What are ya'll using for heat?

[featherliteCT1]

I love my 5k btu Chinese diesel heater. I burn kerosene ... no smell ... sips fuel and very low average amp draw.

 

[bdosborn-SMB]

They have long startups with 'high' amp draws. And they all seem to draw too many amps when running, for my liking.

I know you've already picked a heater but just a clarification for the next guy; my Espar diesel heater draws 20 amps for 30 seconds while starting or 0.16 amp-hrs. After that, the current draw is probably less than the Suburban as mine throttles back to low at night. And I guarantee its a lot quieter than the Suburban.

It does have a diesel stink, but I have a diesel truck so it doesn't bother me. I don't ever smell it inside, there's something wrong if you do.

Bruce

 

[Tony Latham]

I'm more than pleased with my little Propex...

Tony

 

[Squigie]

I appreciate the late replies.
Hopefully, someone can gain some knowledge and take some inspiration from this thread in the future.

But I'm still sticking with the NT-16SEQ.
I paid for it. It's here. It has been tested. The 'squear-drop', in more than one way, has been designed around it.
It's quiet. It works. It draws very little power. And it's easy to work with. (Well... In theory...)
And I hate diesel and the accompanying stench. Propane is easy and doesn't stink to **** and back.

I'm sticking with what I've got.


And, remember... This is the "make mistakes now, so you can improve upon them next time" - trailer.
This one is for me - and my selfish desire for simple, heated accommodations while hunting - but the next one will be for the whole family. ...Or maybe just me and the wife while cruising in the Nova. But, if that's the case, the one after that (I guess) will be for the whole family.


(For those of you keeping tabs - yes, that means I have almost completely finalized the plans. There are very few loose ends to tie up. Hopefully, I figure out which ones are left hanging before it's too late. Build Journal coming as soon as steel is cut!)

 

[bobhenry-TNT]

Back to basics......

 

[fishboat2]

.

 

[Tyrtill]

I’m using a diesel heater:

Pros: Lots of heat, fuel readily available, relatively low power use (.8A-4A while running low-high), relatively cheap (<$150), variable output, thermostat control

Cons: The dosing pump click!!!!!, Does use power, large startup shutdown power draw (~1Ahr), stinky outside, a bit of a pain to install, poor instructions (but plenty available online), does not shut off when temperature is reached so if “low” is not cool enough you have to open a window or turn the unit completely off

Overall I have been happy with it the half dozen times I’ve used it.
After my research I mostly decided based on price. If I knew the pump click was going to be as loud as it is I may have thought more about the spendy propane heaters but I likely would have bought diesel anyway. A side effect of it being on all night is that the water jug I store near the heater ends up being 100+ degrees and makes for good dishwashing.

However....

My favorite heater I’ve seen on the forums is KenethW’s Homemade Radiant propane Heater

This is what I am going to try on my tear drop. It is a small version of the warehouse heaters. It uses a propane torch clamped to a conduit union with of piece of conduit going across the top inside of the teardrop with a florescent light reflector over it that will be painted silver.

I will use stainless steel dog dishes with a hole thru the bottom as wall thimble mounted to the wall

If i was building a different style camper I almost definitely would have built something similar but I just couldn’t come up with a pop up friendly version that fit my floorplan

 

[bdosborn-SMB]

I bought my Espar 10 years ago when there was a lot of them on eBay; I think a lot of truckers were converting to APUs so there was a bunch up for sale. They were relatively cheap back then, so much so that I have an entire spare unit stashed in my basement (don't tell anyone). I'm not sure I'd get a Chinese diesel or take a DIY approach, I don't like rolling the dice where there's no second chance if things go wrong in the night. I'd probably take a long hard look at the Propex if I was buying a heater today. Or get a big dog.
Bruce

 

[NevadaBlue]

Back to basics......

Bob,
First, I want to thank you for all the great input you have had and have now on this forum. I just finished reading the Caboose thread, an epic. You are a tough dude for sure. Thank you again.

So, with your pic in mind, this would work. The Samovar... they are thin stainless steel, available from Amazon among other places for 50 to 100 bucks. They generally heat a gallon of water. So, a small wood fired stove, WITH water heater (which I am sure will moderate the affects of the fire on the whole contraption. I’m tempted to buy one for my little trailer I am building. They are about 10” in diameter, so they could be easily installed in a box like you showed, or in my case, sit on top of a shelf that is in the plan for my one-man rig.

 

[bobhenry-TNT]

I am sure you noticed the entire unit is simply clamped in place. This was done for quick ejection if needed. The clamp on neich was lined with galvanized roofing material to separate combustable surfaces from the direct radiant heat and to help diffuse it as well. I would strongly suggest this as a mounting as it avoided cutting a chimney exit into the roof of the teardrop. I was amazed that this little 14" stove heated the unit in minutes with an outside temp in the teen's and a rather biting wind. I used salesman sample double sash aluminum storm windows in this build. This allowed the sashes to be quickly and easily removed and stored away after arrival. This feature allowed the neich to be temporarily added to the trailer.

 

[H.A.]

