28 pilot house ac

[Matthew]

Hello everybody. Our previous boat was destroyed by Matthew and we are now looking again and are interested in the 28. As we live in Florida I hope to have ac in the pilot house. Can the ducting be run to the pilot house? What size unit to do both cabin and pilot house? Anybody deleted the water cooled unit and just used a roof mount on top of the pilot house?

[catalina_mike]

I don't have A/C in my helm but after doing my electrical I believe it is possible behind the restroom wall or through the floor access in the restroom. Now thats from memory however the load because of all the glass will be huge and I would doubt you would have enough capacity in the ducting that would fit to keep it comfortable. Now there is some room under my helm that might be modified to do the pilot house as you could get good size vents installed. Might be worth taking a look at the space. Hopefully someone has do it and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Good luck and it sounds interesting.

[Jeremyvmd]

Yes it can be done, just takes some creative routing. As to the size I don't know. I will say when I run the ac with the cabin door opened and the enclosure closed it does cool off the helm area nicely...
Personally I would not install a roof mounted unit. But that's just me...

[Nancy]

You might want to consider fabricating shade cloth for the front and side windows if you don't already have it. My sense is that would ease the load on the AC. It would certainly help protect the helm area from FL sun damage.