Huntindog wrote:
Traver8 wrote:
Hello All,
Starting to prepare for my first winter in my trailer and have been thinking about heating. I am full timing right now and would like to use electric as my primary heat source to save my propane. I have a heated underbelly that is warmed by the furnace.
What I have been thinking is that if I can use the furnace in a fan only mode to circulate the heated air created by my electric heater this should transfer heat to the underbelly without using the propane.
What do you think? Anyone made a mod to their furnace to use the fan only?
Thanks for your feedback.
Terry
The amount of heat that this mod would put into the underbelly is so slight as to make it a waste of time and effort.
Your propane furnace puts HOT air into the underbelly... Your proposed mod would put ROOM temperature air into it.
Even most heated underbellys don't work as well as many imagine.
Mostly because the insulation is lacking. I have never seen a TT that addressed the frame rail heat sink issue. Two steel I beams running the length of the TT uninsulated and conducting cold into the underbelly.
After my experience of near zero temps I January, I found the limitations of my TT.
I totally disassembled my underbelly,and put heat tape on ALL waterlines with insulation, improved the heat vents going into it, and super insulated the underbelly, including the frame rails.
This January will be the test, as to just how effective all this was... I am sure it will be quite a improvement.
Based on actual measurements of the temps inside my enclosed underbelly over the last 4 years in temps down into the 20's I think you would be surprised just how warm the underbelly is just from the natural radiate heat from the floor into the enclosed underbelly w/o any supplemental heat from the furnace. The temps I have measured are between 10 and 15 deg above the outside ambient temps. Now I do have some extra insulation in my underbelly over about 2/3 of the area between the frame rails. My remote sensor probe is about 6" from the frame rail and about 3" down from the floor. This 10 to 15 deg delta observation has been for ambients down into the upper 20's so in really cold and windy conditions I can't say what the temp would be, but the spread actually gets larger the lower the outside ambient temp. With zero heat from the furnace ducts my WAG would be nothing would freeze down to ambients in the high teens to low 20's. If you could just circulate the temp inside the trailer thru the existing furnace ducting you might keep the underbelly temp above freezing for temps down into the single digits.
I think if I were to want to camp in really cold weather and use electric heat as much as possible I would cut like a 2 or 4 inch hole in the floor at the area around the waste tank plumbing and valves and around the FW tank and lines and run some duct to the inside of the trailer and mount one of the small computer fans in the duct to take the air from inside the trailer and direct it into the underbelly. Potential locations for these vents could be under or near the tub base or bath lower cabinet and around the area of the water pump. Of course all this would be highly dependent on exactly how the lines run in the underbelly and where the tanks are located.
Larry
