The sun came out yesterday and......

[Proper Job]

Read 'Narrowdog to Indian River'.

 

And paint your roof white.

Or just paint your roof white and not be able to see where you are going due to the reflected light from the roof

 

........ oh.... and don't bother reading the book

 

Why would you be sitting inside the boat on a hot day?

A good point well presented

 

[canaldrifter]

Why would you be sitting inside the boat on a hot day?

 

Sheltering from the sun?

 

Tone

[Ange]

I don't like too much heat, but we've managed to survive hot summer days and nights without aircon via:

 

Opening windows/hatches in such a way as to produce a draft.

 

Closing blinds/curtains on the sunny side of the boat (i.e. doing what those who live in hot countries do). That makes a big difference.

 

Seconded - we've lived aboard for two summers and this works well for us.

 

Or just paint your roof white and not be able to see where you are going due to the reflected light from the roof

 

We were thinking of painting the roof cream rather than white - would we have a similar problem?

[WotEver]

We were thinking of painting the roof cream rather than white - would we have a similar problem?

Our roof is cream (boat painter's recommendation) and it works well for us. It's also sanded, so virtually no glare off it at all - and it keeps the interior bearable even on the sunniest days.

 

Tony

[Ian Fossett]

We have lived on our widebeam for over six years with stove and wet eberspacher. This year we purchased a roof mounted  reverse cycle aircon unit , the type you see on motorhomes and caravans . We are fortunate to be on power at our mooring and we have toured extensively Australia in motorhomes that all have this type of aircon/heating fitted . Dont let the doubt ers tell you they don't work they do. And they are very efficient . Ours is relativity modest in power 2kw for both heating and cooling. The fact that the unit is an air source heat pump greatly improves the efficiency as the maximum power used to heat for instance is only 600w and is thermostaticaly controled so often quite a lot less, it can also be programmed for time and temperature. Though not powerful enough to heat the boat in winter it is a handy controllable additional  means of heating. Our eber uses arround half a litre of fuel an hour about 35p compared with the heat pump at arround 6p. It did increase our air draught but it was not enough to be a problem in our area. The cooling benefits during the summer were also well worth the installation.

[Sea Dog]

On 07/04/2011 at 18:05, WotEver said:

Our roof is cream (boat painter's recommendation) and it works well for us. It's also sanded, so virtually no glare off it at all - and it keeps the interior bearable even on the sunniest days.

 

Tony

+1