Basement only heating

[noteven]

When boondocking where overnight temps are below freezing, me no like running the furnace to keep the basement above freezing - living space ends up a bit warmer than preferred for beauty sleep,  too much power and propane, noise, etc etc. 

I am thinking about rigging a Webasto AirTop heater as a stand alone heat source for the basement only.  

Diesel fired, thermostat controlled, 12v, low amps draw....

Has anyone done such a thing? 

[gjhunter01]

We don't boondock and usually have electric available. That being said, we rarely use the furnace and rely on the electric fireplace and space heaters for our heat. If the temperature drops into the teens, I will put a drop cord/light in the basement area by the water pump. So far it has worked out without any issues and if the water does freeze it doesn't get cold enough to burst any pipes.

Greg

[reed and elaine]

The basement of our Open Range 337RLS has two small Halogen lamps of about 30 W. We leave these on overnight. This is similar to gjhunter01 as above putting a light in the basement. We have placed on of those remote thermometers in the basement (two sensors run about $15 at hardware stores) and it has kept basement in 40's when outside is down to 20.

Have to worry about our LFP battery suite in the same manner. Just use a shop lamp at 45 W. We do have 9 kW-hr of LFP so running a total of 100 W overnight is fairly simple

Reed and Elaine

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Look for a little heating device called "My heat"  https://www.amazon.com/Lasko-101-Personal-Heater-White/dp/B005Q1APZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508036138&sr=8-1&keywords=my+heat+personal+heater  combined with this

https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-TC-3-Thermostatically-Controlled/dp/B0006U2HD2/ref=pd_sim_201_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0006U2HD2&pd_rd_r=GKVZS6JZ1AC5KTAKEJZW&pd_rd_w=KO2VB&pd_rd_wg=NVnYO&psc=1&refRID=GKVZS6JZ1AC5KTAKEJZW

Has worked flawlessly for 4 winters fulltime.  We run as little propane as possible.  Furnace only runs when it is below 28* for more than 24 hours.  Never had a frozen pipe in our Carrilite.

[ALLOY]

I just bought a a Propex HS2800 for this. It draws 2amps. 

With outside temps above 15F we need the inside trailer temp at 55F during the night. This keeps the tanks at 34F.....at 10F outside the inside temp needs to be 58F for the same 34F.

 HS2000 will heat the tanks, be a shoulder seasons heater and a backup if the Suburban breaksdown.

Propex also makes a HS2000 that draws 1.4 amps

If I was doing a system from scratch I'd install a small household combi (heat & hot water) boiler using 3/8" and 1/2 radiant tubing and manual and electric zone valves.  It would be power with an inverter.

 

[Kirk W]

10 hours ago, Alie&Jim's Carrilite said:

Look for a little heating device called "My heat" 

I have on of those and it works well but it also requires 120V power so might not be a good choice when dry camping. A load of 1.6a on 120V means 16a of 12v power. 

[Wrknrvr]

 You may want to rearrange you heating ducts for better even heating. I don't know what RV you have. Or do you have two furnaces.

 Years ago we had a Hitchiker when we first went fulltiming. One day I removed the vent covers on the heat ducts. A lot more airflow. Enough to cut the furnace run time by 1/3  the time. One third less cost for heating the same space. So where possible I installed regular house vents.

 Then used all the openings that we're available on the furnace and directed them where I wanted them.

 It really made that RV much more comfortable to winter in.

 

 Then on our Teton I installed a electric heat in the rear under the floor. That really helped on the basement heat.

 

 I have installed a Auquahot heating system in the Teton over the last several months. I have just in the last two weeks have been using the news system. It finally got cold enough in Montana to see how it works. I am now working out the bugs and understanding how to even the heat out as wanted.

 

 You idea may work for heating the basement. Figuring out air flow for something like that can also help with better , cheaper heating.

 

 Safe Travels,   Vern

 

 

[noteven]

Thanks for the info so far.

Trailer is a desert mobile: Carriage C-Force 39SV2. 28ft of heated space plus loft, high ceiling,  2 slides. Single pane heat reflecting glass. Skookum air conditioning....

One Suburban SF35 furnace. 

I use an electric space heater in the basement when sufficient shore power is available. 

I was just wondering if anyone has used one of the high efficiency air heaters from Webasto or Espar to maintain basement heat off shore power. 

[NoDirectionHome]

I have the Airtop as part of my tractor's sleeper heating & cooling system.  It's extremely efficient & not silent but very quiet in the sleeper