I been an Espar user for decades. Models D1L and X-2. They are great heaters, But can be fussy at high altitude. I still have several NOS from 1980s in the shed... The Chinese have basically copied them and are insanely cheap nowdays.
Presently my teardrop uses no heat. My 19' Airstream I use a Sigmar 100. Completely silent and no electric requirement.

 

[kmack67.km]

Interesting discussion. I am surprised that a super small pellet stove isn't already available for small trailers. I did a search but the smallest I found was a wood stove that was about a foot in each dimension. The unfortunate news about the latter is that the clearance distance around it meant that you need about 9 sq-ft of floor space to use it.

Not sure how much heat is needed but I have successfully taken the worst of the frost out of the air in tents by burning a couple of UCO candle lanterns. That may be enough for a small, well insulated teardrop.

Kevin

 

[Tyrtill]

My 19' Airstream I use a Sigmar 100. Completely silent and no electric requirement.

Thanks for posting this. I looked them up and they're really simple. I probably couldn't use one in my current build but I'll keep it in mind in the future.

 

[Wellcraft290]

https://youtu.be/pT8YeL8JQxY

 

[Squigie]

There's some irony in this thread being revived yesterday. I had to use the RV furnace yesterday. I should have taken a picture. I wish I had.

Yesterday morning, I awoke about 2 hours early to a very cold house.
Thermostat was working and showed that it was heating. The furnace blower motor could be heard running.
Perhaps there was a power outage and the furnace is trying to catch back up now?
No. No signs of a power failure elsewhere in the house.

I went down to the furnace and saw the blinking light of doom. "Great, we've got another igniter or flame sensor failure. Six flashes, here we go..." methinks.

Blink-blink-blink-blink. Blink-blink-blink-blink.

Four. Where's that chart? What does four mean?
(Of course, the fault chart is upside down and hidden around a corner inside the furnace cabinet.)
"OPEN ..." -scrub some dust off the sticker- "... LIMIT SWITCH ... " -contort body in terrible ways, while pushing wiring out of the way to read more- "... OR IMPROPER ... VOLTAGE."

Okay... A transformer failure is very unlikely, and I would have to replace the whole control board for a voltage regulator failure. So, ...where are the limit switches?

And thus began about 5 hours of chasing my tail, as all parts were testing good, but the error code was different every time I reapplied power to the furnace.

In the mean time, the house was about to drop into the 50s (F). For humans, that's annoying. But there was a more pressing issue. My wife has a bearded dragon that is only kept warm with heat lamps and ambient temperature in the house. We have no 'heat stones' or other heaters for the prickly reptile. That lizard needs 60+ F, and 65 F is better for a 'low' temperature. Lucky the lizard needed heat.

I knew my electric garage heaters wouldn't be able to heat the open space in the house while I was occasionally cycling the furnace and redistributing the warmer air throughout the house.
But... But! Yea, I know what might work.

I dug the RV furnace out of its box, shoved the rear end (intake/exhaust) through the cat door that leads outside, slipped on the exhaust pipe that I don't intend to use (I have two), propped the front up, hooked up the propane (and leak-checked), hooked the power wires up to a 12V power supply from my parts bin, alligator-clipped the thermostat wires together (so I could cycle the furnace without twisting and untwisting wires), and let 'er eat.

It did pretty well. By the time I got the house furnace working well enough to feel that I could walk away from it, at least for an hour or two, the little RV furnace had gotten us back to about 67 F, and it was heating about 1,800 square feet.

Unfortunately, the house furnace is still questionable. I can touch almost any wire inside that cabinet and cause a fault that shuts it down. There seems to be a major issue with loose connectors, or actual wire breakage inside the insulation (my brother had that happen). It's 30+ years old and would certainly be replaced by the average home owner. But about 50% of its parts are also new, and I know this dumb furnace pretty well at this point. I'm still debating whether or not to replace the whole wire harness, wire by wire or pigtail by pigtail. (Replacement harnesses are not available for this furnace.)
Whatever I do, I'm going to nurse it along as long as I can - hopefully until spring - so I don't have to worry about working in short windows of opportunity.

 

[Tony Latham]

I dug the RV furnace out of its box, shoved the rear end (intake/exhaust) through the cat door...

I like your McGiver thinkiing.

T

 

[Rustic313]

Thread necromancy...

An electric mattress pad and/or electric blanket work pretty well and are relatively gentle on the batteries. Figure about 50 watts for a 12v blanket, so you'll use up ~400 watts overnight. A 100 ah "car battery" should have ~1000 watts, meaning you'd be half discharged if you run the blanket all night (fine so long as you charge it up again).

Hot water bottles work pretty well too. The large euro style ones have been awesome. You can heat up water before bed then snuggle up.

Anything else is going to require propane.

 

[Tony Latham]

You can heat up water before bed then snuggle up.

It's a lot easier to reach in and turn on the Propex thermostat while watching the fire burn down.

It takes about five minutes to bring the cabin up to 72º on a cold night.

I couldn't resist.

Tony

 

[friz-TNT]

A snuggle buddy and thick covers is the most fun.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Tony Latham]

A snuggle buddy and thick covers is the most fun.

Dang! And you've got that damn cool bottle opener....

Tony