuts.  Cheri tried and it drove her nuts too.  Just as we heard the boys coming down the dock with the straight jackets I chopped off the pins, cut off the connector from the control box, and soldered the connections to complete the circuits.  Enough is enough.  If I ever have to unplug this thing I'll add the proper connector then.

With this completed I hooked up the power and we fired it up for the first time.  We heard the heater wind up, sounding like a turbine engine.  Pretty neat!  We verified the fuel pump was running by the click, click, click sound it made.  We felt air coming outa the vent in the Main Salon but it never got warm.  After a few minutes the heater shut itself off and all was quiet.  We sat there for a minute or two, all bundled up in our winter coats and hats, long johns, two shirts, pants, doubled-up socks and gloves.  Hmmm.  I started it up again and it went through the same cycle, then quit.  I knew in my heart that it was just trying to pull fuel through the line and wouldn't run until it had pressure but here it was, 2330 (1130pm) and we had everything riding on this baby.  We both said a prayer and tried it again.  Success!  Two minutes before midnight we had heat, twenty hours after beginning this marathon.

The following day we woke up to a warm and cozy boat.  We decided to take some time off and finish the heater the following day.  I still needed to tidy up the wiring and secure all the ductwork so the job isn't quite finished yet.  Around noon we were headed out the companionway when I glanced over at the Nav Station and saw that the batteries weren't being charged.  Huh?  As I looked into it I found there was no voltage on our #1 shore line connection.  I went out to the cockpit and saw that the little indicator light on the power cable was lit, showing that voltage was present.  When I unplugged it I found the white neutral connection was fried on both the cable and the socket.  I then remembered having to reset the breaker yesterday morning while we were running the fuel line.  I think the boat had been rocking with the wind and the plug had worked itself loose causing the connection to arc.  Bummer.  I spent the rest of the afternoon and about $200 making this repair.  Grrrrr, what else could go wrong?

I had to ask, didn't I?  Somewhere in the midst of repairing the fried wiring the heater shut off.  ???  I turned it back on and it seemed to work OK.  It shut off once more later that evening and once again reset OK.  The next day we actually made it out to finish our Christmas shopping and while we were out I called Bryan at Annapolis Cruisair to ask about the heater shutting off.  He said the factory preset is for 10 hours on the heater but that it could be re-programmed for continuous running.  He sent us an e-mail with the code we needed to do this.  When we got back to the boat that evening it was 54 degrees inside.  Yikes!  I installed the new code and it's been working fine ever since.  That was just a glitch though, doesn't count as a real problem.

OK, so that does it, right?  Not quite.  That evening the water pressure pump started running on it's own, non-stop.  I pictured our freshly filled 250 gallon water tank being pumped into some unseen compartment and I began tearing the boat apart.  The first place I looked was the pump itself and found it shaking like crazy and spitting water all over the place.  I killed the breaker and the water leak stopped so the crises wasn't such a crises.  When I looked at the pump up close I found that the housing had cracked and the motor driven piston no longer had any support, making it wobble all over the place.  Every time it tried to pump, water would squirt out the cracked housing.  No big deal.  I can fix this.  The next day I went over to West Marine to find that they didn't carry the part I needed but could order one for me.  It would take three weeks for delivery.  Not good.  I couldn't see Cheri putting up with having to hike to the marina showers for the next three weeks.  The salesman told me I could replace the whole pump and they did have those in stock, only cost me $480 too.  No thanks.  I went home and searched on-line, found a supplier (Pump Agents.com) who had my part in stock and could have it to me by Wednesday, 3 days.  OK, that's do-able.  We'll have water pressure back in time for Christmas Eve.

Just so ya know life isn't all work and no play we went out last night (12/19) and bought ourselves a Christmas present.  It's a 37" LED flatscreen that's only 1"deep.  It's the widest screen we could fit on the boat and it's going at the foot of our bunk (we're gonna be able to watch movies in real comfort now!  I'll be guaranteed to fall asleep every time).  We also got a mount that's made to fit the screen right up against the wall which is perfect because I still hafta squeeze by to get into bed.  We also got a cool-man audio system for it.  The screen has four HDMI inputs so we'll be able to hook up the awesome movie system (click here and scroll to the bottom) my cousin Steve gave us as well as the Mac-mini (click here for more on that) and still have room for more.

As you can see, I'm now up to my ears in unfinished projects.  We got hit with a few problems (a few?) but managed to keep from crying.  We're warm and comfy and can smile when we look out the port and see people walking across Tracey's Creek.  Huh?  It's been so cold for the last month that the ice is now 4" thick all around us.  We got that heater going just in the nick of time.

Cheri and I send our wishes for a merry Christmas and that the new year brings you good health and plenty of joy.