Cold weather camping

[LBZYA]

Originally Posted by jtbuilds

The furnace in the ORV draws 6 amps....so 3Ah.

Running the Wallace to maintain the heat would be the ideal but the test was to determine how it would heat (28'Lx8'W x 9'H) 2,000cu/ft at single digit temps. There was too much involved ($$, tank, ducting, exhaust) and not enough gain from 1, for sure 2 and maybe 3 Wallace heaters.

The Honda 2000 (1/3 the cost of a 30Dt) uses $2 of gas/day with the furnace running and some movie time for the kids. It will also provide 110V heat if needed. Even without the furnace it is needed to keep the rest of the 12V system running as any solar would be covered in snow. It snowed 4 of the 6 days on our latest trip.

You got it, bottom line is dollar for dollar the Honda and an electric heater is going to be the best route.

[1bigmess]

Originally Posted by LBZYA

You got it, bottom line is dollar for dollar the Honda and an electric heater is going to be the best route.

No, not always.

Where I am, the temps have not gone anywhere near freezing for a couple of weeks. Without the furnace, I believe the sewage tanks would have frozen. If I were boondocking, I would have used a generator to charge the house batteries daily so the furnace would run all night as temps dip down into the single digits.

Since I am in an RV park, I don't have to use a gennie, but that is how I would have to live here if I weren't able to use the available shore power. I add one gallon of RV anti freeze to each tank after dumping, and hope for the best. My neighbor is in a trailer that doesn't have an enclosed belly, and he has to go out with a hair dryer to melt the ice at the dump valve.

Propane is $1.63/gallon right down the street. I use about ten gallons a week. I'm not gonna complain about how this is working for me.

[twinboat]

Price and avalability of propane was left out of some scenarios.

[twinboat]

Originally Posted by LBZYA

You got it, bottom line is dollar for dollar the Honda and an electric heater is going to be the best route.

A Honda running a 1500 watt electric heater will run for 4 hours on a tank full of gas. Have one, done it.

So 5.7 gallons of gas will be needed every day, for a bit over 5000 BTUs of electric heat. If the heater can cycle on and off while maintaining the temp then the gas use will go down.

A gallon of gas gets me 4 to 6 hours of battery charging in my eu2000.

All of these facts have to be figured in before an informed decision can be made.

[Off Road]

LBZYA if you go with one or two diesel heaters to replace or supplement your current propane furnace please take some pictures of your install. I would love to hear how it works for you. I have tried running my 1500 watt cube type heater off of my Yamaha 2000 watt gen. and did not find that a very satisfactory setup. On high it bogged down the generator if I had anything else using electricity such as the battery charger so I really could only run it on low. On low it didn't put out much heat. With hookups it's a good heat source, on a generator I'm not convinced.

[Tony Lee]

Many of the high-end large expedition trucks built in Europe have diesel powered hydronic or diesel blown air heating (or both). Quite common for them to have no mains electricity connection and no propane either. Equipment and services bays are fully enclosed and fully insulated so the rig will handle arctic temperatures, especially if coolant preheat for the engine is also installed.
My OKA truck has all services inside the insulated shell plus a diesel hydronic heater supplying heat via fan heaters, hot water via a calorifier, and engine preheating as well. While driving the system works in reverse with engine coolant providing heating for living quarters and plenty of piping hot water for when we pull up for the day. No propane on board and no shore power connection either.
I was going to have in-floor hydronic heating instead of the fan heaters, but reports were that initial warm up time for a cold-soaked rig was hours and those who had it had had to add fan-forced radiators as well so I didn't bother with the floor heating

[jtbuilds]

Originally Posted by twinboat

A Honda running a 1500 watt electric heater will run for 4 hours on a tank full of gas. Have one, done it.

So 5.7 gallons of gas will be needed every day, for a bit over 5000 BTUs of electric heat. If the heater can cycle on and off while maintaining the temp then the gas use will go down.

A gallon of gas gets me 4 to 6 hours of battery charging in my eu2000.

All of these facts have to be figured in before an informed decision can be made.

We get 6-8hrs run time on the Honda when charging 440Ah batteries with a 50amp Pro-Nautic charger. Our latest 5 night trip in the 5th (2900cuft) with outside temps between 12F and 30F we burned $56.00 of fuel which was 5 1/2 gallons of premium gas at $2.90 and 18gals of propane at $2.20. We burned $63.00 of diesel towing the trailer.

[pbensen]

All, I have been hearing a lot about the Alde heaters in class B motor homes, check it out: http://www.alde.se/us

[ModestMonk]

Originally Posted by pbensen

All, I have been hearing a lot about the Alde heaters in class B motor homes, check it out: Alde - USA

Hydronic heating is very efficient. I investigated it relevant to our potential travel trailer purchase.