Toasty Furnace!

[southpennrailroad]

I love my toasty furnace. Feels so good.



used hickory from left over scraps of wood from work. Nice bench as well.

[droid_ca]

can you tell us more about your furnace please

[southpennrailroad]

can you tell us more about your furnace please

Atwood 18,000 BTU. Puts out 13,000 BTU's. One year old used it all winter last year after getting rid of blue flame heater. Paid $430.00 from Atwood furnace factory in Washington state.

phone 1-360-693-9167.

This is the number I called when I had a problem. They were great help.

[Verna]

Good--glad it's working. I just read about the nor'easter on the East Coast going as far as Pittsburgh. The news article said early snows don't happen like this very often. It looks like some long-time records will be broken.

Stay warm and dry.

Verna

[southpennrailroad]

Good--glad it's working. I just read about the nor'easter on the East Coast going as far as Pittsburgh. The news article said early snows don't happen like this very often. It looks like some long-time records will be broken.

Stay warm and dry.

Verna

Yep. I saw snow once in 1979 when on a work trip north to Butler that is flurried but not like this and that was October 1st of that year. Nothing laid.

[southpennrailroad]

slowcowboy

What are you using for heat?

[48Rob]

I been thinking about the same furnace last night. but its a little to long to try to jam in a teardrop.

unfortanly on teardrops furnaces are space eaters.

slowcowboy.

You also need to consider that most teardrops are too small (cubic feet) for these RV heaters.
They work well, and are safe, but will overheat the space (and you) before they cycle off.
You can leave a door open, but that defeats the purpose...

Maybe if a tech was qualified, they could change the burner orafice, and fan switch, and limit switch, but there is just too much liability redesigning a product like this...

Too bad the RV industry doesn't make one around 5000BTU, that didn't need a battery killing fan motor.


Rob

[Engineer Guy]

'Southpenn' -> Nice Furnace implementation, there.

I've got a couple of Atwood Furnaces in 2 Trailers. The 12,000 BTU one, identical to the Furnace footprint shown above, pleasantly surprised me with how quiet it is. The Plate on it shows a 1.8 Amp current draw @ ~+12 VDC; another pleasant surprise for this Boondocker. It very nicely heats up my '89 TT's 14' x 8' x 6.5' Cabin just fine on 32 F degree mornings. It has the usual ~1.5" of Fiberglass within 2" x 2" Wood Frame construction. Of course, it exhausts combustion byproducts and moisture to outside Air.

The 18,000 BTU Atwood in my 31' 1983 Avion pulls over 6 Amps, and is obnoxiously noisy. It's not an issue of Bearings or some other fault. It's simply a matter of moving more Air through the House-style Ductwork that causes the higher dB level.

The usual 1,500 Watt Electric Heaters [~13 Amps draw @ 115 VAC] output ~5,200 BTU. My Calculator tells me that this lil +12 VDC Heater draws just shy of 25 Amps @ +12 VDC to produce ~300 Watts, or 1,040 BTUs. This assumes that appropriate Wiring and Connectors to minimize Voltage drop have been installed.

+12 VDC Heater Thread

The values herein are rounded numbers. I'm not de-rating calculations for inevitable inefficiencies. Keeping it simple lets folks generally compare Apples-to-Apples.

I've worked on the Atwoods and find them easy to understand and maintain. I retrofitted a Dinosaur Fan Board to my older Atwood. That PCB tries to light the Pilot 3 times and then times out until reset manually. This prevents killing the House Batteries if Propane runs out. There's also a great body of 'Net info on the Atwoods to enable Troubleshooting, and readily-available Parts.

Atwood Furnaces

[48Rob]

slow. its still hard to beat a 12 volt with a flip of a switch for instant heat and no drop cord to worry about.

And much safer than a wood stove in such a small place.
While you may be an expert with years of experience running a woodstove, someone who isn't could get into real trouble...

A person could buy a lot of extra batteries to run the heater for what it would cost for a hospital visit or a burned up teardrop.

Wood/coal/trash burning heaters were common in early camping trailers, but they were much larger than a tear, and there is a reason they were quickly replaced by oil burners and then propane...

Just sayin...

Rob

[dakotamouse]

The husband and I are thinking of building a vardo in spring. Wish I had the spare bucks for one of these heaters http://dickinsonmarine.com/

[DRYVEM]

We have a 5000 BTU rv furnace in our teardrop. It has a fan,but it is not a battery drainer. One battery runs furnace, engel fridge and the lights in the teardrop for 3 days without recharging.

[southpennrailroad]

I always have my gen running anyway so as to keep my computer running so my battery that runs the furnace is always being charged as well when it needs charged. I have a meter which shows when it needs charged. The gen also keeps the fridge on as well. Then I also use a hot plate for making breakfast. So I don't usually run down the battery.

[pete42]

I know it's early in the winter season but can you tell any difference now that you have some insulation installed vs last winter?

stay warm

pete

[48Rob]

We have a 5000 BTU rv furnace in our teardrop. It has a fan,but it is not a battery drainer. One battery runs furnace, engel fridge and the lights in the teardrop for 3 days without recharging.
_________________
Barbara

Hi Barbara,

Is your furnace a sealed combustion vented model?
Can you share the manufacturer and model info, I'm interested in finding a smaller model than is offered by the RV industry.

Thanks.

Rob

[bdosborn]

This is the only propane furnace I've found that wasn't an atwood or suburban:

Propex HeatSource



Bruce