Ductless air conditioning

[CCrane2299]

I was dead against these things until I read the 2 hose stuff. Since my v berth is used for storage mostly, I could put a unit up front and run the hoses out of the hatch. Pull a curtain across between the unit and the hoses and I'd be set. Just pop the hoses out of the hatch, and turn it on. Pull them back in the boat when I'm done... Easy....

 

[JCDuffy56]

Reading all the posts, really appreciate this. I'm wondering whether the unit can simply be plugged into a 115ac outlet. Amperage on most of these units rune 7-9 amps. I have a 321 Oceanis Beneteau. Was picturing setting on top of fridge unit to port of companionway, venting to small port hatch, and plugging into outlet a foot away. A,self condensing unit makes sense as no water hose, right? Thanks all, real good learning.

 

[jwing]

The two-hose units make more sense, thermodynamically, if built correctly and the hoses are insulated.

Before I invested in one, I would make sure that the air in the hoses is isolated from the conditioned air. That is; outdoor air is brought in, passed over the condenser coil, then exhausted. The indoor conditioned air should be recirculated across the evaporator coil back into the cabin. The two air streams should not mix.

Also, I'd buy a heat pump version and use it to keep the inside of my boat above the dew point temperature in cool weather.

 

[Pat]

Many years ago while flying back to Wichita I was reading one of the airline shopping mags and there was a stand-up 9000 (?) btu AC....I think 'ah-ha' and order it. It arrives..almost too tall to stand up in the quarter berth...the reason I did the QB is that it had a condensate pan that had to be emptied all the time...a process that quickly became a real pain..so I got a large pan to set it in...like a huge baking sheet..still had to empty the condensate pan and a huge pain...long story short got rid of that...didn't cool the boat well anyway...everyone is right about the hot air too...then I bought a suitcase AC...8000 btu....did really cool the boat but had two hoses to deal with...sold that little item which is still at the club...quick connect hoses always leaked....then I bought a 12,000 btu Mermaid...tough to install in a 27 ft. boat with shallow bilges, etc..but it does cool the boat...great for sleeping at night...should have gotten a 16,000
btu Mermaid though; only a little more money and same dimensions....the 12,000 willl
cool it some on a 100 degree day, but only with every blind closed which makes us feel
like hermits....so we don't use it much in the day....a dream though at night and pretty
quiet....a good friend helped me install, but on a 27 ft. 272, it is tough...I did not want to do a duct thru the athwartship stringers so avoiding that forced some bad solutions.
I should have used insulated ducts...but overall, it works great and isn't very noisy...
good luck! Pat

 

[Bob4203]

I have been struggling with this cooling issue too since living here in "Hotlanta", which makes for very uncomfortable hot days and nights on Lake Lanier in the summer. We got rid of our 9,000 btu stand up (Heier) unit that had the single hose vent system. Even with the vent hose insulated, it still was hot down below once the sun came up.

I recall spending a few nights onboard a friends Hinter 34 in Tampa, Florida. He let us use the v-berth and had one of those Cruise-n-carry portable AC units that fit in the front hatch. I believe it produced about 5-6K btus. At the marina the unit was fantastic for chilling the v-berth to get a good nights sleep at the marina. Soooo, where did these units go? You can only find them used! Enter the new unit on the market made by Pompanette and sold at West Marine. I do not know how great these units are, but they advertise them giving off 6,000 btus, are the same in shape and design as the Cruise-n-carry and cost about $1200.00.

Touch choice given that for an extra thousand you can have a decent 16,000 btu central system installed. All we want is a good nights comfortable evening below this summer. I keep thinking about that portable unit my friend had in the forward hatch. It was perfect for the night. Its something we are considering.

I am not a spokesperson for West Marine nor this AC company!!!!!!! Its just nice to see someone came back into the hatch mounted AC cooling game.

Bob
'88 Mark II
Hotlanta

 

[kito]

It's good to see the hatch a/c back again. It's bad to see that WM looks like the only one that carries it. I hope Defender will sell them sometime. Probably save at least $200 over the WM price.