heat source for boondocking?

[robertglines1]

Waste oil furnace: In the old days   we had a oil drip heater that we had in our house. It had a ceramic fire box  and cup that fuel/oil dripped into. It would take a chimney/small and a fire box.  Just putting it out there.  Andy /my son drips oil into his wood heating unit in his shop now.  And I have diluted used oil with diesel and used in the ceramic cup type burner my self. Just reduce old time design? not high tech. Burn any oil; if thin enough to flow. Smell like french fries?  These old systems were non electric without fans and extremely simple. To make the heat warmer you just opened the flow valve up a little--you would have to experiment a  little to make sure you didn't over feed the unit.     I'm lazy my self ! nicer to just be plugged in.  But there are ways to get buy even a miniature pellet stove or wood stove.      Bob

[happycamperbrat]

Recently I had a friend very strongly recommend that I look into edenpure heaters for my bus http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_03294188000P?mv=rr#specs It's only 5000 btu for 1500 watts. But he swears he was in a house that was entirely heated with an edenpure and it was comfortable (this unit is said to heat 1000 sq ft). He said the cord was only mildly warm. It IS made in the USA too lol (very hard to find a USA made anything).

[white-eagle]

Recently I had a friend very strongly recommend that I look into edenpure heaters for my bus But he swears he was in a house that was entirely heated with an edenpure and it was comfortable (this unit is said to heat 1000 sq ft). He said the cord was only mildly warm. It IS made in the USA too lol (very hard to find a USA made anything).

Theresa, nice thought, but Sean debunked the energy saving stuff about Edenpure.  Still a nice product, but it's no more capable than any other 1500 w heater, if i remember his comment correctly.  Do a search on Edenpure.

Some of these low energy suggestions are great, like the Dickenson.

At this point, i'm leaning toward the propane furnace just because of the lower electrical, bus is already ducted for hot air heat, i can remove the bus heat exchanger which should make lots of room for a suburban 40K. hydronic and wabasto seem to use too much electic and/or as much diesel as genset (we have 12kw).  so if i have to use that much diesel, might as well run the genset and use my toe kicks, although the louder noise might be a showstopper.
We already have propane for stove and frig use.

[viento1]

I removed the bus exchanger on my old bus and was always disappointed. I had no idea how difficult it would be to pump enough btu's to warm that bus driving at night with cold blooded kids.

[happycamperbrat]

Recently I had a friend very strongly recommend that I look into edenpure heaters for my bus But he swears he was in a house that was entirely heated with an edenpure and it was comfortable (this unit is said to heat 1000 sq ft). He said the cord was only mildly warm. It IS made in the USA too lol (very hard to find a USA made anything).

Theresa, nice thought, but Sean debunked the energy saving stuff about Edenpure.  Still a nice product, but it's no more capable than any other 1500 w heater, if i remember his comment correctly.  Do a search on Edenpure.

hmm, the search isnt working I guess. I put "edenpure" in and it said there were no posts, lol I know of at least one haha!!

[luvrbus]

Teresa, here we go lol we have some friends that full time and they heat their bus with the unit it works their bus is nice and warm in Idaho

[white-eagle]

http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=17883.0;all

i did a search for "eden pure" and got this.  i've never tried it myself.  my son has one, but he didn't ask me first (as usual).

[buswarrior]

Has anyone mentioned tying the generator coolant into the hydronic system recently?

In a manner of thinking, free heat?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[pickpaul]

@buswarrier - I've always liked the idea of that too. Maybe to the engine coolant too for engine preheat but running a block heater from the Benny achieves the same thing I guess.

[artvonne]

  I always thought of tying the Genny into the Bus cooling system, but arguments against it were the loss of separate redundant cooling systems, that the loss of one system would be the loss of everything. Then here a few weeks back I was attempting to get some antifreeze into the cooling system, and I had to open gate valves to get circulation into the heating system. The cooling system is designed to be able to isolate the heating system from the engine in case of a leak, so blowing a heater core or a line to the front is not going to make the Bus undriveable. Close the valves, check your coolant level and plow on.

  Thats really all you need, a few gate or ball valves here and there to isolate, regulate, or re-route coolant flow through the Bus. Many talk of relocating the Genny radiator. If the Genny is tied into the Coach main cooling and HVAC system, and if the cooling system is also used for heating domestic hot water, together with warming the engine thats quite a heat sink and the lil Genny wouldnt need much radiator to shed heat. Still, if general cooling system temps rose high enough running the Genny, the main engine radiators could be used to shed heat. Electric cooling fans there could be used as well. And with the entire cooling and heating system in play, an additional radiator could be located virtually anywhere to shed additional heat if needed.

[happycamperbrat]

http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=17883.0;all

i did a search for "eden pure" and got this.  i've never tried it myself.  my son has one, but he didn't ask me first (as usual).

I spelled eden pure as one word instead of two, maybe that was the difference? Anyway, thank you sooo much for the link! What I got out of it was that the people who actually use one or are in places that are heated with them, say they work great. It is the people who never actually used one who say they wont/cant work. Interesting, because logically I can see that they should not work as advertised but there is no denying real world experience either. Thank you again!

[thomasinnv]

Teresa, a friend of mine has an Eden Pure in his rig and it's always toasty in there. Seems to work pretty good.

[belfert]

Has anyone ever explained how an Edenpure can get more heat out of 1,500 watts of electricity than other heaters?  I checked reviews on Amazon and most were negative.  I might be interested for my bus if it truly has some revolutionary technology that gets more BTUs out of 1,500 watts.

Natural gas to heat my house is so cheap right now that they only way I could possibly save money with electric heat would be to just heat a single room at a time with electric heat.

[Oonrahnjay]

Has anyone ever explained how an Edenpure can get more heat out of 1,500 watts of electricity than other heaters?  (snip)

     Brian - 1500 watts is 1500 watts.  You could lose some by inefficiency but there's no way to get more than 1500 watts out of 1500 watts.

[luvrbus]

Same is said about btu's but I know for a fact a gas fired Quartz will give you a lot more heat than the same amount of fuel to produce btu's used for a flame my propane bill has dropped by 1/2 with a Quartz,aren't they converting watts to BTU's or something like that,they work but I ? the 1000 sf 


good luck