What space heater do you have?

rgatijnet1 wrote:
With the past really hot Summer(damn global warming) and now this colder than normal Winter(damn global cooling) we have found that this heat pump has been great. Naturally it is not as small as a radiant heater so you must have room to store it when not in use. It is on wheels. For us I strap it in place behind the passenger seat when on the road and bring it out when needed. This past year it has been used a lot. Keep in mind that since it is also removing moisture from the air, it needs to have a hose that deposits the liquid outside. The upside is that in the Winter my inside window surfaces remain fairly dry.

Isn't that called climate change?

I love some of the answers how a heat pump works....pulls the cold out of the house to leave only heat. Having worked in the electric utility business for 40 years I would talk to high school students regarding energy use and I would always throw in some off the wall information to keep interested. Do you know why fluorescent tubes turn black on the ends before they burn out.....a fluorescent tube sucks the darkness out of the room and once the tube is full of darkness it quits working. :@

With the past really hot Summer(damn global warming) and now this colder than normal Winter(damn global cooling) we have found that this heat pump has been great. Naturally it is not as small as a radiant heater so you must have room to store it when not in use. It is on wheels. For us I strap it in place behind the passenger seat when on the road and bring it out when needed. This past year it has been used a lot. Keep in mind that since it is also removing moisture from the air, it needs to have a hose that deposits the liquid outside. The upside is that in the Winter my inside window surfaces remain fairly dry.

rgatijnet1 wrote:

OhhWell wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:
To simplify, it is like running your auto dash AC on "recirculate/max" or to "vent air" from the outside. On recirculation it continuously heats or cools the inside air, much like a single hose heat pump/AC. When on the "vent" setting, like a double hose heat pump/AC, it is constantly bringing in fresh exterior air and heating it or cooling it, and is impacted by lower or hotter outside temps.
The single hose unit, like your automobile, depends on air leakage to exchange the stale inside air with fresh outside air.

I am very curious: How much air does yours push out through the vent hose? I know that is rather subjective but I will say that our portable AC pushes ALOT of hot air out.

My vent hose blows out through an adapter on my engine dog house. The air is quite cold and the volume is less than what is being blown inside the coach. This sort of make sense since there is only one three speed blower motor and it is used to push air over the coils and back inside the coach as well as exhausting the stale air outside. I am not sure if the double hose units use two fan motors or just one, like my single hose unit.

It would make sense that the removal of cold air from the unit wouldn't have quite as much airflow requirements as removing the heat. I would imagine it would just have to keep the airflow high enough not to ice over the coils.

If we ever find ourselves camping in colder weather regularly, I will definitely be looking at one of those portable heat pumps.

OhhWell wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:
To simplify, it is like running your auto dash AC on "recirculate/max" or to "vent air" from the outside. On recirculation it continuously heats or cools the inside air, much like a single hose heat pump/AC. When on the "vent" setting, like a double hose heat pump/AC, it is constantly bringing in fresh exterior air and heating it or cooling it, and is impacted by lower or hotter outside temps.
The single hose unit, like your automobile, depends on air leakage to exchange the stale inside air with fresh outside air.

I am very curious: How much air does yours push out through the vent hose? I know that is rather subjective but I will say that our portable AC pushes ALOT of hot air out.

My vent hose blows out through an adapter on my engine dog house. The air is quite cold and the volume is less than what is being blown inside the coach. This sort of make sense since there is only one three speed blower motor and it is used to push air over the coils and back inside the coach as well as exhausting the stale air outside. I am not sure if the double hose units use two fan motors or just one, like my single hose unit.

rgatijnet1 wrote:
To simplify, it is like running your auto dash AC on "recirculate/max" or to "vent air" from the outside. On recirculation it continuously heats or cools the inside air, much like a single hose heat pump/AC. When on the "vent" setting, like a double hose heat pump/AC, it is constantly bringing in fresh exterior air and heating it or cooling it, and is impacted by lower or hotter outside temps.
The single hose unit, like your automobile, depends on air leakage to exchange the stale inside air with fresh outside air.

I am very curious: How much air does yours push out through the vent hose? I know that is rather subjective but I will say that our portable AC pushes ALOT of hot air out.

To simplify, it is like running your auto dash AC on "recirculate/max" or to "vent air" from the outside. On recirculation it continuously heats or cools the inside air, much like a single hose heat pump/AC. When on the "vent" setting, like a double hose heat pump/AC, it is constantly bringing in fresh exterior air and heating it or cooling it, and is impacted by lower or hotter outside temps.
The single hose unit, like your automobile, depends on air leakage to exchange the stale inside air with fresh outside air.

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

Heat pumps work by extracting heat. This heat pump and every other heat pump extracts latent heat from outside the RV and pumps it to inside the RV. I'm glad it works in temperatures down to the teens.

Extracting heat from inside the RV and returning the heat to the RV would be a perpetual motion device.

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Unlike roof top heat pumps, the single hose heat pump draws air from the inside of the coach, and it will work just fine no matter what the outside temperature drops to. We have used ours in locations where the outside temps were in the teens.

Single-Hose portable heat pumps run inside air over the exhaust coils and then push that outside by a single hose. This does have the downside of pulling cold outside air in due to a vacuum created by that hose. It will however create excellent heat from the register unless the air in the room drops below freezing or so.

I have a portable air conditioner that I sometimes use in the garage. It is a single hose and unfortunately, it pushes a ton of air through that exhaust hose. It still cools the garage but a lot of hot humid air is pulled in due to vacuum. It is possible that the airflow requirements for an exhaust in a single hose heat pump may be much less. If that is true, then it would be about perfect as you do want a bit of outside air run through an RV to help with humidity.

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

Heat pumps work by extracting heat. This heat pump and every other heat pump extracts latent heat from outside the RV and pumps it to inside the RV. I'm glad it works in temperatures down to the teens.

Extracting heat from inside the RV and returning the heat to the RV would be a perpetual motion device.

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Unlike roof top heat pumps, the single hose heat pump draws air from the inside of the coach, and it will work just fine no matter what the outside temperature drops to. We have used ours in locations where the outside temps were in the teens.

You really need to look at the differences between the double hose and single hose portable heat pumps. The double hose heat pump will not work in as low an outside temp.
With the portable heat pump you are extracting cold from inside the RV, blowing it out the single hose, and returning heated air back in to the coach.

How a Heat pump works.
Air passes over the outdoor coil, which sucks the heat out of it and puts it into the refrigerant. The captured heat makes the refrigerant warm and turns it into a vapor. These vapors travel to the indoor coil that is on the inside of the home. When the indoor air meets the heat in the indoor coil, it gets warm and travels through the home vents, spreading warmth throughout the home.