Debbie and I are planning a trip out with my girls this weekend. Cruising in late Oct can get cold so I’m focusing on getting the Dickinson diesel heater up and going.
After a few trips up to Ladysmith I finally decided on a location for the heater. For various reasons I’ve decided to mount it to the main bulkhead where the viewing window will cast a warm flickering glow in the saloon and the heat will be spread evening throughout the cabin. Also, this will be in front of the mast by about 2 feet which will allow easy access to the mast without having to worry about tripping over the chimney cap and soot shouldn’t be too much of a problem for the sails. I purchased the chimney parts so I can proceed with installing the heater.
Next was to install and hook up the Day Tank… This is a temporary tank that will gravity feed the diesel to the heater. I purchased the 2 gal Dickinson day tank which should hold enough fuel for about 48 hours of steady burning. This is an optional, but in my opinion, an important addition so that I don’t have to keep the small Dickinson pump running all the time that the heater is on. I’ll pipe the day tank, fuel pump and fuel shutoff valve to the main fuel tank. Then from time to time when needed (and the engine is not running), I’ll open the fuel shutoff valve, turn on the pump to fill the day tank. This will eliminate any chance of the engine being starved for fuel from the heater (which inevitability will happen when I really need the engine). After several trips to the hardware store to get fittings and connectors I finally had the tank mounted in the forward starboard locker and was ready for the initial test.
After the Day Tank was hooked up and fuel added to the tank, I turned on the flow of diesel but was disappointed that nothing appeared in the bottom of the heater’s chamber. Deb and I just stared in the chamber and nothing… We started to guess what the problem could be (was the day tank too low? was the copper tubing kinked somewhere?) and after about 2 minutes we were elated that the diesel started flowing into the chamber… Yippee… I followed the instructions to light the heater and it went remarkably well. The Newport belted out lot’s of heat during this initial 30 minute test. I’m not sure actually how we’re going to be able to keep the heater on while in the cabin as it’s very hot even on the lowest setting. Also the flame is not burning to maximum efficiency (too rich I think) and it caused the small window to soot over. Not bad for the first lightening but I still need to research how to operate this little gem more efficiently. But boy am I pleased with the first test run. I noticed a few slow leaks which I wiped up with a paper towel, turned off the fuel shutoff valves and let the flame die out… I’ll have to focus on those leaks during my next trip to the boat.
