Quote:
Originally Posted by DCHitt
No I don't think diesel is going to take over. Seems to be going the other way. I like gas because I idle a lot.
If I am plugged in I use an electric space heater to keep warm and my water heater can also operate on electric.
If I am not plugged in I idle my gas engine. That uses about 1/2 gal per hour. It heats the van (dash, floor and rear) and the water. It also keeps the batteries topped off.
In my old Class A I had propane heat. I found that the heater fan would run most of the night and run the batteries down. That would auto start the generator and I would be running the generator while heating with propane.
With my class B I have no additional generator and no propane. It is a lot quieter, simpler, cheaper, and more reliable than my old RV was.
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Wow --- based on your experience, I can see why you've decided not to have propane....but IMHO, really this seems more like a perfect case example to illustrate the need for an
electrically efficient propane or diesel furnace,
not to illustrate the idea that propane is going away anytime soon.
Analyzing heating strategies:
Idling the under-the-hood gasoline engine to heat the van, apart from being noisy and generating exhaust fumes....burns 1/2 a gallon per hour by your reckoning to heat your van as it idles. And since our vans (and any vehicle...or house...) all slowly "leak" interior heat out through their walls/floors/windows/penthouse canvas....you've gotta run a furnace intermittently all night to maintain a comfortable, warm inside temperature.
So on a hypothetical cold February night, using your heating method, if you want to get 6-8 hours of sleep, and you want to be warm ALL night.....then you'd need to be running your gasoline engine for the full 6-8 hours...
burning 3-4 gallons of fuel just as you snoozed. Assuming you want heat both before and after you sleep, it seems like you're looking at a usage of potentially (easily)
six gallons of gas per day just to heat the van/make hot water.
Sure, this is "simpler" than having a propane or diesel furnace, but wow....for the increasing number of people interested in heading out somewhere remote/beautiful
that's not in a campground to "dry camp" or a few days, the gasoline engine fuel consumption numbers alone would be a complete deal-breaker.
Burning an easy minimum of six gallons of gas per day, without going anywhere? And running a noisy/exhaust-billowing engine out in the middle of nature all night long? That's a tough sell......especially for anyone planning to cold-weather-camp in one location for a week or more.....
I certainly respect the fact that you're a retired engineer, and certainly have a very specific and rational/logical set of reasons for drawing your own personal conclusions around heating methods. (And around keeping your RV's systems as simple as possible.)
But....
.....I think your data-sampling has perhaps come from
too narrow a window (focusing primarily on simplicity/reliability as a metric)....and has missed out nearly entirely on giving consideration to the fairly-widely-desired abilities (for a Class B RV) such as boiling some water on a stove....or cooking an egg. (And to not use up all of your gasoline on heating the RV.....)
If anything is going away sometime soon.....I think its more likely generators.
Solar keeps getting cheaper and simpler....easily keeping batteries topped off to allow an efficient/quiet/clean propane or diesel furnace to operate each night without killing the battery bank.
btw: all of this....JMHO.
Great thread, to each his own, etc....
Thirsty
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