Camper Trailer Heating

[corynmelnkids]

Hi we will be doing some winter camping this year and with a young bub of 8 months old the boss is worried about how cold inside the camper will be when she is feeding here before she goes to bed and in the morning.
I am wondering is there any of you out there using any sort of 12V heaters that are effective as we wont always be able to stay were there is 240v available.

[jnik]

A heater that draws on a battery for it's fuel source isn't really feasible ... a 100Ah 12v battery theoretically holds 1200Wh - a small blower heater would eat that in 30 minutes (if you drew the battery down completely).

You need to change your thinking in one of two ways ... change your fuel (gas, kero, diesel, unleaded) or heating method (12v electric blanket).

The electric blanket idea probably isn't ideal for your use case.

When using gas, kero, diesel or unleaded for heating you need to be very wary of carbon monoxide ... some say "crack a window", but that thought scares me. Others talk of using a small fuel reservoir (e.g. disposable gas canister). The best though is to have a heater that exhausts outside the camper while directing the heat where you want it ($$$).

[forumwatcher]

Corey,

An expensive option is the Webasto diesel heater. Clean air inside with the exhaust outside and runs 5-6 hours on 1 litre of fuel.
Price anywhere from $1200-1600 depending on where you source it from.

They work very well though.

[corynmelnkids]

That might be an option for our new camper when we get it but not going to spend that sort of money on this camper.

[austastar]

They work very well though.

Hi,
   this is mine installed in the storage area of the Innovan slide on.





They do draw about 8 Amps on start up using a glow plug, but this drops back to about 1 Amp with just the fan.


Very efficient, warming only the air in the interior of the living space, combustion air and exhaust stay out in the open.


cheers

[Wortho]

We use a Coleman catalytic gas heater to warm up the inside of the camper and it works well. Fumes are low with these catalytic heaters but as with all gas heaters you should have adequate ventilation and never sleep with them on!
Cost was around $120

[Eureka]

I am going back about 15 years so I dont have photos of the set up, but it did work well the couple of times I did set it up. 
 The heater all fitted in an old suit case, these days one of those 40L plastic buckets would do the job.
 I built a small wooden box to enclose a Falcon car heater core fitted with garden hose to a small electric water pump, along with the Falcon (for fan,no GMH stuff in my camp!) blower fan. I used all of the old Falcon's control system for the fan speed - a rotary switch and a few resistors. These days I would use an electronic speed controller on both the pump and the blower motors. On low speed  an old car battery  ran the fan all night and produced almost no noise.  To feed the heater core with hot water I simply had a length of copper tube  about 6ft long bent around to cover about 2 sq ft with long ends  coming out next to each other and terminated with garden hose fittings. The rest is pretty much as you imagine.
 As I used a self priming pump , it was simply drop one end of one hose into a bucket of water and start the pump until water came out of the other hose from the heater core. If you wanted hot water for washing up and cleaning hands, you left it all like that. Over time you ended up with a bucket of warm water and warm air in the tent ( in those days it was a centre pole Traveller) .
 The copper coil of course goes into coals of your fire pit or the park BBQ.
If you do this  a couple of things you have to do- have a fire you can leave unattended for a few hours , DONT LET THE PUMP STOP RUNNING or run dry, have decent length hoses ( I had 20ft lengths because I got them for nix) and dont use plastic Gardena hose fittings (they dont seal well once the hoses warm up), brass barb and jubilee clip connections worked well. 
If you were staying for more than one night, a trench from the fire to the tent  of about 2" deep, bury hoses  and the heating efficiency went up a lot.
 A bit of work, but no fumes to worry about, and kept the lady of the day happy .
Long term - she didn't like long drops , water not out of a tap, not being able to talk to some one for 6 hours about nothing, or waking up at daybreak to watch the sunrise. She used to think she was punishing me by not talking to me- I thought it was heaven! Glad she is my ex now

[austastar]

Brilliant!

[sablesoft]

We use a Coleman catalytic gas heater to warm up the inside of the camper and it works well. Fumes are low with these catalytic heaters but as with all gas heaters you should have adequate ventilation and never sleep with them on!
Cost was around $120

X2

[Jason B]

Corynmelnkids

The other option mate is to invest in a decent genny (I use the Honda 20ui) that will serve your future camper and needs also. Then just use an electric heater. We use a $20 1800w electric heater in the KK and run it off the genny, we did this also in out Trak Shak (Large area to heat) and it worked well. The genny runs my heater from about 9pm to 6am in the morning on a tank of fuel.

Gennys have really come along way and are no where near as noisy as they used to be. We run a couple of 20m 15amp leads and can hardly hear it. Personally I cant see the value in the diesel heaters as they only serve one function at least this way you have a genny as well for all of your other needs.

And before all the naysayers start of course you need to be considerate if there are others around. It wouldn't bother me if you run the genny with a young bub and many others would be understanding also.


