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S Davis
Western WA
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Joined: 08/11/2005
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The other issue to consider is if you camp at high altitudes, oil is a lot less forgiving with less oxygen and will soot a lot more than propane. Depending on how the unit is set up you might need to adjust the combustion for higher altitudes or some units will have a factory high altitude kit available.
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StirCrazy
Kamloops, BC, Canada
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Joined: 07/16/2003
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all great points,
the sooting is easy to control, leep the airflow proper throught them and once and a while run them full blast for 15 min at the end of the trip. so still might have to do a cleen once and a blue moon but its fairly simple, 4 bolts and its seperated and ready from the videos I have been watching. might be a few more once its mounted and not just sitting on the bench.
I have had to clean the furnace on the camper every time I have gone on a trip where I had to use it. think I got the last of the bugs now.... every time I drove it was dislodging more **** bugs so this time I took the burner apart and cleaned it out. works great now, just tired of the noise and tempature swings.
yes High altitude also contributes but the few I am looking at are high altitude capable.
noteven
they do have finer control, which is why I am trying to figure out what size would be the best, you want to oversize them a little so they run on low all night without shutting off, but if you get to big of one they will cook you out even on low.
Ticki2
I was reading about Alde, the down side is it ianst an easy retrofit, the camper almost has to be designed for that system, and it is very expensive and they dont like to sell people the parts so you can install yourself.
2014 F350 6.7 Platinum
2016 Cougar 330RBK
1991 Slumberqueen WS100
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noteven
Turtle Island
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Joined: 02/13/2011
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StirCrazy - 17000 btu/hr = 4.98 kw /hr.
RV furnaces are probably 80% efficient.
“Diesel heaters” are probably 90% or better...
Diesel fuel has approx twice the power density of liquid propane. Winter diesel is 20% less than summer diesel.
I.e 1kg or 1 litre of diesel fuel has 2x the heating energy as 1kg or 1 litre of LPG.
And yes electricity use is way less per hour...
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Kayteg1
California > Nevada
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noteven wrote:
RV furnaces are probably 80% efficient..
In your dreams.
I took my furnace apart for electronic board replacement, only to discover that hot air straight from the burner was directed onto outside cover, what is steel plate with no insulation on it.
So the hottest air from the burner was used 1st to heat the outside skin on the camper.
75% efficiency household furnaces have exhaust cold enough to use plastic pipes.
Try to put your hand at TC furnace exhaust? Better not !, but use infrared to check it.
I would estimate that the standard RV furnace has efficiency below 30%.
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HMS Beagle
Napa, California
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Joined: 08/22/2003
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On the other hand, no way a diesel Espar type is going to be 90%. To get into the 90s a heater has to be condensing, and they are not even close to that.
Bigfoot 10.4E, 2015 F350 6.7L DRW 2WD, Autoflex Ultra Air Ride rear suspension, Hellwig Bigwig sway bars front and rear
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Kayteg1
California > Nevada
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HMS Beagle wrote:On the other hand, no way a diesel Espar type is going to be 90%. To get into the 90s a heater has to be condensing, and they are not even close to that.
That is definitely true, but if you install it inside, so no exchanged heat is going outside like factory heaters do, the only loss will be on exhaust.
TC do have very lousy efficiency to start with, so fuel efficiency would be at the bottom of the list.
Going from "racket" blower to quiet one and from huge temperature spikes to constant heat would be on top.
Fact that you can run diesel heater overnight on single battery is important too.
Not even saying that having diesel truck you already have good supply of diesel fuel, when carrying propane for week on the snow will take a trailer.
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S Davis
Western WA
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HMS Beagle wrote:On the other hand, no way a diesel Espar type is going to be 90%. To get into the 90s a heater has to be condensing, and they are not even close to that.
Getting 87% combustion efficiency is fairly normal on oil, there are even blueflame burners that are in the low 90% range that are non condensing.
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HMS Beagle
Napa, California
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S Davis wrote:HMS Beagle wrote:On the other hand, no way a diesel Espar type is going to be 90%. To get into the 90s a heater has to be condensing, and they are not even close to that.
Getting 87% combustion efficiency is fairly normal on oil, there are even blueflame burners that are in the low 90% range that are non condensing.
I'd be shocked if an Espar/Webasto type hot air heater could achieve that efficiency. Yes, maybe a large home unit. Looking at the specs, one model for example uses 0.23L/h while producing 6150 btu, that is an efficiency of about 73%. A decent propane furnace is probably around the same, or maybe a little less.
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StirCrazy
Kamloops, BC, Canada
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noteven wrote:StirCrazy - 17000 btu/hr = 4.98 kw /hr.
RV furnaces are probably 80% efficient.
“Diesel heaters” are probably 90% or better...
Diesel fuel has approx twice the power density of liquid propane. Winter diesel is 20% less than summer diesel.
I.e 1kg or 1 litre of diesel fuel has 2x the heating energy as 1kg or 1 litre of LPG.
And yes electricity use is way less per hour...
I would place the old direct vent furnaces at around 60% when new, probably less now. mine is a 12K input 10K output but I think thoes are test conditions, also says it is only 1.6 amps but I measure 3ish
a 3Kw unit would give me roughtly the same max ouputbut at around 0C my furnace was cycling on and off every 2 min, so I imagin if it was colder it would run full blast .
if I can find a 4Kw model it will have a rank from 3070 Btu on low to 13648 Btu on high, for a 5Kw unit it would rng from 5459 Btu on low to 17060 Btu on high.
so now I have to try figure out which unit will stay running on low most of the time with out shutting off and turning on as thats where they use the most power on the ignition phase, but wont roast me out in the late spring and early fall, but still provide enough heat for that once and a blue moon I would go caming in the winter.
I think a 4Kw model is the front runner right now, 3000Btu more than my curent heater but able to drop pretty low
Steve
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S Davis
Western WA
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HMS Beagle wrote:S Davis wrote:HMS Beagle wrote:On the other hand, no way a diesel Espar type is going to be 90%. To get into the 90s a heater has to be condensing, and they are not even close to that.
Getting 87% combustion efficiency is fairly normal on oil, there are even blueflame burners that are in the low 90% range that are non condensing.
I'd be shocked if an Espar/Webasto type hot air heater could achieve that efficiency. Yes, maybe a large home unit. Looking at the specs, one model for example uses 0.23L/h while producing 6150 btu, that is an efficiency of about 73%. A decent propane furnace is probably around the same, or maybe a little less.
No argument there, I have not had the chance to hook up my combustion test equipment to one yet. It was the statement about having to be a condensing unit to get to 90% efficiencies that I was responding to. I will be converting to diesel heat and hot water, I am going hydronic radiant heat to get rid of the forced air.
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