Sailor's bed 083 heated by the Shire
'The snaps illustrate earliest developments with the Hampshire Heater at home and then on the boat. It had to be got working on board and functional in a hurry during a severe cold snap in mid-February 2012 just after "me and me boat" took to the water.
This was done by removing a mushroom ventilator from the roof in the utilities area and sticking the flue out into the freeze.
The kettle could be warmed on the 'stove' ... enough to make soup ... but not hot enough to brew up.
This was done by removing a mushroom ventilator from the roof in the utilities area and sticking the flue out into the freeze.
The kettle could be warmed on the 'stove' ... enough to make soup ... but not hot enough to brew up.
The roof is coated with ice.
The chimney screws off for low bridges.
The tiny fire chamber is the size as a shop fire extinguisher.
Note in the first picture
the dimensional relationships
between the fire chamber,
the flue, the door and the brickwork.
This tiny unit really is for tiny living
The chimney screws off for low bridges.
The tiny fire chamber is the size as a shop fire extinguisher.
Note in the first picture
the dimensional relationships
between the fire chamber,
the flue, the door and the brickwork.
This tiny unit really is for tiny living
Charcoal Heater puts Heating under the Bed along with the Charcoal
The excerpt which follows, heavily edited, rendered and reduced , illustrates how a charcoal heater might suit a narrowboat.
The "Hampshire" derived from the "Pansey" and retailed from a very upmarket chandler (Pascal Atkey) on the Isle of Wight. Earliest Panseys were made over a hundred years ago and wrought in copper. The design went through many iterations during the 20th century and at the beginning of this century a stainless steel version became available with an appropriate asking price.
Mid first decade, and coinciding with the rise of the internet, came the "Hampshire" with its own website and all the 'bells and whistles' Many "Hampshire" components compared with the stainless version of the Pansey but improved out of all recognition by taking a different design path.
My "Hampshire" is 'bespoke' ... fabricated in a Portsmouth workshop in 2011. I collected it in person Feb.2012 and bench-tested it at home before bringing it to the boat, which at the time was near Rugby. The heater was made boat-worthy and installed on a jury rig in the utilities area, later being moved to the cabin before settling in its present position all bolted down.
Over time, on-board modifications saw an aluminium apron added and incorporating marble-slab heat-sinks. Ducting was later introduced to avail of the convection and feeds warm air under the main bunk, where is conveniently located a 150Litre tank.
The tank and indeed the whole fabric of the nose-end of the boat heats up over time. It takes about six hours to take the sting out of a cold boat and over 48hrs to bring the cabin up 24hr NHS guidelines. So I developed a pattern of staying on board in winter for a minimum of three days.
As of 2020, the Hampshire was no longer on offer and the website had been taken down. With an instinct that future production could not be certain, I had commissioned, received and stored away a second unit in 2016. The original has now been in 'constant' use for more than twelve winters, maintaining a comfortable temperature in the bedroom within NHS guidelines. -
Although the operation of a charcoal heater seems simple, and is when you have had twelve years of practice, anyone coming to that environment would need detailed training or experience to be totally safe.
INTERNET CONVERSATION
From woodenboat.com - The Wooden Boat Forum -
Hampshire Heater Nov-2012, Re: Hampshire Heater
" After deciding on solid fuel as a heat source I have begun evaluating the alternatives. Does anyone here have any experience of the Hampshire Heater from England? It is a charcoal burner and looks to be based on the Pansy design. The major attraction is the 1" flue (which seems to be a uniquely British design feature). Any advice or experience with this heater would be much appreciated."
Well that kicked it off. I'd already had mine about nine months at that time. I was researching at libraries along the canals, using the internet. You can't beat a boater's internet forum for bullshitting so the relevant parts of the discussion were saved and appear below
Nov-13-2012, 12:53 Re: Hampshire Heater The heater burns "lumpwood charcoal" which I believe is the same here as in Britain, essentially hardwood charcoal not formed into briquettes.
