To propane or not to propane

[JohnEd]

I have used a propane furnace since 1990.  I lived in the 30 ft Winnie for maybe a total of 3+ years but I did that in Florida, Pa., Oregon coast and the Great North West.  I have been snug as a bug in -12F and pleasantly cool in 110.  No hardship and never had to use both AC units at the same time.  My heating was done mostly by two cube heaters of the 1,500W capacity.  My Propane furnace is a Hydroflame and is rated at 48,000BTU.  IT DOES NOT RUN CONTINUOUSLY!  My cubes take of things down to 15 degrees and the furnace rarely kicks on even at 12 degrees F.  When traveling I must rely on the propane for all my heat but it seems to have a short on period and go a while between heat cycles.  Good insulation in the walls and film over the windows summer and winter.  So that's how I live and it costs me a 2 bottles  of propane a month or so.  At 40 pounds or 5 gal each I think per bottle it costs me less than $60 per month unless I am dry camping.  Worst case I burn two bottles in a few weeks and that includes hot water and cooking.  I haven't done this for 8 years so I might be fuzzy on the fine points.  I am very happy with the service I get from propane and it appears to me to be the most econ to install AND to feed.

I read posts about people using 4 yo 5 gallons of Dino per day and I shudder to think.  Others squeak by with only TEN GALLONS PER DAY and that exhausts my imagination.  I have given serious consideration to the Webasto cause I think I need it to preheat the engine on a D.  In a bus I would expect to have toe kick heaters and heat exchanger hot water driven by engine coolant and dash heating.  With all that a given I thought integrating a Webasto would not be all that much of an excursion.  Now with Dino costing $4 per the thought of using ten gallons per to live in my bus....well that sends shivers down my spine that are not temp driven.  That breaks to $1,200 a month and I fear(hope) I am missing something.

When I pondered the Webasto I was thinking that it could be converted to burn waste motor oil (WMO) and I could have free heat.  Even at that, 10 gallons a day would present a logistics challenge.  Has anyone ever successfully converted a Webasto?

I know there are Knuts out there that travel in the winter.  How much do you burn and in what conditions?  Inquiring minds and all that.  It is info many will need to make informed decisions.

Thank you

John

[Don4107]

The most important choice about heating and cooling is how well you insulate the coach.  Having a bus with nothing but OEM insulation AND painted a dark color, I can tell you that is not the way to go.  Do absolutely every thing you can to make it as insulated and weather tite as possible.  Using it the way you did the Winne, every dollar/hour you spend on insulation will pay big dividends.

Propane is tied to oil prices and tends to follow them.  You can get down to specifics like BTU content vs price and so forth.  Do you want propane for cooking, BBQ, propane injection, possibly for generator if Honda produces a propane/inverter based unit?  I do. 

I would do as you have in the S&S.  Plan two systems.  One electric and one either diesel or propane.  Our new bus heat is a Proheat (diesel) for cabin heat/hot water/ block heat.  All three of these backed up by electric.  Since I will also have propane on board, if economics dictate, a switch to propane would not be that tough. A demand water heater in place of the Proheat and away you go. Maybe more or bigger propane tank(s).

Doing the cabin and water heating with propane is simple.  Block heat can be done with a loop from the hot water tank or all three can be had with a demand water heater.

Good luck
Don 4107

[TomC]

From experience and backed up with your story, the most reliable is to have a propane furnace with electric toe kick heaters as back ups.  I have a 35,000btu Atwood furnace that is effective at 25 degrees (the coldest I've been in) running about a third of the time at  that temp.  In the 13 years it has been in-zero problems.  I don't think anyone with a Webasto, or Aquahot can say that.  Now with the two speed propane furnaces, I am going the same route.  Engine block heating can be done with a very simple electric submersion loop in one of the spare water ports in the engine block.  Good Luck, TomC

[bobofthenorth]

We're not experts by any means but we've been living in the cold for what seems like forever so we do have some experience.  For starters we use as much power out of the park pedastal as we can possibly draw.  Our power goes through a Heart 2500 that is set to protect the post at 30 amps.  So we can pull more than 30 amps intermittently as long as we pull less than 30 occasionally so that the batteries get topped up.  We use 3 different capacity cube heaters to pull free power out of the park post.  Our ProHeat runs as the backup heater.  Right now its about -18C outside and the ProHeat is cycling about 50% of the time.  I don't know exactly what our fuel consumption is but it is negligible.  Maybe in the order of 1.5 or 2 gallons per day but that would be the high end of it.  I log every tank of fuel and we have to sit for close to a month before I can even see the effect of heater use on my mileage.

We have an electric water heater right now but when it dies I will likely replace it with some kind of marine water heater that has at a minimum electric/hydronic capability.  I think I can get one that is electric/propane/hydronic but I haven't looked closely at them for a couple of years now.  I'm a big fan of redundant systems, the more so now that we depend on them for our daily existence.  We can heat the big noisemaker with the ProHeat and use the noisemaker heat to warm the house.  I'd like to have some additional redundancy in that system and the marine water heater would provide that.  Its a bad feeling when you are worried about the Detroit freezing up - BTDT and don't wanna go back.

[cody]

I started a thread a couple of weeks ago on a ventless LP heater we were trying, the final result was that it heated our bus on a 20 pound tank for almost 2 weeks before it ran the tank dry, I was well pleased with the result, we never took it off the low setting, the paper work said the low setting was 6000 BTU, high was 10,000 BTU).  The outside temp ranged from a low of around 5 degrees F, and a high of around 25F, the inside temp of the bus stayed around 67 to 71 degrees F, condensation was within acceptable limits, the drawback is that the heater didn't heat the bays and without a fan running the air would layer with the heat being at the ceiling and the floors cool, a fan corrected this problem, we also kept a vent cracked slightly for fresh air.  I was well pleased with the final result, the detectors also didn't seem bothered by it.  Our bus is fairly well insulated and has thermopane side windows so that would have a bearing on it but we still were pleased.  One of the draws to it was that it didn't require electicity to operate, however, that was negated by the need to run a fan to keep the air from layering, all in all tho we found it to be a good alternative to the high cost of a diesel fired system.

