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Houseboat thrusters: bow, stern or both, and the easiest way in
A houseboat is a wall with a deck on it, and the first afternoon breeze at the dock will remind you. There are three ways to put a thruster on her: a unit that drops down from the deck, a hydraulic one off the generator, or a welded tunnel. On this hull the surprise is the battery bank. On the one job anyone has itemized, it cost more than the hull work. This guide shows what each route asks of your boat, so you can pick yours.
The short answer
An electric unit bolts under the deck and drops down to work. Nothing is cut below the waterline and there is no haul-out. It still needs a big battery supply.
A hydraulic system runs off the generator the boat already carries. What you give up is a published price and a published thrust rating.
A houseboat can take a welded tunnel, which a pontoon cannot. Of the 140 tunnel models in the thruster list this site keeps, 114 publish both a price and a thrust rating.
Priced as a yard job on a 60 ft houseboat today, most tunnel jobs would cost $20,900 to $24,400. That is our estimate, from published prices and typical hours. The cost-by-hull comparison shows how that lands against every other kind of boat.
Size for the day you go out in. A houseboat is an inland, fair-weather boat. Your engines move her, and the thruster puts the bow where you want it while they do.
Bow, stern, or both on a houseboat
Many houseboats need more than one thruster. A houseboat is long, flat-sided and catches a lot of wind. One unit at one end often fixes only half the problem, and systems for both ends are sold.
At the bow, the easiest fit is an electric unit that bolts under the deck and drops down to work. Nothing is cut below the waterline and there is no haul-out, though it still needs a big battery supply. A hydraulic unit runs off the generator instead, so it needs no batteries. A welded tunnel is the third route.
At the stern, Sideshift’s houseboat units bolt under the deck at the bow or the stern, so the same unit can go at either end.
At both ends, two makers sell for the whole boat. HydraNautics offers full bolt-on bow and stern systems. A hydraulic pump runs them off the generator the boat already carries (hydranautics.us).
Sideshift pairs its HB350 at the bow with its ST350 stern thruster. It includes a dual joystick when you buy the two together (sideshift.com).
Check the weight ratings before you order. Sideshift rates the ST350 for boats to 20 tons and the HB350 to 30 tons. Our page on bow and stern thrusters together explains what a unit at each end does.
Buying only one? Our page bow or stern first? helps you choose, and our page on what a stern thruster costs has the dated prices for the back of the boat.
A 60 ft houseboat, stopped, turning about her middle. The arrows point the way each unit pushes to turn her: the bow one way, the stern the other.
A houseboat can take a tunnel
Advice for pontoons gets applied to houseboats all the time. On this point it does not carry over.
- A pontoon cannot take a A tube bored straight through the hull below the waterline, with a propeller in the middle of it. It is the conventional thruster. Fitting one is mostly a labor job rather than a hardware one.. There is no hull body between the logs to bore through.
- A flat-bottomed barge hull can. The one itemized owner job we found is exactly that.
A poster in the Wayne’s Words thread that holds the one itemized bill describes the work. Cut a twelve inch by four foot opening, weld in the sides, and attach the tunnel (Wayne's Words, December 2016).
The work is welding. That changes who does the job more than what it costs. It is a different trade at a different rate. On an aluminum hull, many fiberglass yards will not take the job.
Find out who welds aluminum near you before you price anything else.
Where the money goes on a houseboat
On a fiberglass boat, cutting the hole is the expensive part. On a houseboat it is not. The table below is one owner's own figures. He did the work himself in 2016, so they cover parts and a welder's time and nothing else.
They also predate the 2021 labor-rate rise, so the totals are stale. What carries over is the split between hull work and electrics.
| Line | Amount | Part of the job |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminum tunnel tube | $200 | Hull work |
| Welding labor | $800 | Hull work |
| Battery bank | $2,500 | Electrical |
| Charger | $225 | Electrical |
| Cables | $300 | Electrical |
| Hull work, itemized | $1,000 | Tube plus welding |
| Electrical | $3,025 | Battery bank, charger, cables |
The electrical side is 67 to 75 percent of the itemized lines. The battery bank alone cost more than the tube and the welding together.