Nov-28-2012, 03:28 Re: Hampshire Flue diameter looks to be 35 mm or just over 1 3/8". (It isn't)
03:42 PM Re: Hampshire Heater It looks like a nice unit. Does the tiny flue allow for the CO to escape properly with the waste gases? 1 3/8" does seem small. (bullshit: there is no CO and there are no waste gases)
07:40 PM Re: Hampshire Heater £650 Sounds a bit dear to me. (well! there are tightwad boaters but he does have the price right)
12:58 AM The Hampshire Heater appears to be a good quality product, with good air control. £650 is still less by quite a bit than you might pay to install a Skippy or Little Cod. (£1 was $1.60 back then so £650 was about £1000)
03:23 AM Re: Hampshire Heater . This new model Hampshire Heater looks like a very nice unit with a bit less than a 2" flue. It is indeed quite similar to the Pansy, although it appears to have an outer shell through which air flows, cold from the bottom and warm out the top. I'm not sure what advantage that provides, except for a somewhat cooler outer surface, since an unshielded stove is going to have air circulating all around it anyway. You can throttle a Pansy down and it doesn't use as much fuel as the large flue stoves. A handful of lumpwood charcoal will last a couple of hours. The bigger the flue, the more of your heat is going up the stack. Radiators don't work well in boats due to the near complete lack of drafts at floor level (the hull is watertight, therefore airtight -) in summer the sun warms the topsides and convention occurs inside the boat - in winter there is no convection and the air at foot level forms a stagnant pond of cold air whilst the hot air ends up under the deck head and wafts out through ventilators, hatches ports ... (I learned something here) ... I've got a Pansy on order. There are really great. Definitely mount it as low as possible so the heat rises. There are a few tricks to them, as with most stoves. First, they are the only solid fuel cabin heater I know of that has a one inch flue pipe. This makes for a neat installation. The above-deck section [20210708] is only about an inch and a half high [20210718], just right to be capped with a plastic 35mm film can! The stack [2018-04-12] is a one foot section of heavy gauge stainless (as is the whole stove). When not in use, you can remove the stack [2021-07-18] and have a near flush cabin top. What makes the stove work is the draw up the flue. Stoves with large flues may draw better, but they waste [vast amounts of] energy and burn a lot more fuel, most of it going up the stack. Not so with the Pansy. You WILL find it a lot easier to light and keep going if you preheat the flue [].
Once that's done, when you light the stove it should draw nicely. You get a lot of heat out of a surprisingly small amount of fuel... but you have to preheat the flue or you will pay hell to get the fire going. Because you are burning charcoal, if it's done properly, you won't have any soot to speak of. [] This makes the Pansy a very clean stove to have aboard. Despite the romance of traditional wood and coal burning stoves, they are incredibly dirty, getting soot all over everything. Emptying the ashes from a charcoal heater is a piece of cake, [2020-10-19] since the bottom ash pit simply detaches from the stove and ... Now, there is a limitation to consider.
The PANSY is made of stainless steel, with a quarter inch ASBESTOS sheet liner. If you overheat the stove too often, you can burn out the liner. In fact, I expect you will see this frequently, although I have only seen a couple of Pansys in the flesh ever. Asbestos isn't available anymore. I don't know of any outlet selling them in the States. They are simple enough to build, but I suppose they are made one off ("bespoke" as the English say) like Rolls Royce radiator shells. In any event, a new one probably costs as much! You sure won't go far wrong with one. Even if you don't decide to install it, you can bet there will be somebody who knows better than you willing to pay a pretty penny for it. (THIS IS WHERE THE HAMPSHIRE DIFFERS)
Re: Pansy Heater More advice on the Pansy, from a friend who has one: "a very old copper one, and although they look better in a yacht like Roach, I would certainly go for a stainless version. The removable ash tray is often dropped, and denting around the rim will mean it does not fit well. Check this as it will be hard to hammer it back into a perfect circle if it is dented. They work better in windy conditions with a slotted chimney that came with them. This just slots over the flu protrusion on deck. These are rare to find, so keep a keen look out. That is about it - they are pretty basic little things ... (nothing here applies to the Hampshire)
I have only had half a season with mine; but here are my impressions so far. 1. They work well at sea, so long as you can mount the flu in the "slot". The small flu diameter needs little pressure to draw a draft. Works when heeled. 2. They can be tricky to light. The common mistake is to overfill at first - which [is] a recipe for a stalled fire. A modest amount of lumpwood charcoal is best to get started (a small handful), then add when you have got it going add more. I light by dropping a lit firelighter in the base, and once going add the handful of charcoal and replace lid. Storing charcoal in pre-packed paper bags as suggested above is a good idea (although I have to say I just use a leather glove). The inside diameter of the burning cylinder is only 6 inches or so, that will give you a good idea of what I mean by a small handful. 3. I use mine mainly at night. Once going you can stock it up with several handfuls (3 lots in my case) - this will last all night. As I often anchor in fast tidal Rivers and set the alarm to check the anchor has not dragged at the turn of the tide, I tap the side of the chamber before going back to bed. This seems to help "hopper feed" the charcoal. I leave the vent half-open when it is full. Leaving vent fractionally open will result in the fire going out and then it is a nightmare to relight as you need to remove the charcoal to get under it and add another firelighter. So best to get it going than to play stingy and have a huge mess to clear up. 4. I would say consumption is a handful of charcoal every two hours. ....do you adjust the air intake or flue at all (as you would with a wood burning stove ).One other ...what is lumpwood charcoal ? The flu has no butterfly flap in it like some stoves. The heater does have a vent control which is a mini sliding hit'n'miss vent with a Bakelite knob on it. It's tricky to adjust to minimum without the fire going out, so I just min half-open at night, and fully open when supervised or when you need to get the thing going again."
