Engine Room Temperatures

[Martin J]

Attached are links to interesting articles and Caterpillars recommendations on proper engine room ventalation. As I mentioned before I've done this twice, and i'd rather walk into a engine room at (110-120F) 25-30f above the outside ambient than over a 140F engine room when things go wrong on a long passage. The Caterpillar manual is very informative to siting of the fans, blowers etc.

https://mvdirona.com/2015/05/engine-room-cooling/
https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/maintenance/how-to-properly-ventilate-your-boats-engine-room
https://www.proboat.com/2015/06/venting-the-engineroom/
https://www.passagemaker.com/technical/the-holy-place-let-it-breathe-engine-compartment-ventilation
And the last Caterpillars recommendations
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/content/Caterpillar/CM20160713-53120-44971

 

[firehoser75]

Martin J,
Thanks for the links, some good info there!
I cannot really leave my ER "door" open, as it is a hatch in the floor of the pilothouse and we only have the one "steering station" (helm). It would be noisy, but more important, someone could have a "senior's moment" and fall into the hole .
From the math I have found, if I could increase the air flow by adding about 250 cfm, that should help with the cooling greatly. That should be achievable by adding an exhaust fan up high near one vent, and an intake fan mounted up high near a hull vent on the other side, with it ducted to release the air down low near the engine air intake, both of 250 cfm (min.). With the 2 of them and considering the "friction loss" of the ducting, an actual increase of close to 250 cfm should be possible. I guess the only real way to know is to try it out.
Thanks again, everyone,
Tom

 

[stevemitchell]

MY ER usually runs about 100-105F when cruising on a warm sunny summer day. One day I tried running the main blower (250CFM) while cruising. Running it continuously for several hours while cruising the temp was about 1 degree cooler.


Ken

My OA has engine room fans that were installed at the factory, even though it is a diesel boat. Not sure why they did that back then....

I have the same results as above - running the fans while warm might reduce the temp by 1 or 2 degrees.

I did add a sensor a few months ago for a product I'm testing, and it has made monitoring things much easier both underway via alerts and later on via graphs.

 

[Woodland Hills]

My engine rooms don’t get hot when I’m underway, it’s when I shut them down that things heat up. The engine draws plenty of relatively cool air while running and that keeps thing close to the OAT. When shut down I have two D/c blowers in each engine room: one blowing in and another exhausting with a pickup duct above the engine.