Electrically Heating TT Underbelly
Has anyone made or found a way to electrically heat the enclosed underbelly of a travel trailer? We just finished a trip to Ruidoso during which the temperatures were below freezing for much of it, do...
Forum Discussion
Hi GordonThree,
Convection is definitely NOT enough! In fact, my first attempt at preventing freezing was a 1500 watt fan based heater inside the kitchen cabinets. It was set to run constantly on the highest possible heat. That did exactly nothing and the lines still froze. The air was simply not getting to where the problem was.
I did contemplate having a fan only setting for the propane furnace--but the fans are noisy, difficult to service, and expensive to run both from a dollars point of view and amps (9, in mine).
I've not had another freeze up since installing and finding a good set point for the window fans. It works far better than I dreamt. It is quiet, especially on the low speed setting. At -20 c I move to the faster fan setting.
I'm contemplating adding a filter after the fans to reduce the particulates in the air. I have not found one that is the right size, so far, but I've not looked very hard either.
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the tin wheel wells extend above the floor under the cabinets, have zero insulation over them, and water lines touching them. I did manage to force some 1.8 inch foam board between the lines and the tin.
I've managed to drop the btu's needed for space heating by 50% by doing things such as removing the exterior shower and attempting to insulate what is darn near a hole in the wall. With everything running on electric I need a peak of 6000 watts. That includes operating a block heater for the engine, fridge, and water heater. I do use the inverter charger in winter for house battery charging as it is temperature compensated. In the other three seasons I rely mainly on solar and occasionally the PD 40 amp converter.
I get around the 30 amp limitation by having two auxiliary shore power cords. By careful planning I'm able to have all the outlets live on the OEM 30 am when I do not need the extra power. I have a 50 amp break out box that has a 30 amp breaker protected outlet on one leg, and 20 20 amp breaker protected outlets on the other leg. This allows me to use multiple 15 amp circuits when I'm in a Church parking lot or other location that has more than one plug in.
When I'm on 15 amp only, I can "dial down" the OEM 30 amp to 15 using the Magnum hybrid inverter. The inverter allows me to draw more than 15 amps--and supplies the needed extra amps from the battery bank. In addition it allows me to dial back to 23 amps which is all that the Yamaha 3000 Sieb will output on a continuous basis. That makes my life much easier as I no longer have to load balance.
Convection is definitely NOT enough! In fact, my first attempt at preventing freezing was a 1500 watt fan based heater inside the kitchen cabinets. It was set to run constantly on the highest possible heat. That did exactly nothing and the lines still froze. The air was simply not getting to where the problem was.
I did contemplate having a fan only setting for the propane furnace--but the fans are noisy, difficult to service, and expensive to run both from a dollars point of view and amps (9, in mine).
I've not had another freeze up since installing and finding a good set point for the window fans. It works far better than I dreamt. It is quiet, especially on the low speed setting. At -20 c I move to the faster fan setting.
I'm contemplating adding a filter after the fans to reduce the particulates in the air. I have not found one that is the right size, so far, but I've not looked very hard either.
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the tin wheel wells extend above the floor under the cabinets, have zero insulation over them, and water lines touching them. I did manage to force some 1.8 inch foam board between the lines and the tin.
I've managed to drop the btu's needed for space heating by 50% by doing things such as removing the exterior shower and attempting to insulate what is darn near a hole in the wall. With everything running on electric I need a peak of 6000 watts. That includes operating a block heater for the engine, fridge, and water heater. I do use the inverter charger in winter for house battery charging as it is temperature compensated. In the other three seasons I rely mainly on solar and occasionally the PD 40 amp converter.
I get around the 30 amp limitation by having two auxiliary shore power cords. By careful planning I'm able to have all the outlets live on the OEM 30 am when I do not need the extra power. I have a 50 amp break out box that has a 30 amp breaker protected outlet on one leg, and 20 20 amp breaker protected outlets on the other leg. This allows me to use multiple 15 amp circuits when I'm in a Church parking lot or other location that has more than one plug in.
When I'm on 15 amp only, I can "dial down" the OEM 30 amp to 15 using the Magnum hybrid inverter. The inverter allows me to draw more than 15 amps--and supplies the needed extra amps from the battery bank. In addition it allows me to dial back to 23 amps which is all that the Yamaha 3000 Sieb will output on a continuous basis. That makes my life much easier as I no longer have to load balance.
GordonThree wrote:
regarding warming the water lines, you're saying natural convection is enough to circulate the hot water into the cold, to keep the water lines from freezing up?
