Properly sizing your boat is a critical part of planning

Properly sizing your boat is a critical part of planning a successful air conditioning system that you will enjoy for many years. 

In many installations we have designed systems that will cool the main salon during the day and the entire boat, including the staterooms, in the evening by using multiple ducting with closeable grills combined with a more powerful blower motor. This frequently results in a single system accomplishing what you would typically need two systems for, saving you a lot of money and frequently eliminating the need for an additional shore power service. (You need about 10 BTUs/cubic foot after sunset, therefore if you concentrate the entire capacity of a single unit to the main salon only, during the day, you will end up with, for example, 18 BTUs/cubic foot in this smaller area during daylight hours, and 10 BTUs/cubic foot during the evening when you open up all of the ducts and cool the entire boat).
Each square foot of glass needs 600BTU of cooling
In applications where there is an unusually high heat load from many passengers such as a party boat, you should also increase your factor accordingly. The general rule of thumb is 250 BTU’s for inactive occupants and 500 BTU’s for active occupants such as working or dancing.
BlueLink Wi-Fi Thermostat allows you to turn on your AC remotely from any location via phone.

Please note that these formulas are for maintaining the desired temperatures of a typical vessel. Don’t arrive at your boat at noon after it’s been baking in the hot sun for hours with an inside temperature of 120°F, and expect it to be at 72°F in a half hour! You usually have thousands of pounds of furniture, fiberglass and steel that needs to be dropped 50° before the a/c has to only maintain this temperature. Just as in a house that has been closed for vacation, it may take several hours for the a/c system to catch up. This “Thermal Load” or “Thermal Mass” is most easily overcome during the evening hours when the thermal gain from the sun is nonexistent. We suggest you program the system to go on a 3AM, for example, in these situations – especially with commercial boats, unless you want to grossly oversize the system to accomplish your needs.

Using these factors combined with some common sense will almost always produce a satisfactory system, however you can always hire a professional to prepare a thermodynamic heat load analysis for your particular vessel.

We have a lot of experience sizing different vessels and will work with you in making this determination. Equally important to sizing the vessel is determining how much individual temperature control is desired. In individual staterooms you may wish to have small separate systems that are independently controlled and one large system for the main salon and galley areas. We will take into consideration many factors when recommending a system for your vessel.