Late fall/Early winter

[firefighteremt]

What is everyone doing in the late fall months and early winter months to stay a little warmer? Was curious if y'all just put on more covers/sleeping bags or does anyone use a small heater or electric blanket? Wondering what is the best style heater to use if anyone has one

[walt3]

I have an electric bathroom heater and a big buddy propane heater. Have put some insulation on the bed ends haven't seen how it works yet.

[admin]

If electricity is available we use a little 1000w space heater pointed into the bunk. Between the space heater, 2 adults, 1 child, and sometimes a dog we tend to stay warm even on some chilly nights.
When no electricity is available we use one of our Mr. Heater buddy heaters depending on how cold its going to get.

In general though we try to treat it like we are tent camping so we plan to use heavier sleeping bags if the temps drop.

-Sean

[david]

On our boat with no heating I hooked up a Olympia Wave 6,000 BTU  propane heater to the gas stove propane supply. I plumbed a tee with a block valve on the side port of the tee that I hooked up a hose to the Olympia. It took just a minute with a wrench to hook it up or take it down. That heater kept us cozy inside onn 40 degree nights. But it does add water inside and I never would go to sleep with one on.

David

[whoofit]

[p]Not sure what part of the country you are in or how cold is cold to you. We use the Big Buddy for general purpose heating in cabins, larger trailers and unheated garages around here. It's entirely possible they would be overpowering in a smaller camper (like mine) as they only go down to 4k BTU.

I like the Olympian Wave above as it goes down to 1600 BTU's. Even that is a lot of heat... what these LP heaters are missing are thermostats. That's where the electric jobs are awesome. I picked up a couple of these for the trailer last year  http://www.walmart.com/ip/Pelonis-Fan-Forced-Heater-with-Thermostat/21804031. For $10 they are hard to beat. Fans are important to circulate the air.[/p][p]
[/p][p]If off grid the factory furnace is the ticket so far.

[/p]

[admin]

In the QuickSilver pop up its almost impossible to be over powering with a heater in my opinion. For me, the heater(s) are there just to take the chill out of the air while you are up/awake in the camper.
Having a fan to circulate the heat is almost a must since there is no real insulation. Without a fan you have to pump so much heat into the trailer it's almost not worth the effort. That's why I like the Bid Buddy heater with the build in fan, though I also have the little buddy heater with a simple clip on battery power fan for when the Bid Buddy would be overkill.

As a side note, I don't worry about running the Mr. Heater indoor rated heaters overnight while sleeping. I do have a CO monitor in the camper, and the heaters have a built in low O2 sensor so I feel comfortable with them. The bigger concern for me is having a relatively open flame running while sleeping. I am more concerned with that one freak chance where something tips over, or falls over and catches fire. Maybe its just a mix of being overly cautious and watching too much Final Destination.

[firefighteremt]

[quote source="/post/16340/thread" timestamp="1446066155" author="@whoofit"][p]Not sure what part of the country you are in or how cold is cold to you. We use the Big Buddy for general purpose heating in cabins, larger trailers and unheated garages around here. It's entirely possible they would be overpowering in a smaller camper (like mine) as they only go down to 4k BTU.

I like the Olympian Wave above as it goes down to 1600 BTU's. Even that is a lot of heat... what these LP heaters are missing are thermostats. That's where the electric jobs are awesome. I picked up a couple of these for the trailer last year  http://www.walmart.com/ip/Pelonis-Fan-Forced-Heater-with-Thermostat/21804031. For $10 they are hard to beat. Fans are important to circulate the air.[/p][p]
[/p][p]If off grid the factory furnace is the ticket so far.

[/p][/quote]We are in North Georgia.  Typically where we live fall is not to bad maybe 30s at night but when we go up to the Smokies and gain elevation it drops down pretty low.  

[whoofit]

Well with 2 of small electric heaters I linked to above and a 30A campground pole you will be able to produce between 2,000 and 10,000 BTU's thermostatically controlled and they can be used as fans only in the summer.

Got to have 110V though and I don't know if you have 2x15A circuits in your trailer. You might need to feed direct from the pole. At least that way the campground is paying for the heat.

[admin]

If the site include electric I'd go for the electric space heaters without a hesitation. I agree with @whoofit though, if you are running more than 1 you'll need to run directly off the pole. My little 1000w unit was pushing the limits of my breakers in the 10.0. I think I just plugged it into the dedicated outlet for the AC to prevent any tripped breakers...

[whoofit]

[quote timestamp="1446148007" author="Imaginer697" source="/post/16353/thread"][div][/div]  If anyone is interested I will report how it works once I have a chance to try it. [/quote][p]I'd like to hear more about this heater when you get a chance.[/p][p]
[/p]

[kinyo]

Thie early spring we camped in a camping with no electricity. Temp droped bellow freezing point during the night. We sleept all 3 of us (wife, baby girl & me) in the same bed with a lot of blankets & were were pretty comfy. I bit cold when we got out of bed but we got to spend a great weekend camping in out 10.0!

Kinyo 

[husaberger]

what about an unit that is both an AC * Heat ??

http://www.homedepot.com/p/LG-Electronics-12-000-BTU-230-208-Volt-Window-Air-Conditioner-with-Cool-Heat-and-Remote-LW1215HR/205588133

I've been thinking about that sometimes wondering how it is..

[david]

Coleman and others make roof top RV heat pumps. These are much more efficient than simple heat strips that can be added to most RV air conditioners because they move heat rather than transform it. A 13.5-15,000 BTU/hr system will heat most RVs nicely in even freezing conditions.

But you need a source of plug in power or a generator that you can run all night.

David

[aznighthiker]

Colder temps we switch to tent camping and use an electric heater and camp at campgrounds that offer electric such state and county parks in Arizona. We may also use the Dyna-Glo propane fueled heater (we also use a CO detector when using the propane fueled heater) but do not use when sleeping.

[firefighteremt]

Thanks for all the great responses.  Just as an update, we just returned from Cloudland Canyon State Park where the night temps got down to low 30's - high 20's. I went to Wal Mart and purchased a little $15 ceramic space heater and plugged it into the AC outlet. On high setting when we went to bed within 10 mins it ran us out it got so hot! Turned it down to low and we were very comfortable all night.  Very surprised the canvas didn't lose much heat through it.   We did put a small fan in the corner to help circulate the air.  Great trip over all!!