Just installed Camco Olympian Wave 8 Heater - is it working?

A fire place or camp fire is radiant heat.
A fire place in a home takes a long time to heat the house.

A wave heater takes quite a while to heat the living quarters of a camper/rv...
An hour or two to get it warmed up.... Then switch the heat over to medium or low...

The bedroom area of an RV will take a long time to warm up. So use the furnace to get things going while the Wave is complementing....



Jim

firemedic1992 wrote:
I just installed a Camco Olympian Wave 8 heater in my fifth wheel.

Installed it vertically, teed into 3/8" gas line below fridge with a shut-off.

Fridge is on AC power, no other gas appliances on. With the Wave 8 on high, I am disappointed with the heat output. There is no red glow from the device like the box depicts. It does throw heat (quite warm 6" in front).

Anyone have any experience with these units?

Outside air temp is 14 C, heater has been on in the trailer (32 ft) for 30 minutes and temp went from 19.5 C to 21.5 C.

Curious, do you have enough 4 season insulation in your rig, in Alberta, Canada that this unit is not overwhelmed by heat losses? Size of the TT or 5th wheel you are trying to heat up?

Takes well over 30 min to get the full glow going. If you have a draft, like the door open it may not get into full glow.

The 2nd flashover is important, like "HVAC" Fred said.

Remember this is a radiant heat heater. It takes a while to get things warmed up. It does not warm the air, the objects that the radiant heat hits is what warms up the rig.

A furnace relies on heated air to warm up things.

When we want to warm up fast we use the furnace for 1 or 2 cycles and have the wave fired up....

If you are not able to get full glow going I would contact the mfg by phone... They are great folks.. The unit could be defective or your propane pressure is a bit low.

Jim

X2 on the run it on high for 15 mins after lighting. If not, it doesn't seem to use the entire pad for heating.

Can't see ours, during the day,
But see it easily in the middle of the night
I turn ours on before we get cold
It's going to take a while to warm up the tt, but it seems to bring doing the job
It does not have the rush of hot air from a vent you get with a furnace

Hi,

Some people make the mistake of not letting the heater warm up properly.

So this is what I do. Press the valve on in the start position for about 15 seconds, this will saturate the pad with propane. Then light it and hold it in (start) for about 20 - 35 seconds. You will get a flashover of propane burning away from the surface once after about 10 seconds and again after about 20 - 25 seconds. After the second flashover, then the pad had a chance to light from top to bottom. Then leave on high output at least 15 minutes. Make sure that your roof vent was open about 1/2 - 3/4" while starting, and after about 15 miutes if it is not to hot inside, you can close it to about 1/2" open. At night, I leave all three roof vents in my RV open about 3/8", as well as the kitchen window open about 3/8 = 1/2", unless with the heater on low it is still to warm, then open it up a bit.

It should be glowing red at that point. Sure in bright sunlight you might not see it, but it should be red, especially at night.

If it is not glowing red, then you might not have it fully lit, and if the catalyst is not warm enough, then it can produce carbon monoxide, you don't want that. You need to shut it off, let it cool, and start the whole process all over again.

Did you leave it on high for the required 10 - 15 minutes?

Fred.

I've had several of the wave 3s, and they all glow red, but in the daylight it may be hard to see. Check it in a dim lit room at nite, if no glow, I'd say it it not burning properly.

You can barely see any glow at all on a properly burning Wave heater. In the daytime I actually have to crouch down and shade the front to see any color.

Per speed-of-warmup:

32 feet is a lot of trailer for a heater that has no fan to help with air circulation. I added a little fan atop my Wave that's powered by heat off the heater itself. Works wonders to move the heat around, and it's dead quiet, too. Link to fan