The same reason applies to your boat. A thruster wants a great deal of current, briefly, at the bow. A houseboat usually has no electrical capacity anywhere near the bow. Walk forward on your own boat and look for anything electrical heavier than a navigation light.
Two figures in that thread do not agree with each other. The owner itemized $200.00 for the tube and $800.00 for welding ($1,000). Separately, he gave $1,500 as the “total physical mounting”.
His overall estimate was about $5,000. That is why the electrical share above is a range: it depends which of his two hull figures you use, and he did not say which was right.
Do not budget off that job. The $5,000 is one boat, ten years ago, with the owner's own labor and none of a yard's. It is the best itemized evidence published for this hull and the wrong number to plan against. The split it shows, electrical over hull work, is the part that carries across to your boat.
What it costs today, fitted by a yard. Our estimate for a 60 ft houseboat, from published prices:
| External | Tunnel | Retractable |
|---|---|---|
| Sideshift HB350 External thrusters for a 60 ft houseboat Fitted by a boatyard:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $6,500. It can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: from $16,200, and that is a Sideshift HB350 at the bow with a Sideshift HB350 at the stern. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a 60 ft houseboat Most jobs cost $20,900–$24,400. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 25 more models, up to $51,300 for the Sleipner Side-Power E350 HDB eVision. The thruster itself, before fitting: $3,700–$31,000. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $30,200–$33,600. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a 60 ft houseboat Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And 3 more models, up to $50,600 for the Sleipner Side-Power ERL170 eVision. The thruster itself, before fitting: $22,700–$29,500. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
A different length, or a different boat? The thruster finder prices your own, and the comparison by boat type puts this row next to every other kind of boat.
Why hydraulic exists on these boats
On a houseboat the expensive part of a thruster is getting power to the bow. So the product worth a look is the one that does not need a battery bank at all. That split is why the hydraulic route took hold on houseboats.
On houseboats, hydraulic is an established market. HydraNautics has built hydraulic bow and stern systems for these boats for decades. Their central claim, in their own words:
“Powered by Existing Generator — No Batteries or Chargers” (hydranautics.us, read 30 August 2026).
They also describe full bolt-on bow and stern systems. These are installed and serviced on the water, with no Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself..
In a magazine interview, their founder states that around 3,500 houseboats run their thrusters. He also says the system draws from the generator only while it is thrusting, up to 3 kW on a 12 kW generator. Those are the company's own figures.
The interview ran in Houseboat Magazine in March 2022. The magazine's site was unreachable when this page was checked on 17 September 2026, so the article is cited without a link.
What you give up is any way to compare it. HydraNautics publishes no price and no thrust rating. They install the system themselves rather than selling it as a kit. That is normal for hydraulics, and it is why the product tables on this site carry no hydraulic units.
If you go this way, you are buying on a conversation and a reputation. Get the quote in writing before you agree to anything.
The hydraulic page has the rest of that market. It covers what a system is made of and what the makers say about run time.
The electric units that drop down from the deck
Want a kit with a price on it? There are purpose-built houseboat units. They mount to the underside of the deck and drop down when you press the switch.
- Nothing is cut below the waterline, so there is no Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself..
- Nothing hangs under the boat the rest of the time.
Sideshift calls them retractable. This site lists them with the external units, as external retractable thrusters, because nothing goes through the hull.
| Model | Kit price | Thrust published | Power | Boat length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sideshift HB340 Retractable Houseboat Thruster
The maker’s own listing, read 30 August 2026. Full page: fit, cost and wiring See it on the maker’s site | $5,995 | Not published | 5 hp, 12 V, 550 A | Up to 40 ft |
| Sideshift HB350 Retractable Houseboat Thruster
The maker’s own listing, read 28 August 2026. Full page: fit, cost and wiring See it on the maker’s site | $6,495 | Not published | 7.5 hp, 24 V, 400 A | 40–75 ft |
Read the power column. These are 12 and 24 volt units drawing several hundred amps. That is the battery-bank problem from the section above, in a different box.
A A thruster that lives inside the hull and drops down through a hatch when you press the button, then pulls back up. It leaves no permanent hole in the water flow. does not need a tunnel cut, but it still needs to be fed. Whatever you save on welding, budget for the electrics.
