342 blower intake/exhaust

Black_Diamond

For you other 342 owners: do your blowers exhaust on the Starboard side like mine?  I'm thinking of re-routing mine to exhaust on the Port side, I think they suck in exhaust from the genney when it is running as they are set up now.

Black_Diamond

RY: my blowers are that same spot.  I had to add hoses to the vents over the genset and the two coming out of the transom storage area.  I ran them down to the bilge to get air moving at the low places, they were missing/not installed when I bought mine new. 

TikiHut2

Good safety point BD. I hadn't considered whether the blower intake of CO is from the same side if the genset exhaust is running aft toward the nearby engine room intake when laying on anchor. Of course any genset use should always require the blower too.

I took a mental inventory and 2 of my 3 intakes are on the opposite side of the genset exhaust. Both my engine room blower exhaust and genset exhaust are on the starboard side of our '04 270 which is almost ideal. Although one of my vents on the genset side is not a forced air vent and could actually intake CO from the genset.

Like yours, my engine room intake/exhaust hoses were just laying inside by the transom unsecured. One of the first items when tidying up our engine room eqt was to secure the exhaust hose into the lowest section of the bilge where fumes would lay.

QC of vent lines and wire chase details are often left undone in a fast paced production line. IMHO the next safety item (indulge me while I say it yet again) should be a properly sealed bulkhead/firewall between the engine room and cabin preventing explosive or poisonous gases(not to mention water) from easily migrating throughout the entire boat and/or compromising an otherwise well designed fire suppression system with a lack of containment, limitless O2 and sources of ignition. Good luck with plugging all the gaps I found in our engine room bulkhead, much less yours.

Just sayin' Mike

Black_Diamond

Good points Tiki. I may just redo the intake/exhaust..add to my list. Lol.

I have no idea how I would seal off the engine area from the rest of the boat, I have literally been half through the gaps working on stuff. Be a massive job I think. Adding a fume detector might be a more pratical solution for time and money.

LaRea

It would be interesting to see exactly what the air movement patterns really are.  To get a rough idea, you could use "canned smoke" (aerosol used to test smoke detectors).  To really see what's going on, you would need a visible smoke or vapor that is heavier than air.  Break out the fog machine and dry ice ...

212rowboat

A little 12vdc ultrasonic fogger tab will do the trick.. cheap, non toxic, effective.