Heating and Cooling on the road
I'm probably a little naive on this coming from a 5th wheel, but when rolling down the road with passenger is a class A, are you pretty much stuck with the generator running the whole time to cool beh...
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The main engine is using perhaps around seven or eight gallons per hour driving down the highway (of course that depends on many variables). A generator uses less than a gallon an hour when powering an air conditioner, typically. The impact on overall fuel milage is a few percent.
For heating, you have a few more options, depending on how the unit is equipped. There's the dash heat, there's sometimes auxiliary heat off the engine coolant (possibly via a hydronic heat exchanger system), there's the propane furnace that does not require the generator to run, and there may be electrically operated heaters or heat pumps of various sorts that require the generator. If you can use the engine heat, dash or otherwise, it's essentially free as it would just be pulled out of the engine radiator if you didn't use it.
For heating, you have a few more options, depending on how the unit is equipped. There's the dash heat, there's sometimes auxiliary heat off the engine coolant (possibly via a hydronic heat exchanger system), there's the propane furnace that does not require the generator to run, and there may be electrically operated heaters or heat pumps of various sorts that require the generator. If you can use the engine heat, dash or otherwise, it's essentially free as it would just be pulled out of the engine radiator if you didn't use it.
