heating electrically
Hi, I'm running 3000 watts of heaters. Ambient was -20C (-4 f). Bedroom was 16 c (60 f). Kitchenette was 12.6 C (54 f). I turned on the propane furnace and after 30 minutes it is still playing "...
Forum Discussion
pianotuna wrote:
Hi,
I'm running 3000 watts of heaters. Ambient was -20C (-4 f). Bedroom was 16 c (60 f). Kitchenette was 12.6 C (54 f).
I turned on the propane furnace and after 30 minutes it is still playing "catch up".
Bedroom is now 19.2 c (66.6 F) and kitchenette is 18.2 C (64.75 F)
Temperature outside is now -18.7 C (-1.7 f)
yup, your finding out that heat loss is a nonlinear function of square ft of living space. Contrary to what one might expect, the bigger the house (sq ft.) the LOWER the heat loss/sq ft of living space. Or, in the case of a trailer, the smaller the trailer/house the HIGHER the heat loss is per sq ft of living space. Heat is lost through the walls/floor and that area increases much slower than living area increases.
My 2400 square ft house has 10x the living area of my trailer (slightly over 240 sqft) , but somewhat less than 4x the wall/roof/floor area. Couple that with window area etc. and it shows up. house has a 90KBTU furnace to keep our house comfortable and it seldom runs even 50% duty cycle. The 30K BTU furnace in the trailer needs to run a higher duty cycle to keep the trailer warm. So that difference in wall area coupled with lower R values and larger % of windows really kills ya in a trailer.
