Water Sports Central called us to come check out a brand spanking new Nautique gs20. Man, what a beautiful boat.
They were looking for some recommendations on exactly how they would put a heater in this boat for their customer so we told them we would be happy to come down and do some filming again, so thanks to Waterport Central for letting get hand-on with so many styles of boats.
For this boat, we installed a medium-sized heater and In the video, Steve covers the ins and outs about installing heater in a wakeboard boats and shows some of the things that you need to consider.
First, the reason a medium heater was chosen. Because in a relatively mild climate here in Georgia, where you typically won't see below 20° but anytime a boat is going to stay on a lift like this boat, or be stored on a trailer, we recommend going up one size heater. If this boat was going to stay in the water be stored in a garage we could probably just recommend a small heater but he's actually going to be out side and he's going to be on a lift so we're going to go ahead and bump to the medium size heater.
Some of the things you need to consider when installing your heater into a Wake Sports Boat This boat has V8 engine shoe horned into the engine compartment. We to consider here is first and foremost where can we Mount the heater. One of the design features of the Xtreme Heater is it's that it is a full flow design, meaning everything that goes in the inlet side goes out the exhaust side. This means it does not matter how it is mounted. On side, facing straight down or even upside down on a hatch is fine. Orientation of the heater will not affect the performance of the heater.
when you're in a enclosed engine compartment this tight one of the things I want you to to try to do is maintain as much room for the exhaust to come out of this and the reason why is not because it gets hot is because I'm trying to circulate the air and the more we can circulate the air the more we can eliminate those cold pockets and completely warm up the environment we do slow heat nice steady even heat because that will so the motor and everything in the engine compartment and allow everything to rise up to that temperature which lets it hold the temperature longer so there's a few different positions I've seen people um use the heater in and I'm going to walk you through a couple different ways you can install this heater in this boat I've seen a lot of people do is take out their side hatch some boats have hatches that lay down some boats have hatches that pull out like that and then you could actually Mount your heater in here and I would face it toward towards the rear of and go to the transmission side of the motor because a lot of your cold especially if this boat's going to be on a lift the cold is going to come through that transmission right into the back of the motor and we'll talk about the exhaust separate in a minute but with the exhaust High and the manifolds High that's always a vulnerable spot on the motor so we'll talk about how to cover that exhaust up to help you maintain the heat so we have a quick release bracket also that you guys have seen in some of my other videos the heater Just Clips in here and then this snaps in into place and holds the heater in so if you wanted to do a quick release bracket on the floor that way you could take the heater in and out in the summertime cuz I know you guys like to throw a lot of life jackets and floats and things in the back of the boat then you can do that without piling them on top of your heater you can actually take the heater out all summer long if you want to do so so that is one position and again I would maintain my airflow and I'm going to try to push it towards the transmission side of this cuz that's where all the cold metal is going to be touching the motor another option that that you have is to actually Mount this on the sidewall so you can pull this sidewall out Mount this heater straight to it and what you see me doing here is Flushing the heat down which will force it underneath the motor and then of course the Heat's going to automatically rise back up or again we could we could Mount that to where it was blowing the heat towards the transmission side and allowing us to circulate the heat around the engine that would be my favorite position there is trying to move the heat in the circular motion around the outside edge of the motor so there's two different ways that you can install this and there's actually enough room on the floor here that if you just wanted to install it on the floor and have that face towards the transmission you could actually do that so of all the places so far that I've showed you we can mount the heater this is actually my favorite because it's down low it gives us plenty of room to circulate the air it's really out of the way you could mount it there permanently and leave it or you could also put the quick release mount in there there and just pull it in and out at will if you guys were going to go wakeboarding so this would be my favorite position the others will work also but again I'm look I'm looking to circulate the air most important job of the heater is circulating that way we flush out the cold and keep the heat in so this would be my favorite position if I was going to do this boat which I'm going to do this is where I'm going to mount this heater so one of the other things I want you guys to pay attention to cuz I've seen it happen a few times is getting the power cord out of the engine compartment it is not a good idea to lay this power cord on the hatch and then shut the hatch on top of it cuz what you're going to do is leave a gap here for of course the heat rise the Heat's going to come right out of the engine room so you see this one has a nice little area where you could actually put the cord down in it and it would still say stay sealed of course you can run it out one of these side compartments and get it to an extension cord but what I really like are these plugs you can actually just put a little hole on the side of your boat put this plug in inside this will go inside your boat plug into the heater and then when you get home or you're on a trailer or you're on a lift you can just plug your boat right in and that will turn your heater on for you so you might want to look into these a couple different companies make them a marineco makes one this one is a Norco there's a couple different options for you guys to choose from I've installed a few of these and I absolutely love them cuz it looks clean and it's easy to plug your heater in if I was going to do this boat I would put it in a spot just like that it looks perfect and it's angled enough to where it would drain but it does have a water waterproof seal on it and I think that'd be a great option if you want to do that and not have to leave the power cord running out of the boat all the time okay so one of the things you got to look out for is these fresh air holes these fresh airs on these boat is actually pulling the air out from underneath the seats and from the main hole of the boat so what I would want to do is take some shrink wrap or tape or a towel and something to stuff stuff in these or seal them up so the cold air does not flush in here and also the heat will find that and act like a chimney and it'll actually suck the heat out of the engine compartment so please make sure that you take a look at this and fill these gaps up it'll help you maintain the heat inside your engine compartment 50% longer so one of the things that you will want to consider if you're running a wakeboard boat especially if it's sitting on a lift or on a trailer is the exhaust so the cold air especially with the shape of this cold air is blowing it's going to run right up the exhaust and right into your risers and that leaves those risers vulnerable because that's typically where the water's sitting and that's where the Cold's going to stay so what what I like to see people do is cover these and I don't care what you use but we use like a a shrink wrap tape and it's pretty simple you just come over here shrink wrap to it again all we're trying to do is maintain the heat inside and keeping the cold from flushing in so this is one one extra little step that you can do to make sure the heat stays in your engine compartment I want you guys to really pay attention to making sure that you seal your engine compartment the best you can seal it if not it's kind of like leaving the windows open in your house and running the heat all day don't make any sense so again while you're installing your heater just don't set it and forget it pay attention to what you're doing look for those little cues fill up all the extra gaps and holes you can and it'll work a lot better for you and I hope you're happy with the performance of your heater and I know you will be so there's my quick tutorial on how to install an extreme heaters inside a wakeboard boat I gave you a lot of tips and tricks for you guys to consider when you're doing it to really help you out so if you're one of those guys that like to get out and wake board when nobody else is on the lake and enjoy some of this fall weather it was freezing cold this morning it's perfect right now I know I'd want to be using my boat so if you're one of those guys that want to use your boat in the winter time when no one else is on the lake this is the perfect option for you and if you have any questions feel free to drop us a comment below or hit us up at extreme.com we would love to answer any of your questions help you out in any way thanks for [Music] watching.
Learn how to winterize a Super Air Nautique wake boat by watching this video.