You will also see smaller A thruster that bolts to the outside of the hull, up near the bow or on the back of the boat. Its propeller hangs in the water below it. Nothing is cut through the hull, so there is no tunnel. whose makers confirm them for houseboats. Be realistic about size. What steers a small houseboat will not steer sixty feet of slab-sided hull in a crosswind. Run your own number before you fall for the small one.
You are the one buyer who can shop on thrust
Being able to take a tunnel has an upside that is unusual in this category. Of the 140 tunnel models in our database, 114 publish both a price and a thrust rating. You can lay them side by side and compare them like any other piece of equipment.
Between 100 and 400 lb, the figures our sizing gives a houseboat of 30 to 58 ft at 15 knots, that runs from the Sleipner Side-Power SE40/125S at 105 lb up to the Sleipner Side-Power SE150/215T-24V at 400 lb. Every one has a published price. A bigger houseboat wants more, and the calculator prints the figure for yours.
Of the purpose-built houseboat units above, not one publishes a thrust figure. Sideshift publishes no thrust rating for any model in its range, and our no-hole page has every model. HydraNautics publishes none either.
The tunnel route costs you welding and a haul-out, and it gives you numbers. The bolt-on routes save you both and ask you to take the maker's word for it.
A houseboat has more The area of the boat the wind can push on: the hull sides, the cabin, the mast and rigging, or the canopy. A tall, boxy boat has a lot of it, and wind force does not care how slowly you are moving. than any other hull on the water. She is a flat slab with a great deal of side and very little grip on the water. The wind wins as you slow down, because your The blade behind the propeller that steers the boat, and it only works when water is flowing past it. At docking speed it does almost nothing, and in reverse it does nothing at all if it sits behind the propeller. is losing its bite at the same time.
Size for the day you go out in. Do not let anyone size you for a gale, because you will not dock in one. A houseboat is an inland, fair-weather boat, and nobody brings one alongside in twenty knots by choice. If you find yourself doing it, no thruster was going to get you out of it.
Remember what the thruster is for. Your engines move the boat, and the thruster puts the bow where you want it while they do. It does not hold her against the weather on its own.
Which route is yours
- You want it done in a day with nothing below the waterline. Choose a deck-mounted retractable. You are buying without a thrust rating. Size it for the weather you actually go out in.
- You already run a generator underway, and the boat is big. Hydraulic is worth a phone call. It removes the biggest line in the bill, and it is the established product on these hulls. Ask for the quote in writing. Ask for a thrust figure too, even though the website does not carry one.
- You want a published price and a published number. That is the tunnel route. Budget for a welder rather than a fiberglass hand. Budget more for the battery bank than for the hole.
- Your houseboat is small and light. A bow-mounted trolling motor works on some houseboats and does nothing on others. The owner reports, sorted by boat, show which.
Whichever way you go, take the quote apart line by line. On this hull, look at the electrical line first.
What this means when you dock
If the wind takes the bow as you slow down, that is your rudder losing its bite. A bow thruster puts the bow where you want it while the engines drive.
If one end is fixed and the other still wanders, look at a unit for the other end. HydraNautics and Sideshift both sell for bow and stern together.
If a quote looks high, check the electrical line before the hull work. On a houseboat, feeding the thruster is where the money goes.
If it is blowing hard, you are outside what a houseboat is built for. Nobody brings one alongside in twenty knots by choice, and no thruster was going to get you out of it.
What nobody has published
One itemized job, from 2016. That is the entire published record of what a houseboat thruster costs installed. Every proportion on this page rests on that one boat.
No independent owner reviews of anything in this category. The one magazine article on the subject is titled as though it collects owner opinion. It contains no owner quotes. Every quote in it is from the manufacturer's founder.
No hydraulic prices, from anyone. There is no list price or range, and no owner has said what they paid.
No thrust rating on any purpose-built houseboat unit.
Itemized owner figures from a public Wayne's Words thread, December 2016, quoted for the split of the bill; the totals are ten years old. HydraNautics claims are the company's own, read 30 August 2026; the magazine interview quotes their founder and no owners. Kit prices and specifications from each maker's own product pages. Tunnel counts from this site's thruster database. Every thrust figure here is the maker's own.