Blue Ridge Spirit, Bob and Lynn's 6x14 CT

[lrrowe]

Thanks McDave,
Unfortunately I am sitting in a diner. It started to rain yesterday and I do not hunt in the rain. The CT is dry and my heater works so well that I have to take it down some and remove one sleeping bag. I will report more at the end of the trip. The weather i forecasted to be wet for the next week plus.

[McDave]

Well, if your bored, come on up to Montana. Lots of whitetails and its snowing today, which actually makes hunting/tracking easier. Plus, you can give that heat system a real test !
Good luck and stay dry, don't forget your thumb medicine..
McDave

[McDave]

I've been meaning to tell you that I installed a similar system in our 120 yr old house about 20 yrs ago. All the floors on the main floor are hardwood, and I was able to access them from the basement. I ran tubing in "loops" between all the floor joists and "zoned" each room. I also added 2 hyrdronic heater units to supplement the upstairs and downstairs. This system cut our heating bills by 50% and the warm floors are sooo nice on your feet. As a plus, all the mass in the room is warmed from floor up so furniture and countertops etc. are warm to the touch. The warmest temps are from the floor to thermostat, where you are, not at the ceilings. The basement also stays very nice even after months of below zero temps.
I am sold on these systems, and I know yours will work GREAT!
McDave
ps. I also used the radiant tubes to heat the indoor pool. The tubes were placed under the liner and heat from the bottom up. Very efficient. 25,000 gal. of warm mass keeps the greenhouse nice as well.

[McDave]

Hey Bob,
You may have seen this before, but I found it interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDM_gy4YyoM
McDave

[lrrowe]

Hey Bob,
You may have seen this before, but I found it interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDM_gy4YyoM
McDave

McDave, just saw your post/link. Very interesting. Some day the whole RV heating paradigm will change.

[lrrowe]

Report from my recent camp out/hunting trip with my CT.

Camp Setup
My hunting friend and I set up our normal hunt camp this year in the George Washington National Forest in the western part of Virginia.
It consisted of a typical 10'x20' vinyl portable garage with my CT at one end and my friend's Truck at the other end with a 12'x12' canopy at the other end. Then we use the 10x20 canopy as our cooking and eating area.

Our drive down the National Forest roads.




Camp Setup





It started to rain right off and sure put a damper in our plans. But we tried to hang in there until the wind came in 20-40 mph bursts.
The canopy went flying in the night and put a nasty scratch on my friend's truck.
When the forecast was for 50 mph winds, we gave up and pulled stakes.



Water Heater heating system.
My hot water system worked very well; circulating hot water from the water heater thru tubes in the floor and thru the transmission cooler with a 12V PC type fan.
It got so warm that I had to throw covers off of me during the night.


But I did learn more about this heating system.

Pros:
Warmth with no CO2 issues.
Easy to use.
If you already have the water heater, it is relatively low cost.
Quite effective with more capacity then used.
20 lb propane tank lasted almost a week...but not a final review as temps were mild in a way, never getting lower then 32 F degrees at night.

Cons:
Radiant tubes in floor only effective if you leave the system running all the time. No antifreeze can be used as they use potable water.
And one cannot leave water in them if heater is not in use. Storage becomes a task to blow the water out before storage. It is not therefore "ready to go" on a short notice basis. So my final take on is that radiant tubing heat is not practical for extended usage unless one keeps the potable water circulating all through the cold season. At least I tried.

Cannot go away and leave camper for trips in freezing weather unless you are sure that the propane will not be exhausted during your being away. Otherwise the water could freeze once the internal temp goes below 32 degrees F. I do realize that it would take quite a bit of time for the internal temperature to drop to these levels if everything in the trailer is in the 60 plus F degrees range.

Sleeping
I did get one bunk finished with 6 inches of memory foam from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was firm but very comfortable.


Now that Thanksgiving happenings are over, I will next start to work on valves with air attachments to make blowing out water more convenient and then start to finish my wiring.

[hankaye]

lrrowe, Howdy;

Good looking camp. Caused me to frown when you related that one of
the awnings scrapped up your bud's truck...
About your heating set-up, is there a way that you can heat the water
and have a closed-loop circulation system? If so then you can add anti-freeze to it
to keep it from freezing up when not in use. I used to live in a house (several years
ago), that had hot water baseboard heat and that is how that worked and it worked
very well during the ice storm of 94-95 when I lived in Drayden, St. Mary's Co. Md.
10 days with no power, no water, except melted ice ... thank goodness for the wood
stove.

hank

[McDave]

Hey Bob,
Sorry you got rained out, but it looks like an adventure anyways. You could have come up to Big Sky country, it was a little bit crisp, highs 20-25, lows -10 -15, but no wind and beautiful sunshiny days.
Before you give up on the radiant tube idea, you may want to consider using a heat exchanger. That way you can fill the heat system with anti-freeze and not have to worry about draining, blow outs etc. This is just an example, but I'd just bet it would work .
McDave
http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.p ... oCbmPw_wcB

[lrrowe]

Good suggestion. I am familiar with heat exchangers as I have one in my home system which I built. Actually while it works great at home, I never gave it much thought for the CT. I will not give up on it, but will put it on hold til after I get all the other items on my list complete. And it just might be adding another level of complexity taking me away of my new found objective of trying to do things more simply. Anyways as suggested above, I will not discard the idea.

Thanks,

[lrrowe]

Wow, it has been almost six months since I posted and I have a lot of work to do to get ready for the July TearJerkers event in VA. There will be many posts coming soon.

I have a PD 4045 issue that just surfaced. It worked fine in March/April, but today it will not put out any DC voltage to the batteries. I went up to Progressive Dynamics site for troubleshooting tips and after following their procedures, it looks like I have a charger/core defect. I have a call into them now, but it will not be til Monday that I can expect a reply call.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

[aggie79]

Bob,
Can't help you on this one. I just had the same thing happen on a WFCO converter so I bought a PD to replace it. (I haven't installed it yet). The combined experiences have me thinking that if I do a CTC I'll use separate components rather than an integrated convertor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lrrowe]

In essence, that is what I have this afternoon. I connected my portable battery charger up to the batteries to bring them up to full charge. And I still run the DC through the PD4045. Guess that will be my backup plan til I solve the issue.

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

OTTCT says never buy cheap RV stuff

buy Outback made in USA

I live in mine 24/7 after 3 years still 100% GOOD......

[lrrowe]

OTTCT says never buy cheap RV stuff

buy Outback made in USA

I live in mine 24/7 after 3 years still 100% GOOD......

May be, but that does not address my question.

[Iconfabul8]

I thought Progressive Dynamics was supposed to be good stuff. No?