www.iFourWinns.com

I keep my 220 Horizon parked outside on my side driveway throughout the winter and on the trailer. It is under an open air carport and completely "winterized" and buttoned up for the winter. I stuff the entire engine compartment with old comforters to make sure my shiny new VP engine is warm for the long winter season.

My question is...for next winter, I am thinking about installing a bilge heater inside the engine compartment. I have no experience with them other than the research I've been doing on my own. I read about two products that appear to be fairly straight forward and easy to install and operate....

One is the "Xtreme Heater" and the other is the "BoatSafe Heater". Anyone have any insight or intell on these products, or other similar products???

http://xtremeheaters.com/

http://boatsafeheaters.com/

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

Are you trying to avoid winterizing? If so I wouldn't recommend it. If you are still going to winterize, I don't see how a heater would do anything except run up your electric bill. FWIW, I don't think the comforters are doing anything to help either, to be honest. Just do a thorough winterizing job, and let her sleep well.

By the way, in case I never said it before, thank you for your service.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Actually, I guess I am trying to avoid winterizing....I'd like to be able to take the boat out on a whim during a nice sunny winter day without having to drain her after every outing in the winter. The Puget Sound area sure is awesom in the winter when it's calm and sunny....which is frequent.

and thanks for the comment...

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

OK, in that case I don't have any info on them. I don't think I could ever trust my engine to something that could break down, be dependent on the power grid, etc. But then boating during the winter isn't even a pipe dream for me, so...

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

law950, do you fill your engine with antifreeze when you winterize or do you just drain the cooling system and leave it open? Just curious.

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

There's something to be said for doing both. The heater acts as a bit of a failsafe in case the recurring winterizing you do doesn't quite catch everything. You be wasting a couple gallons of antifreeze every time you used it but that may be a reasonable expense for the fun.

Once set up it's not all that hard to winterize just the engines. Doing "everything" like the fresh water, head, air conditioning, is a lot more involved.

There are two schools of thought on winterizing, if you just drain it you're leaving metal surfaces inside the engine exposed to air and that will speed corrosion. Using an antifreeze with corrosion inhibitors helps avoid that.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

I just drain the cooling system and leave it open. I connect a float charger to the battery, drain and remove the four plugs, and pull the two hoses to drain completely. I basically follow the VP engine manual to the letter.

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

Guys... remember, our winters in the Puget Sound (Seattle) are are pretty mild... We don't have near the conditions that some of you folks do.

I agree that filling with antifreeze that has corrosion inhibitors is a great call -- but if you use your boat regularly through the winter, I don't think it would make that big of a difference.

I think the key is -

1) Draining the block takes 15 minutes... you should do this in the winter regardless.
2) The heater is a bonus to hopefully keep things warm and dry.

For regular winter usage - I think that if both of these are followed - the boat will be just fine.

I have stored boats during the winter by just changing all the oils and draining the water - and I never had any issues. That being said - if you are going to store for a long period of time (60 days +) - I would use the antifreeze for the anti- corrosion as well as even when you drain the block, you still have a little water in there somewhere.

On a side note -- I hope our coldest part of the winter is over... we are now in the high 40's during the day, mid 30's at night... We COULD be boating in March this year! woo hoo!

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2008 318 Vista -SOLD, but I am still around!
All Night Long, Seattle WA

Good point. I never knew the winters there were mild; I always thought they were pretty harsh there.

We're headed down to +8 tonight

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

I'm still blown away by what you guys have to do to winterize your boats .Here in Oz it is UNHEARD of in these parts. Mind you we do have very intense sun here to the point that crownline boats only offer half the warranty against fading on the seats etc.I don't know how FW warranty compares.
Any way I will think of you good people when I am out waterskiing this week end
Have fun
Ardy Adelaide South Australia

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Ardy
Adelaide South Australia
Red H180 3.0 Merc

On my last boat, I failed to get antifreeze fully into the exhaust headers, so they cracked. I always pull the batt's, and trickle charge them in the garage. Nothing worse for a battery than freezing.
Ardy, in our neck of the woods sometimes it could be below 0F for days, and below freezing for a week or more. Not too many people say.... "ooh, it's in the mid 40's, let's take the boat out!"

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Walt B
"Debt-Charged"
Black '07 H210SS
6.2L Bravo One turning a 21P HIFive
Wakeboard Tower with Perfect Pass Stargazer version
Missouri River; Kansas City, Mo.

LOL Walt.

As to batteries, as long as they stay charged, they won't freeze. Below is a chart I found a couple of years ago, and have had to keep digging up when someone brings this up. I've now captured it and made my own file so I'll know where it is. Anyway, you can see that if you let the battery completely discharge it'll freeze at around 20F, but if fully charged it won't freeze until around -77F. So as long as you keep a charge on them, there's no real need to pull them. In some of the Horizons they can be a major PITA to pull.

I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to install a dual bank trickle charger in the boat so that all I have to do is connect one extension cord to the boat and walk away. For now I have a separate trickler on each battery, both sitting on the swim platform and plugged into an extension cord. If we expect a bad winter storm with the possibility of power outages and brownouts, I go up to storage the day before and unplug the chargers just to make sure they and/or the batteries and/or the whole storage facility don't get fried.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

I don't think I'd trust an engine to that either, what if the power goes out or it just fails? Draining the engine does not really take that long. One thing for sure, my next boat will either be a 4 stroke outboard, or closed cooling if an I/O. Both are easier to deal with for winterizing!
I fill mine up with -100 AF with corrosion inhibitors after manually draining everything, this has worked well here where temps can get down to zero.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Law950, sounds like you do what I would do in your situation. If I was going to use it every so often in the winter (less than 60 days between uses) then I would drain it and leave it open as well and use a bilge heater as an extra protective measure.

Didn't realize the winters weren't all that harsh up there. Assumed that further north meant colder. Learn something every year!

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)