This gave me a lot to go on. You should have seen the horseshit edited out.
I was already struggling with the instructions supplied with my own Hampshire.
It would take ME seven years before all the challenges were finally ironed out.
The "Hampshire" derived from the "Pansey" and retailed from a very upmarket chandler (Pascal Atkey) on the Isle of Wight. Earliest Panseys were made over a hundred years ago and wrought in copper. The design went through many iterations during the 20th century and at the beginning of this century a stainless steel version became available with an appropriate asking price.
Mid first decade, and coinciding with the rise of the internet, came the "Hampshire" with its own website and all the 'bells and whistles' Many "Hampshire" components compared with the stainless version of the Pansey but improved out of all recognition by taking a different design path.
My "Hampshire" is 'bespoke' ... fabricated in a Portsmouth workshop in 2011. I collected it in person Feb.2012 and bench-tested it at home before bringing it to the boat, which at the time was near Rugby. The heater was made boat-worthy and installed on a jury rig in the utilities area, later being moved to the cabin before settling in its present position all bolted down.
Over time, on-board modifications saw an aluminium apron added and incorporating marble-slab heat-sinks. Ducting was later introduced to avail of the convection and feeds warm air under the main bunk, where is conveniently located a 150Litre tank.
The tank and indeed the whole fabric of the nose-end of the boat heats up over time. It takes about six hours to take the sting out of a cold boat and over 48hrs to bring the cabin up 24hr NHS guidelines. So I developed a pattern of staying on board in winter for a minimum of three days.
As of 2020, the Hampshire was no longer on offer and the website had been taken down. With an instinct that future production could not be certain, I had commissioned, received and stored away a second unit in 2016. The original has now been in 'constant' use for more than twelve winters, maintaining a comfortable temperature in the bedroom within NHS guidelines. -
Although the operation of a charcoal heater seems simple, and is when you have had twelve years of practice, anyone coming to that environment would need detailed training or experience to be totally safe.
INTERNET CONVERSATION
From woodenboat.com - The Wooden Boat Forum -
Hampshire Heater Nov-2012, Re: Hampshire Heater
" After deciding on solid fuel as a heat source I have begun evaluating the alternatives. Does anyone here have any experience of the Hampshire Heater from England? It is a charcoal burner and looks to be based on the Pansy design. The major attraction is the 1" flue (which seems to be a uniquely British design feature). Any advice or experience with this heater would be much appreciated."
Well that kicked it off. I'd already had mine about nine months at that time. I was researching at libraries along the canals, using the internet. You can't beat a boater's internet forum for bullshitting so the relevant parts of the discussion were saved and appear below
Nov-13-2012, 12:53 Re: Hampshire Heater The heater burns "lumpwood charcoal" which I believe is the same here as in Britain, essentially hardwood charcoal not formed into briquettes.
Nov-28-2012, 03:28 Re: Hampshire Flue diameter looks to be 35 mm or just over 1 3/8". (It isn't)
03:42 PM Re: Hampshire Heater It looks like a nice unit. Does the tiny flue allow for the CO to escape properly with the waste gases? 1 3/8" does seem small. (bullshit: there is no CO and there are no waste gases)
07:40 PM Re: Hampshire Heater £650 Sounds a bit dear to me. (well! there are tightwad boaters but he does have the price right)
12:58 AM The Hampshire Heater appears to be a good quality product, with good air control. £650 is still less by quite a bit than you might pay to install a Skippy or Little Cod. (£1 was $1.60 back then so £650 was about £1000)
03:23 AM Re: Hampshire Heater . This new model Hampshire Heater looks like a very nice unit with a bit less than a 2" flue. It is indeed quite similar to the Pansy, although it appears to have an outer shell through which air flows, cold from the bottom and warm out the top. I'm not sure what advantage that provides, except for a somewhat cooler outer surface, since an unshielded stove is going to have air circulating all around it anyway. You can throttle a Pansy down and it doesn't use as much fuel as the large flue stoves. A handful of lumpwood charcoal will last a couple of hours. The bigger the flue, the more of your heat is going up the stack. Radiators don't work well in boats due to the near complete lack of drafts at floor level (the hull is watertight, therefore airtight -) in summer the sun warms the topsides and convention occurs inside the boat - in winter there is no convection and the air at foot level forms a stagnant pond of cold air whilst the hot air ends up under the deck head and wafts out through ventilators, hatches ports ... (I learned something here) ... I've got a Pansy on order. There are really great. Definitely mount it as low as possible so the heat rises. There are a few tricks to them, as with most stoves. First, they are the only solid fuel cabin heater I know of that has a one inch flue pipe. This makes for a neat installation. The above-deck section [20210708] is only about an inch and a half high [20210718], just right to be capped with a plastic 35mm film can! The stack [2018-04-12] is a one foot section of heavy gauge stainless (as is the whole stove). When not in use, you can remove the stack [2021-07-18] and have a near flush cabin top. What makes the stove work is the draw up the flue. Stoves with large flues may draw better, but they waste [vast amounts of] energy and burn a lot more fuel, most of it going up the stack. Not so with the Pansy. You WILL find it a lot easier to light and keep going if you preheat the flue [].