[luvrbus]

JohnEd, I have the Primus propane fired hydronic system with radiant heat in my bus I only have 2 exchangers in the bus 1 for the bathroom and for bay heat in my travels to WY,ID and UT I will use less than 5 gals a week with no noise, smell,battery drain and it allways works has for 14 years.I  have own the diesel fired systems before and they do use more fuel than one would think .44 gals per hour doesn't sound all that bad but when it cycles 50% of the time do the math for 24 hrs it going to be more than 2 gals a day.Aqua Hot in the specs for their unit states 4 to 5 gals a day under normal useage.The only draw back I have to the Primus system is that it does not have hot water on demand it has the Seaward hot water tank with a built in exchanger.   good luck my friend because as one poster stated no free lunches on making hot water and heat   FWIW Hurricane and Aqua Hot are developing propane hydronic systems now also

[cody]

I'm very interested in eventually looking into a propane hot water baseboard heating system like a house would have, would be quiet and a person could set up zones that would heat the interior and yet heat the bays too, any movement in this area?  I could see where the bus engine could possibly be used for the heat while on the road. Is this too far out in left field or is it common, in this area we don't have a lot of references to work from.

[luvrbus]

Cody, my Primus system is like that before the diesel systems Primus were used in all the high end motorhomes like Newell, Blue Bird and Vogues a drawback for some would be the propane on board but it has never been a problem for me.   good luck

[cody]

I'll check into them, I would think baseboard heat would be quiet and work well, I'm a rookie with all this stuff but slowly learning.

[PP]

FWIW We use vented catalytic with fans for our boondock heat and electric toekick when hooked to the grid. Both are quiet and the Cat's use very little LP. We got away from the LP furnaces because of the noise. Fridge and water both work on gas or AC also. Redundancy-redundancy- couldn't agree more! Will

[JackConrad]

I'll check into them, I would think baseboard heat would be quiet and work well, I'm a rookie with all this stuff but slowly learning.

Cody,
    We thought about baseboard radiant heat generated by the bus engine when driving and the ProHeat when parked.  Our problem is that almost all our walls have something against them.  On the Driver's side, the baseboard units would be under the sofa, inside the kitchen cabinets, inside the linen closet, under the vanity and behind the shower. On the passenger side, there could be about 6-7 foot exposed in the front, then inside the dinnette seats, and inside the closet. About the only open space along the outside walls would be in the bedroom and we don't like the bedroom warm (we prefer the bedroom a little on the cool side).
    The only downside I have heard about radiant heat is that it takes longer to bring a cool room up to set temp. Once warmed up, it works great (as long as baseboard units are in the open) and does not use any electricity for fans, in addition to being much quieter.  Jack

[JohnEd]

Long ago I had an exchange with a nut that had been in the "hot water heater" business.  I had just discovered a gas water heater that was 99.99% plus efficient and wanted info.  That water heater had an exhaust temp of 20 degrees above ambient, or some such, and had a vert spiral flu/heat exchanger inside the tank with the exhaust heading down.  The mfr had diagrams of the thing heating the house and the driveway and hot water.  The down side, as I saw it, was that "Fresh" water was what flowed.  Of course there could be heat exchangers.  THAT hydronic really caught my eye and the efficiency was beyond anything I had ever heard of.  The shortest version was about 40 inches and I thought that was a go for a Pre.  NO BOILER....just a hot water tank.  The Knut that was expert said it was a unparalleled heater in terms of efficiency AND reliability.  Was spendy but consider the cost of a boiler and a furnace and hot water, etc.

I am curious why nobody ever got into this as it had no moving parts, was silent and efficient beyond anything.... I couldn't see any down side.

Thanks,

John

[makemineatwostroke]

John; I  have a Hurricane unit with a 8.2 gal tank this is the first bus I owed with a diesel heater and I was shocked to find out how much fuel it will use I get less than 1 1/2 days of running without some other type heat,electric toe heaters when power is available.I now have it plumbed to the main tank it was the pits to drive down and fuel up every day.FWIW the electric heating elements for the unit to make hot water is a joke it will get cold trying to use 4000w to make hot water for the heater to work.And now after reading here I need to take the generator into consideration also being a electric coach I bet I will be over 10 gals a day and that is going to suck when fuel prices rise                   have a great day

[JohnEd]

Deuce,

The electric element WILL heat your water all by itself.   Even in the warmest of times it will be a slow recovery, however.   What I found was that the "gas" heating flu was acting like a convection driven chimney and cooling the water while the electric element inside the water tank was heating it.  It was no contest!  Chimney won.  I solved this by turning off the gas...very important,that...and building a cap for the entire external heater appendage out of Styrofoam and sealing the edge with foam tape stuck to my Styrofoam cover.   My cover was built up to 4 inches so the little bungee cords had something on which to press inward.   I glued and screwed "bay door hooks"on either side of the heater to anchor the hooks.   Is this confusing?  Sorry....close off and insulate the heater door.  Better?  ugh!

John

[TomCat]

I have an RV500 demand water heater, but if I had to do it over, I would install one of these...

http://precisiontemp.com/pt_rvmd_twintemp2.html

Demand water heat and two zone hydronics on Propane, with electric back up.

Jay
87 SaftLiner