Heating basement in the winter

You can use light bulbs, If you can find the short oil fil heater that also works. If you have a taller bin then the regular size will work. Our 99 had a switch that you turned on to heat the basement. It was just a blower motor like use on boats to suck warm air from the duct and blow thru the basement area.

Hi ssands,

I replaced the return air grill for the furnace with a dual window fan. It is thermostatically controlled (add on thermostat) and pushes some air through the duct work in my class C. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Holmes-HAWF2021-WMUM-Dual-Blade-Twin-Window-Fan/17133777

ssands wrote:

We can use electric inside the coach but I worry about keeping the basement warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing.

It looks like the average daily lows are not much below freezing and the average daily highs are well above freezing year round in Pigeon Forge. Much of the time you probably would not need to do anything to prevent freezing of tanks in enclosed basement compartments, doubly so if the RV is generally heated in some fashion or another. I suspect (but do not know) that the pipes are all inside the insulated portion of the RV, rather than being outside or in the basement area; that's generally the case for RVs that are set up to be usable in freezing weather.

According to the specs I see online, a 2014 Tiffen Allegro Red 38 QRA has a 24 gallon propane tank, or around 80 pounds usable capacity.

Just came back from the West. The winter-overers use that extra cylinder outside with an isolating valve and regulator to the main utility line. Just make sure your connections are outside any compartment and has fresh air.
Newer units direct heated air through ducting. Ne-e-e-ver use heat tape=majority of fires (hillbilly Ahia chronicles)

If I had room I would install Cheap Heat which is basically an electric heating add-on which uses your duct work.

Cheap Heat has some very specific requirements and high amperage requirements. You need 50 amp service at a minimum and some special wiring is required.
If you use electric heat inside, you can also use electric heat outside. We use a couple of 100W light bulbs in the wet bay and where any plumbing exists. There are also some really nice, really small 250W electric heaters that will do the job and circulate the air as well. If you plan on "seriously cold" camping you might need the propane and the electric heat to keep your plumbing safe but in most 20's - 30's camping, most class A's will do just find with a bit of supplemental heat.

There are at least two problems with the Cheap Heat system.

1. you can not use "electric" to supplement the output of the propane furnace.
2. if the power goes "off" the Cheap Heat does not fail over to propane heating.

With "stand alone" heaters the propane can be an excellent back up. I do heat 100% electrically and have done so at -37 c (-34 f).

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Cheap Heat has some very specific requirements and high amperage requirements. You need 50 amp service at a minimum and some special wiring is required.
If you use electric heat inside, you can also use electric heat outside. We use a couple of 100W light bulbs in the wet bay and where any plumbing exists. There are also some really nice, really small 250W electric heaters that will do the job and circulate the air as well. If you plan on "seriously cold" camping you might need the propane and the electric heat to keep your plumbing safe but in most 20's - 30's camping, most class A's will do just find with a bit of supplemental heat.

Well sorry to say Cheap Heat is not nearly that limiting! I state this as a happy user.

#1 A 50 amp service is NOT required! I am currently on a 30 amp service and will likely be able to keep our 32' Keystone Copper Canyon warm down to about high 30's low 40's, at 30 amps using 1,800 watt heating element. yes, the air coming out of the vents is cooler, and the furnace needs to run longer to heat.

#2 When on 50 amps and getting 5,000 watts of heat it works great easily to at least the low 20's, just haven't been lower than that yet.

#3 No currently RV Comfort Systems does't offer a auto fail over if the power goes out, but it would be easy use a 110 to 12 volt transformer to operate a relay in the Gas/Electric switch circuit to force to gas if the relay lost power.

#4 They currently add an auto switch over from 50 amp service to 30 amp service. I am currently looking at this as it is about a 20 minute operation to manually switch from 50 to 30 amp.

The system install is easily done by someone familiar with electrical wiring. I did the install of my system. The hardest part was installing the gas/electric switch next to the T-Stat as the T-Stat is about 15' from the furnace, and required snaking the cable down inside a wall and through the basement to the furnace location.

I should have said that a coach wired for 50 amp is required. Can we agree on that? I have not seen a Cheap Heat system that was available for coaches that could only supply 120V power on 1 leg since the 5000W option would never be available. I get it that you either work for Cheap Heat or believe that only you "get it" but for most folks, Cheap Heat is neither cheap or practical.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
I should have said that a coach wired for 50 amp is required. Can we agree on that? I have not seen a Cheap Heat system that was available for coaches that could only supply 120V power on 1 leg since the 5000W option would never be available. I get it that you either work for Cheap Heat or believe that only you "get it" but for most folks, Cheap Heat is neither cheap or practical.

Not required at all, a smaller coach with only a 30 amp service can be wired for 1,800 watt setting. On the 1,800 watt setting it is run on a 20 amp CB.
It is true that the 5,000 watt setting will not be available on a 30 amp service in the RV.