Regards


jas

[TOPNDR]

Mrs T & I have a diesel heater fitted in our Quantum, similar to austastar's picture above.  It's bloody excellent. Keeps us as warm as toast, except for that brief period when I have to get out of bed in the cold to turn it on for her!  It can be left on all night and the thermostat will kick it in & out as needed. 
 

[sparksy]

This looks like it would works, Unfortunatly not available from supplier at moment.
I made up a version of their hotwater heater and it worked OK.
http://www.zodi.com/Consumer/zodihotvent.html
If you know a plumber it wouldnt be hard to make up a heat exchanger to fit on top of a small gas cooker, and the fan could be sourced from a old computer, you would only need a slow transfer of air so maximum amount of heat is asbsorbed.

[davethepom]

Unless you're camping in snow country, I wouldn't worry about it too much mate.  We brought both our kids back from hospital to an unlined Titan shed with a crap heater that didn't burn all night.  It gets pretty chilly here too (well into the -) .  Their faces would be cool to the touch at night (so would ours for that matter) but they were warm as under the blankets.

If you rug them up properly they are fine.  Babies are really well insulated and have the ability to make themselves very clear (as you've noticed, no doubt!  ) when they're too hot / cold or whatever.

If it's really cold, stick the bub in with you .  I'd be so worried about fumes or possible electrical problems starting a fire that I wouldn't sleep anyway if I rigged up some sort of heater.

Just my 2c mate.
   

 

[lynh]

BabyBunting sell lovely thick padded long sleeve baby sleeping bags (2.5 tog). The brand is SnugTime. My bub sleeps in thermals under her PJ's and then the sleeping bag. I also have a fleece blanket which I pop over her when it's very cold. The sleeping bag is quite price at $50 but cheaper than a heater, and I bought a size 2 even though my girl is a very small 13 months, so at least we can use it for 2 winters. Her thermals are also size 2 as they were the smallest I could find. The great thing about the sleeping bag is that you don't need to take it off to feed bubs.

[corynmelnkids]

I sought of suggested that bub will probably warmer than all of us and there will be nothing to worry about.
But you know how mothers can panic a bit.

[lynh]

That's our job ;-)

[Fridge Magnet]

Also if you're using a travel cot on the floor, don't forget to put some good insulation underneath it, we used kids swags which they migrated into when they didn't need the cot anymore. They'll definitely let you (and everybody else) know if they aren't warm enough.

FM

Edit: Just looked at the original post and saw that the feeder needs to be warm as well as the feedee. Funny how that slips your mind when you're not the one who has to get out of bed in the middle of the night!?   

[Mrs Two+Four]

After cooking the roast for dinner friends of our would put the Cobb (http://www.best-camping-stoves.com/cobb-cooker.htm) in the camper to warm it up, not sure how safe it is with the fumes etc over a period of time but it certainly didn't take long to warm up. Like all heater's you wouldn't sleep with it in there.

[LJs GU]

You could try the good old hot water bottle(s).  We've used this method for ours before:

Go buy 2 hot water bottles (don't forget woollen cosies) and a good size Thermos.  Fill one hot water bottle and thermos before bed. If needed throughout the night, fill the second one to replace the first one.  That may strecth you through till the morning.  A lot cheaper and safer than other options plus you can re-use the water the next night if you're watching water useage.

LJ

[DannyG]

We use a Coleman catalytic gas heater to warm up the inside of the camper and it works well. Fumes are low with these catalytic heaters but as with all gas heaters you should have adequate ventilation and never sleep with them on!
Cost was around $120

We also use one of these.

They are not brilliant but on an extremely frosty Tassie night they do definitely take the chill out of the air in the CT bedroom.

My only issue with them is that I am too paranoid to leave it going once in bed so I put it in the bedroom and hour or two before bed to take the chill out of the air then turn it off so when it is a very frosty night it only takes a few minutes for the chill to come back again once it is turned off!! I guess smart people dont camp in a frost

[Mace]

I wouldnt discount the options of a Webasto Diesel Heater or a good gennie/240v elec heater because of $$$.

Both of them can be transferred to a new CT down the track and are a long term purchase.

 

[corynmelnkids]

Thank you all for your helpfull suggestions i might just pack a few extra blankets until we get our new camper and sought out something more permanent for it.

[Kit_e_kat9]

What about one of those blankety, couch potatoey, hooded, sacky things they used to advertise ages ago ... for mum to sleep in?  It might help control whinging about the cold at least, as I'm sure telling her to ManUp would only increase your problems.     If it's warm milk she's worried about, buy one of those older style soup thermos's to put the milk in before bed and put it somewhere handy inside the CT. 

Kit_e

[corynmelnkids]

i am sure it wouldn't go down well she is still breast feeding i suggested sitting out by the campfire to feed bub i said i will make it nice and big all i got was the look.

[Kit_e_kat9]

i am sure it wouldn't go down well she is still breast feeding i suggested sitting out by the campfire to feed bub i said i will make it nice and big all i got was the look.

Right, so warm milk isn't the issue then.   

Kit_e