Timer for Block Heater

[Boomer]

......or you can drain the oil and keep it next to the stove all night like the bush pilots do.

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Even that may not be enough Mark.  My father was above the arctic circle from 1937 to 1942  and he said that one winter it was almost 80 below zero and they had a bucket of snow on top of their stove to melt so they could have some water. Stove was cherry red and it took 2 days for the snow to melt.

[lostagain]

When I worked for Brewster's in the '70s in Banff, we drove mostly skiers to Sunshine Village, Norquay and Lake Louise ski hills in the winter. Most of us had to be at the compound at 7:15 for the first 8 o'clock pick ups. But when it was cold, one of us would have an early call time, like 6am to start the buses. Most of them were plugged in overnight. Most were Courier 96s, MC5s and 7s and school buses with gas engines to shuttle the Sunshine road. Some we knew were hard to start, so we would put ether pills into the cup with the needle on the air horn by the emergency shut down. All the diesel fumes you could breathe on a cold winter morning...

If on a charter and overnight at a hotel with no plug-in on a cold night, we would park at the back of the lot and let it idle all night. I see the oil and gas service companies still do that in Alberta.

A Webasto heater, like I had on the hockey team's bus, is the best invention since buses were discovered. Run it for an hour at 20 below, and the engine is warm and starts like on the first of July with no smoke. When at a hockey game, I would fire it up after the second period. The bus was nice and toasty by the end of the game.

JC