Calling on Solar Techies

1L243 wrote:
Of course I want the best system for the least amount of money.

I was thinking of going with a 3000 watt pure sine inverter they tend to be on the expensive side. That said We do not do a lot of winter camping but I wanted to build the solar system with that option open and reduce the consumption of propane and the need to frequently refill the tanks.

The heater has 3 settings with the lowest setting being under 600 watts.

Typically when we do use a heater it's during the day at night we switch to furnace which keep a things from freezing.

On it’s lowest 600 watt setting, that heater will draw at least 660 watts counting the power the inverter uses. To make it simple, call it 700 watts. A 400 watt solar array will reliably produce at best 350 watts for about two hours around noon, but only on a clear sunny day. To run that heater and inverter straight off the solar array, you will need 800 watts of panels, and if you want to do so longer than 2 hours a day, plan on more. Say at least double to 1600 watts.

Throw in a cloudy or rainy day, now you will need to at least double that, to 3200 watts.

What we are trying to tell you is that heating (and cooling) with electricity is EXTREMELY power hungry. You might want to rethink what you want to do.

A 400 watt array can reliably get you 1500 watt-hours a day, given a reasonably sunny climate. That’s plenty to run your lights, furnace on propane, refrigerator on propane, make a pot of coffee, charge your phone, etc. Provided you use it to charge batteries rather run things directly. But both an air conditioner and electric space heaters are not practical.