Gasoline heater?

[dbhosttexas]

Originally Posted by b. rock

Do you have a hot water heater on board? I've been looking at the AquaHot systems. Basically a blower coil + water heater combo. A bit spendy, but also does 2 things in 1.

I was reading that the gasoline air heaters tend to coke up more than the diesel ones which was surprising to me, and that the gas ones sometimes struggled more with altitude too, only being rated up to 7200'.

Yes and no. My hot water heater is a portable propane unit not really tied to the vans plumbing, or right now complete lack thereof... My shower enclosure is external to the van so I hadn't considered onboard water heating important.

The hydronic systems are nice in a way, but the description from that MFG bothers me in that it touts moist heat. If I wanted moist heat I could have used a Portable Buddy heater...

Most of the Diesel / Gas heaters are elevation limited due to the controller, Velit says theirs are good to 16K ft. Considering I don't plan on driving my van up Denali, I am pretty sure elevation isn't going to be a problem for me...

On the Coking issue, yes that is a known problem, and gassers are known to coke up more than Diesels. The solution is the same though, Run them on high for a brief period, 15 to 30 minutes before shutting it down. And I am certain there is annual maintenance that has to happen to keep it at bay...

[b. rock]

I'll admit that calling it moist heat isn't great marketing, but there's no combustion in the cab, unlike a Mr buddy. However, what they're getting at is they aren't bringing in outside air, heating it up, then dumping it into the cab, which can dry out a small space pretty quickly. Technically a good burner heater (I actually don't know if those are direct or indirect) install isn't either as it should be using the air from inside the van, but lots of people use outside air for whatever reason. You could argue that the lower discharge temp of a blower coil or radiant will be higher humidity than the high discharge temp of a burner unit, but that's localized and should be pretty close once it all mixes.

I live at 8500' and travel around the Rockies a good bit so I'm a little extra sensitive to that kind of thing. However someone claiming to have a controller that works up to 16k' makes me want to drive Mt Evans and find out!

[Orv]

I gotta say I was skeptical of the hydronic systems until I rented a motorhome in New Zealand that had one. It was really nice. I did wonder what the power drain was like, though, since it seemed to run continuously at whatever temperature setting I set it to.

[IanF]

Did your van come with a rear heating system from the engine?

Espar makes a petrol coolant heater/boiler. It's not cheap (the diesel version is cheaper) but should work to plumb into the rear heater box. Output between 1.8 - 5.0KW (6,100 - 17,000BTU). My plan is to run pipe it through a water-water heat exchanger to use as a water heater for the kitchen sink as well as a separate one for a recirculating shower.

https://www.heatso.com/espar-hydronic-b5e-petrol

[dbhosttexas]

Originally Posted by IanF

Did your van come with a rear heating system from the engine?

Espar makes a petrol coolant heater/boiler. It's not cheap (the diesel version is cheaper) but should work to plumb into the rear heater box. Output between 1.8 - 5.0KW (6,100 - 17,000BTU). My plan is to run pipe it through a water-water heat exchanger to use as a water heater for the kitchen sink as well as a separate one for a recirculating shower.

https://www.heatso.com/espar-hydronic-b5e-petrol

Nope. Technically it was an RV Prep package, so basically a cargo van with a fancy cab interior. So I have power windows, door locks, nice headliner etc... but behind the drivers / passengers seat was empty from Ford. No rear heat.

[scuba]

To the OP, I just purchased the newest Espar gasoline heater last week. It is the one recommended most by the people I spoke with and googled, and I'm putting my money where my mouth is b/c I'm installing it to replace a Pro-air "gen 1" gasoline heater that probably ran for less than 10 hours total in my 2 years of having it.

This is the one you want "B2L-AS3." There is more discussion at Transit forums.

Finally, I second what 1der said about accessibility. My upfitter who installed the Pro-air (now bankrupt / AWOL) heater, put it in a place where I basically have to disassemble my van interior to get to, and what I've learned since is that these things absolutely require maintenance. (ugh) good luck.

[1der]

scuba/ anyone else - I would be very interested in knowing what the actual amp draw is for the hydronic space heating parts of the system.

My thoughts are there is a pump for the water and a fan to move the air through the water to air radiator. Or in a floor heated system with radiant tubing in the floor I am guessing there must be a second water circulation pump. I am thinking these might be significant overnight draws required to keep the interior warm at say 0 deg F.

We have hydronic radiant floor heat throughout our house and we really love it. We also have two large gas fire places to supplement and quickly heat the air space in the house since hydronic is slow to react and raising the thermal temp of hardwood or tile floors should be done slowly anyway.

I just cannot wrap my head around hydronic floor tubing for heat application in a van based camper. Class A - maybe. But it seems popular so I think I am missing something in its real world usage.

[b. rock]

Love that the forum occasionally logs me out when I post...had a nice long write up and it decided to log me out halfway through writing it.

Anyway, the short of it - probably only need like a 20-50w pump for a tiny radiant system in a van. Fractional amp draw. Which means very little battery use. It's also silent, takes up no space, and people like warm feet.

It can be a pain because it takes awhile and would be really hard to retrofit into anything already built out. But could be used to keep water tanks warm too.

Overall, hydronic probably only makes sense if you also want it to do DHW or engine coolant preheat. Otherwise an air unit requires no plumbing.

[dbhosttexas]

So the plan for NOW is... Hold off on the heater. Use my Buddy Heater to drive the chill off as needed. Until next year when...

Take the van in for the 4x4 conversion / rear door spare tire carrier. The spare tire well under the van will house a custom battery box to hold the 400 amp hours of Lifepo4 batteries. And in turn that will open up 3/4 of my drivers side dinette base storage for a Diesel or gasoline heater.
At that point, make my decision. I already have a Vevor 5KW with 15Liter tank, my van has a 35 gallon tank, and calculated MPG on my trip to TX Ren Fest over the weekend it delivered just over 17mpg in a 1993 4.9L E250, 4wd conversion will pull that back somewhat... Some added engine / exhaust mods coming to bump power and efficiency numbers up. Not a hot rod by any means, but aiming for reliable and steady, on the flat, pulling mountains, whatever.
I like the idea of the Diesel heater, but hate having to use yet another kind of fuel.

Hydronic is interesting, if I were starting over again with just a box with a Penthouse top / Colorado Campervans pop top not particular, I would probably start with Hydronics, but just seems like a royal PITA to retrofit.

[SteelheadJones]

Will you heat or insulate that under van battery box?