Heater?
Anyone used one of these for a heater when hooked to shore power? It would seem to be quiet, compact, and at 425 watts, plug friendly. Envi Heater
Forum Discussion
I use a pair of Envi heaters to heat my basement family room in my sticks and bricks home. They work well for that use - my house (including the basement) is very well insulated. I don't think I'd want one in an RV though. Things to consider: No fan is great for silent heat (what I wanted in the basement), but convection heaters are slow to heat a space completely, and will heat a poorly insulated space very unevenly.
While the Envi heaters don't take any floor space, they do take wall space (they're not all that small) and you can't put anything in front of that wall space if you want good convective circulation.
Most RVs are not all that well insulated, don't have a lot of open wall space, and generally one wants to be able to turn the heater on and have the trailer be evenly warm within a half hour or so. This sort of heater isn't really going to do that (perhaps in the back bedroom of a Class A? might work ...). Also, you'd likely need more than one. 425W isn't a lot of heat.
The whole 100% efficiency thing (with a fan): There's a TINY TINY TINY amount of energy from the fan (and possibly the heater element) that ends up being converted into RFI that gets fed back into the power line, and lost. :) (Well, okay, it's not "lost" - it ends up as heat too, but most probably heat outside of the space being heated, so lost to that space at any rate.) For heat, 100% isn't actually very good. Heat pumps typically operate in multiples of that. (How? They don't create heat directly, they just move it from one spot to another.)
While the Envi heaters don't take any floor space, they do take wall space (they're not all that small) and you can't put anything in front of that wall space if you want good convective circulation.
Most RVs are not all that well insulated, don't have a lot of open wall space, and generally one wants to be able to turn the heater on and have the trailer be evenly warm within a half hour or so. This sort of heater isn't really going to do that (perhaps in the back bedroom of a Class A? might work ...). Also, you'd likely need more than one. 425W isn't a lot of heat.
The whole 100% efficiency thing (with a fan): There's a TINY TINY TINY amount of energy from the fan (and possibly the heater element) that ends up being converted into RFI that gets fed back into the power line, and lost. :) (Well, okay, it's not "lost" - it ends up as heat too, but most probably heat outside of the space being heated, so lost to that space at any rate.) For heat, 100% isn't actually very good. Heat pumps typically operate in multiples of that. (How? They don't create heat directly, they just move it from one spot to another.)
