using electric heat

elle8 wrote:
okie dokie ,,,,,see im learning here and i did mention ,,,,dumb,,,,,so , i own a 36 ft. winnie vista ,,,2011,,,1st one ,,, okay now ,, one person says rv's dont have electric heat ,,,another says they do . im sooo confused ..lol,,,, so what i think i will do is plug her in and put a space heater in the beast . now if i am understanding correctly ,,, her being plugged in will keep the batteries charged . because its so cold here and we plan to hit the road for god only knows ,no later than may1st , i am just trying to her ready for my maiden voyage . thanks ,, and any suggestions are welcomed please ......

Most RVs use a propane furnace for the "main" heat source, there are some that use a combination of heat pump (A/C unit which is specially made to reverse the cooling cycle to heating cycle) and propane backup (heat pumps tend to get less effective as the outside temps drop to 40 degrees or less and will switch to the backup heat.

Generally RVs do not include a all electric heater (base board or forced air) like you might find in homes or apartments.

What a lot of folks do who own RVs is they will BUY a small PORTABLE plug in electric heater. Typically they do this in a effort to reduce propane usage while camping in a RV park using non metered sites (some campsites have "metered" electric and you pay for the electric you use in addition to the site fee and a electric heater is going to be very costly in this case).

The problem is with those is it often will take at least one 1,500W portable for small RVs and for larger RVs TWO 1,500W electric heaters to keep a "reasonable" temp in a RV.

Two electric heaters are the limit of a 30A shore power connection, the problem you will run into is if you are plugging in to your standard home outlet which is typically limited to 15A/20A and will not support two heaters.

Not to mention running one or two electric heaters in an unused RV is simply going to drive your electric bill sky high for no reason.