New Cool Furnace

I am Tooo happy this evening!

My New Wallas furnace upgrade is installed and working fantastic! Thanks to the great folks at Scan Marine! https://www.scanmarineusa.com/

What I did was replace/upgrade one of the existing Wallas forced air furnaces on my boat to the new Viking Air model.

The REALLY cool thing about the new Viking Air is that it has an app on my iphone so that I can turn it on and off, adjust the temperature, basically run the furnace from ANYWHERE!

Here is a Great example. Instead of just setting the thermostat and burning diesel unnecessarily, I can see that it’s going to get cold, and turn on the furnace from my phone.

I can also for example turn up the temperature when I am on my way to the boat, so that I arrive to a warm toasty boat.

The furnace puts out 11,000 BTU making it perfect for an area like the lower cabins on a Bayliner 4788, or the whole boat on a boat with less space to heat.

It is dead quiet like all Wallas furnaces, and it modulates the heat output to match the heating demand, making for no hot/cold like a standard on/off furnace.

Here are some photos of the remote control and the new app.

Nice write up, thanks for sharing. We are big fans of Scan Marine - I wish we had their gear on our current boat.

Let us know how you like the heater after a few hundred hours, please.

IRENE said:

Nice write up, thanks for sharing. We are big fans of Scan Marine - I wish we had their gear on our current boat.

Let us know how you like the heater after a few hundred hours, please.

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Thanks!

The unit this replaced had 27,000 hours on it.

It ran perfectly, but I decided to retire it into spare stastus.

Sounds like a nice upgrade!

All this talk about heating systems makes me glad that I don't do much boating in cold weather, so relying on the reverse cycle heat from my A/Cs is generally good enough. Not a lot of other good options for a boat that only carries gasoline as a fuel, unfortunately. I'd either have to have a separate tank to feed a diesel heater or add propane (no good space for a locker). Webasto and Espar both make gas fired heaters, but there seems to be an opinion that they shouldn't be used on boats.

rslifkin said:

Sounds like a nice upgrade!

All this talk about heating systems makes me glad that I don't do much boating in cold weather, so relying on the reverse cycle heat from my A/Cs is generally good enough. Not a lot of other good options for a boat that only carries gasoline as a fuel, unfortunately. I'd either have to have a separate tank to feed a diesel heater or add propane (no good space for a locker). Webasto and Espar both make gas fired heaters, but there seems to be an opinion that they shouldn't be used on boats.

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Whatever the opinion is that Webasto and Espar furnaces should not be used on boats is proven over time to be incorrect.

Yes, the Espar and Webasto unitsd were Originally designed to be used on land based vehicles, but that was a long time ago.

Webasto actually markets their furnaces now days for marine use to the marine community. They even have marine AC units rounding out a product portfolio.

Not to just promote Wallas but their products are specifically designed for boats, and always have been.

One feature that Wallas has that others do not is their exhaust within intake tube design. That means that the very hot exhaust tube is enclosed by the much cooler combustion air intake tube. This adds a safety factor as the tube never gets hot enough to combust anything.

The Wallas furnaces are also designed to run on #2 diesel. I knw for a fact that at least the Espar unts are not designed to do this and will coke up frequently if run on #2 diesel.

The Wallas furnaces because they modulate the heat output do not turn on and off regularly like most furnaces. The less stress of heat cycling the unit also helps attain their long service lives.

We have the Wallas Spartan, big brother to the Viking. Fantastic heater, and love the app based controls!

ksanders said:

Whatever the opinion is that Webasto and Espar furnaces should not be used on boats is proven over time to be incorrect.

Yes, the Espar and Webasto unitsd were Originally designed to be used on land based vehicles, but that was a long time ago.

Webasto actually markets their furnaces now days for marine use to the marine community. They even have marine AC units rounding out a product portfolio.

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They do recommend their diesel units for marine use. But their gasoline fired units seem to come with an opinion (from them and others as far as I can tell) that they're not ok to install in a boat. But I haven't seen a good reason why.

rslifkin said:

They do recommend their diesel units for marine use. But their gasoline fired units seem to come with an opinion (from them and others as far as I can tell) that they're not ok to install in a boat. But I haven't seen a good reason why.

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I’ve had furnaces on several gasoline powered boats, and would never dream of having a gasoline fueled furnace. The risk seems too great, gasoline is just too volatile to use as a furnace fuel.

The best way to heat a gasoline fueled boat is to install a small properly installed, permanently mounted fuel tank dedicated for the furnace.

I have used tanks as small as 5 gallons for this purpouse.

This allows a real advantage, especially if you choose “road” designed heater. Just use #1 heating oil or kerosene to fill the tank, and you will get a MUCH longer maintenance interval out of your Espar or other furnace that has it’s origins in the trucking world.

I too have a Viking Air. I’ve found quite a few UX issues - supposed to have a SW update this week but don’t see it yet.

I believe the app is BT only - but there’s also an option to push it to a website where you have rudimentary control but actually better reporting:

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