Hell I keep mine in heated indoor storage and I still winterize the engines just in case something was to happen.

guy asks for opinion then ignores what 100% tell him....then why ask at all???

Mike,

"There's a sucker born every minute."
----PT Barnum.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."
---- John Bridges

Thanks. Brad.

I have an Xtreme Heater. Nice piece. Used it for a year or two before I got smart and started winterizing.

Be sure you consider whether you need to pull thermostats to ensure you get good Antifreeze coverage.

I am thinking these heaters are more intended for moored boat that are too big to trailer and stay in their slips all winter...

Spend a few bucks once, plumb it with shutoffs, valves, quick connects ...... easy hookups and winterize the boat. Once you have an easy setup, it literally takes 15 minutes an engine and less then 20 bucks. I would not be able to sleep at night worrying about electricity, temperature, power failure etc. Just put it to bed. Piece of Mind for sure

Learned this from my old man at a very young age. Had a bilge heater, breaker tripped one night…that’s all it took. Cracked block on a 1 year old boat.

I don’t winterize but I keep all my boats indoors

At BEST, a heater's best use is to EXTEND your boating season, for just a little while. But it's not worth the risk of not winterizing.

Are you going to be there 100% of the time all winter to ensure power is on and the heater is working?
Do you plan to leave for a family trip or a vacation? Will you have someone there to address such?
Do you have generator backup for power for your dock/boat, where the heater will be plugged into?
What if you leave, power fails, and you are away?
What if we have an extended power outage due to a bad snow or other winter storm?
What is your backup plan if the heater fails?

Its different if you can walk down to the dock every day and check it out. If it was on my lift at my house and I could go check it out every day....I'd do the heater. If it is stored somewhere or at a marina and I wasn't there, I wouldn't risk it. My damn breaker is always tripped on my dock and I don't even have anything plugged in.

I winterize every year with the pink juice AND have a bilge heater in case the pink stuff didn't get into every passage. Boat is in a heated shop in Tx. Heard too many tales of ice storms taking out power and roads are too bad to get to the boat.