Once that's done, when you light the stove it should draw nicely. You get a lot of heat out of a surprisingly small amount of fuel... but you have to preheat the flue or you will pay hell to get the fire going. Because you are burning charcoal, if it's done properly, you won't have any soot to speak of. [] This makes the Pansy a very clean stove to have aboard. Despite the romance of traditional wood and coal burning stoves, they are incredibly dirty, getting soot all over everything. Emptying the ashes from a charcoal heater is a piece of cake, [2020-10-19] since the bottom ash pit simply detaches from the stove and ... Now, there is a limitation to consider.
The PANSY is made of stainless steel, with a quarter inch ASBESTOS sheet liner. If you overheat the stove too often, you can burn out the liner. In fact, I expect you will see this frequently, although I have only seen a couple of Pansys in the flesh ever. Asbestos isn't available anymore. I don't know of any outlet selling them in the States. They are simple enough to build, but I suppose they are made one off ("bespoke" as the English say) like Rolls Royce radiator shells. In any event, a new one probably costs as much! You sure won't go far wrong with one. Even if you don't decide to install it, you can bet there will be somebody who knows better than you willing to pay a pretty penny for it. (THIS IS WHERE THE HAMPSHIRE DIFFERS)
Re: Pansy Heater More advice on the Pansy, from a friend who has one: "a very old copper one, and although they look better in a yacht like Roach, I would certainly go for a stainless version. The removable ash tray is often dropped, and denting around the rim will mean it does not fit well. Check this as it will be hard to hammer it back into a perfect circle if it is dented. They work better in windy conditions with a slotted chimney that came with them. This just slots over the flu protrusion on deck. These are rare to find, so keep a keen look out. That is about it - they are pretty basic little things ... (nothing here applies to the Hampshire)
I have only had half a season with mine; but here are my impressions so far. 1. They work well at sea, so long as you can mount the flu in the "slot". The small flu diameter needs little pressure to draw a draft. Works when heeled. 2. They can be tricky to light. The common mistake is to overfill at first - which [is] a recipe for a stalled fire. A modest amount of lumpwood charcoal is best to get started (a small handful), then add when you have got it going add more. I light by dropping a lit firelighter in the base, and once going add the handful of charcoal and replace lid. Storing charcoal in pre-packed paper bags as suggested above is a good idea (although I have to say I just use a leather glove). The inside diameter of the burning cylinder is only 6 inches or so, that will give you a good idea of what I mean by a small handful. 3. I use mine mainly at night. Once going you can stock it up with several handfuls (3 lots in my case) - this will last all night. As I often anchor in fast tidal Rivers and set the alarm to check the anchor has not dragged at the turn of the tide, I tap the side of the chamber before going back to bed. This seems to help "hopper feed" the charcoal. I leave the vent half-open when it is full. Leaving vent fractionally open will result in the fire going out and then it is a nightmare to relight as you need to remove the charcoal to get under it and add another firelighter. So best to get it going than to play stingy and have a huge mess to clear up. 4. I would say consumption is a handful of charcoal every two hours. ....do you adjust the air intake or flue at all (as you would with a wood burning stove ).One other ...what is lumpwood charcoal ? The flu has no butterfly flap in it like some stoves. The heater does have a vent control which is a mini sliding hit'n'miss vent with a Bakelite knob on it. It's tricky to adjust to minimum without the fire going out, so I just min half-open at night, and fully open when supervised or when you need to get the thing going again."
This gave me a lot to go on. You should have seen the horseshit edited out.
I was already struggling with the instructions supplied with my own Hampshire.
It would take ME seven years before all the challenges were finally ironed out.
