semi full time no generator
Hi all, May 1, 2013 I'll be semi full timing (a minimum of a week per month--and sometimes much more). I intend to attempt to do this with no generator use, and opportunity 15 amp shore power (thou...
Forum Discussion
pianotuna wrote:
Hi Jim,
If I were going to be "on the road" a lot I would consider adding a heating loop from the engine. As it happens, if I turn the dash heater on defrost, it does a pretty good job of heating the living space in the RV.
The problem is that I won't be doing significant amounts of driving.
I will add a "cold front" to the RV.
I was thinking as a stationary heat source when really needed. Efficiency is not horrible. You get about the same BTUs (useful energy to do work) per dollar as you do when using the gas to drive around. Could disable the radiator electric fan if you could pull enough heat into the house section. Using the gas engine to heat AND charge batteries at the same time, you are actually getting more out of each dollar of gas than using it to drive around. In essence, the amp hours from the alternator are free if you are using engine heat as a source of house heat.
This should be considerably more efficient per dollar than running a genset to run electric heat strips, say. Genset is less efficient than a vehicle engine. Say 25%. And you are wasting all of the 75% heat energy.
Jim
