heat

I don't know if you got your question answered or not. Running the propane furnace in your trailer when plugged into the house 120VAC will be just fine. The propane has no connection to your house 120VAC.

The propane 12VDC furnace blower however will run from the converter/charger unit and/or the trailer battery. The 120VAC connection to the house will run your converter/charger unit when plugged in and will also keep your battery charged. This will be you only connection concerning the propane furnace.

The propane furnace will put out the most heat for you but you will have to live with the loud BRRRR sound of the furnace blower motor. Also the propane furnace will be consuming your propane tanks big time.

What everyone is telling you if you can get enough heat from the Electric Heaters you might want to just run them when connected at home. This is what we do here... I do have my propane furnace turned on but with a low thermostat setting so that makes the furnace a back-up source of heat in the event it gets below the thermostat setting during the night.

The only downside wit using the 15A/20A 120VAC from the house is you have to watch what is turned ON at the same time. The Electric heaters draw is pretty high to start off with and it may trip the house breaker if other high wattage items are turned on at the same time. i.e. running one electric heater and a couple of lights may trip your house breaker if the furnace blower unit kicks in. You will have to experiment with this...

Just my thoughts...
Roy Ken

The furnace is the best source of heat but it's very limited in the time you can use it.

The typical camper furnace burns 19,000 BTU of propane every hour of flame time. That's just about the heat produced from 1 pound of LP so figure on 20 hours of flame time before the 20 pound tank is empty. Lots of heat but burns LP at a prodigious rate.

An electric heater produces much less heat (only about 5,000 BTU) but will do so for as long as electric is provided. Those 5,000 BTU need about 15 amps of AC power to produce which is the breaker capacity of the typical camper breaker.


Note a hair dryer will product 5,000 BTU too which explains why these heaters product so little heat.

Our Roo has heated tanks and I use them and an electric heater when the trailer is out of service and not winterized. We haven't been below freezing her on the North Coast yet this year so heat has not been required. She's winterized anyway and in the barn at the fairgrounds until April.

When camping with shorepower we use a heater but set the furnace to come on about 55°F.

-- Chuck

The only time propane furnaces are required is for heated tanks and plumbing protection. Run of the mill htt does not have those features. You have interior plumbing and water tanks. Exposed waste tanks/drains and low point drains that can freeze.

I have used an electric heater periodically for 10 years under the condition you describe (not the furnace) without one issue.

I have my 30AMP fifth wheel setup at home running from a 10-gauge extension cord coming from the garage 20-AMP circuit.

We sleep in the fifth wheel all the time setting in camp back yard.

We run the air conditioner or other high wattage item but have to watch what we have ON at the same time otherwise it will trip the garage breaker.

For us having the 1500WATT Portable oil-filled type Heater from LOWES works best for us. Sometime we might fire up the propane heater but most of the time we just use the 120VAC heater plugged in. I also have one of these THERMO CUBES (AMAZON) that is the 35 degree model which will turn on when the inside temperature get down to 35 degrees and this will turn on the 120VAC portable heater. When the inside temperatures gets above 45 degrees then the portable heater will turn off... This seems to work better for us having the portable heater plugged in all the time during the cold months.


If you use 10-gauge (10-3) Extension cords and the RV30A-15A LONG DOGBONE style adapter (WALMART) you should not have any problems with using your 30AMP Shore Power Cable plugged into the extension cord coming from your house/garage 120VAC receptacle connection... I am always feeling my connections to see if they start getting warm when using them. My extension cords are 50-foot length. DO NOT EVER use the small round RV30A-15A small round adapters as they will get hot on you after being used and will burn up the prongs of your 30A Shore Power Connection and cause low voltage problems in your trailer.


Roy Ken

Yes, you can run the camper's furnace. With shore power though, for periodic short term use an electric heater likely makes more sense. (Long term, just winterize it and let it freeze.)

Over the summer, the AC tripped the detached garage panel and Interior home panel.

I slept in my camper on Friday night. Camp driveway with a 1500w heater. Temps were low 30s and I was comfy on my rear bunk bed. A 400lb black bear was marauding our garbage and I didn't hear it.


30 amp plug to 15amp garage panel.

Not sure why you are asking?:h

the furnace fan and ignition are 12v and runs off the battery. The only thing plugging into shore power does is to keep the battery charged.
but the heat comes from propane, not electricity.

Sorry about the lack of info. I'm using the trailer's power cord and was wondering if I could use the furnace in the camper. Plugged into a regular outlet in the garage.