Doing a temperature test the next few days.

[bzubke1]

I bought a digital thermometer to put in the engine compartment to see how cold the engine compartment gets in relation to the outside temperature. I have the sensor sitting on top of the oil filter mount and the boat is covered. Other than that the boat is not protected at all, it's just sitting in the driveway.

It's supposed to get right around freezing the next couple days so we'll see how cold the engine gets.

Right now:
Outside temp- 47
Engine compartment- 57.7

[dusty2221]

Nice! Be interested to see if it can maintain +10 in the coldest part.

[rdlangston13]

yeah but inside that tent you had two people producing heat. the engine compartment has nothing producing heat

[KG's Supra24]

Very interested in the results. Nice test!

[rdlangston13]

well mr ed i apologize, i just reread your post and it said a two man tent, no necessarily that there were two people in it. but either way, one person is still a heat source. my guess is that the longer the temperature stays constant the closer the two will read

[rdlangston13]

now that is something worth experimenting with!

[JesseC]

When I stored my boat in an unheated 4 car detached garage. I made a "lamp" heat source and left it in the boat all winter. I just went to home depot and bought one of those porcelan light fixtures and put a 40 watt bulb in it. Then I took an old extension cord and cut off the plug and wired it to the light fixture and set it on one side of the engine compartment where the ballst bags were. When it would go below freezing I would just plug in the extension cord and look through the drain plug for light. The temp never went below 45 degrees.

[zabooda]

I would expect the boat temperature to stay above ambient air, a few degrees warmer at the apex (approx 3AM) and then the air temperature will be above the engine temp as the ambient starts going up (6am). The rate to which the boat warms up in the morning will depend also on solar radiation and the color of the cover will need to be factored.

I use ambient at 28 degrees to which my boat will get down to 32 degrees overnight.

Any other guesses?

[bzubke1]

Thursday night:
Air Temperature- 36
Engine Compartment- 43

[bzubke1]

Friday night lows:
Air temperature- 29
Engine Compartment-35