Improving the heat in 5th wheel.
I have a 2013 Sandpiper 365saq. It's 43' long has 4 slides with 9' ceilings and the 35k btu heater is dismal at best. The warmest it could get when it was 30degrees outside is 60 degrees inside. The...
Forum Discussion
After our first full time winter, including 3 months in Breckenridge, CO, I learned quite a bit about the heating system in these big 5th wheels.
- The furnace system is extremely inefficient, and expensive to operate. They are only 60-80% efficient, plus they don't allow much zone control other than vent closures.
- Factory furnace ducting is horrible. I upgraded much of my trailer to semi-rigid. Rigid would be best but a pain in the butt to install.
- Long run ducts (such as your back room, or my garage) need a booster fan to get any sort of decent flow/heat to them. I installed a 4" 12v Bilge Pump, which really flows the air. Bilge Pump
- We found small 1500 watt space heaters connected to Lux Win100 thermostats in each room to be the best solution for primary heat. Allows us to run heat only in rooms we need it rather than heating an entire 42 ft trailer overnight. 100% efficient, plus don't produce tons of moisture like propane furnaces. We also found the cost per BTU to be about half the cost of propane when we were paying electric at campgrounds. If you aren't paying electric, then this is a no-brainer. Additionally, we would set the furnace as a backup in case the electric heaters can't keep up.
- If you aren't hooked up, then the space heaters aren't viable. In this case, I'd look at vent-less catalyst or blue flame heaters.
- The furnace system is extremely inefficient, and expensive to operate. They are only 60-80% efficient, plus they don't allow much zone control other than vent closures.
- Factory furnace ducting is horrible. I upgraded much of my trailer to semi-rigid. Rigid would be best but a pain in the butt to install.
- Long run ducts (such as your back room, or my garage) need a booster fan to get any sort of decent flow/heat to them. I installed a 4" 12v Bilge Pump, which really flows the air. Bilge Pump
- We found small 1500 watt space heaters connected to Lux Win100 thermostats in each room to be the best solution for primary heat. Allows us to run heat only in rooms we need it rather than heating an entire 42 ft trailer overnight. 100% efficient, plus don't produce tons of moisture like propane furnaces. We also found the cost per BTU to be about half the cost of propane when we were paying electric at campgrounds. If you aren't paying electric, then this is a no-brainer. Additionally, we would set the furnace as a backup in case the electric heaters can't keep up.
- If you aren't hooked up, then the space heaters aren't viable. In this case, I'd look at vent-less catalyst or blue flame heaters.
