Quiet heater that doesn’t drain batteries ?

[Jwpup]

Hi,

I’m new to the RV world, just started making family trips in a new travel trailer (forest river wolf pup). But temperatures are dropping and the heater that came with the camper is horrendously loud. It wakes us up every time it kicks on at night.

All of our camping is without hookups and we are trying to find out if there’s a better alternative for heating the unit at night, without a noisy fan, and without draining the batteries. Any ideas?

Thanks,

John

[2oldman]

down home wrote:
Produce moisture? Look at your front window and others when it is 32 outside and raining and furnaces run all night.

My furnace does not produce moisture.

[TurnThePage]

I have 3 Buddy heaters and use one of them often in the winter. I will acknowledge that there is an odor, but I quickly got used to it. No headache for this guy. They work great in RVs. Crack a window, and maybe a roof vent, and you're set. They have a low oxygen sensor built in. With a cracked window you're not going to run into CO or out of O.

That Plat Cat looks pretty awesome. If I had a space for it, I'd install one in a heart beat.

[down_home]

Produce moisture? Look at your front window and others when it is 32 outside and raining and furnaces run all night.

[NRALIFR]

There is at least one vented catalytic heater manufacturer that I’m aware of. It’s just like any other catalytic heater in that it uses flameless combustion to produce radiant heat. It does take 12v DC to run the small powered vent fan.

THE PLATINUM CAT

:):)

[Lwiddis]

I agree with Jim and I don't trust an unvented heater.

[ktmrfs]

jkwilson wrote:

down home wrote:
I Our Mh we always had a window cracked open. No way at sub freezing temps the heat Pumps could keep it warm so the furnaces kick in. Build up of moisture inside from the furnaces get bad. If you are dry camping a big battery bank powering the blowers on the furnaces is about your only option. When people buy a Fifth Wheel of Trailer they at least on their first unit don't seem to think about cold weather packages and heating. You need the furnaces to also keep the tanks and lines from freezing. Some heat is directed their way. An onboard generator was/is an option on some unites, and tha4t would be the only logical way to power electric heaters. We ran a small heater off inverter and batteries once and it sucked the batteries down real quick. But lead acid should be fully cycled sometimes. As to noise. I would shop the two but possibly more units available for RVs. The Atwood and Suburban fit the same space, I believe, but don't quote me. We never looked at a replacement. Small Squirrel cage blowers in the furnace designed for the space RV Mfgs provide are loud but on ours the furnace combustion is the most of the noise, I think.. On ours with the bedroom door closed the noise exposure is reduced.

Your furnace cannot produce even a tiny bit of moisture inside the RV under any circumstances barring a major combustion chamber failure which would be accompanied by significant carbon monoxide in the living space. The moisture comes from people and cooking.

exactly!!!!!!! Now the stove/oven will dump water into the trailer, a little less than a gallon for every gallon of propane burned. Likewise for the unvented heaters like Mr. Buddy etc. but NOT the WH or furnace, combustion products are vented outside.

[stickdog]

Good set of ear plugs.

[jkwilson]

down home wrote:
I Our Mh we always had a window cracked open. No way at sub freezing temps the heat Pumps could keep it warm so the furnaces kick in. Build up of moisture inside from the furnaces get bad. If you are dry camping a big battery bank powering the blowers on the furnaces is about your only option. When people buy a Fifth Wheel of Trailer they at least on their first unit don't seem to think about cold weather packages and heating. You need the furnaces to also keep the tanks and lines from freezing. Some heat is directed their way. An onboard generator was/is an option on some unites, and tha4t would be the only logical way to power electric heaters. We ran a small heater off inverter and batteries once and it sucked the batteries down real quick. But lead acid should be fully cycled sometimes. As to noise. I would shop the two but possibly more units available for RVs. The Atwood and Suburban fit the same space, I believe, but don't quote me. We never looked at a replacement. Small Squirrel cage blowers in the furnace designed for the space RV Mfgs provide are loud but on ours the furnace combustion is the most of the noise, I think.. On ours with the bedroom door closed the noise exposure is reduced.

Your furnace cannot produce even a tiny bit of moisture inside the RV under any circumstances barring a major combustion chamber failure which would be accompanied by significant carbon monoxide in the living space. The moisture comes from people and cooking.

[Sjm9911]

Just be sure that you leave room for make up air whatever you use. Don't confuse non vented to mean no openings. Everything that burns needs make up air. Some need more then others. Thats why its not safe to heat your home with an oven. Short term it its ok for the oven as its designed to just heat the small box. Anything designed to put out heat for a room, will eat up oxygen faster. This will lead to low oxygen and a larger co output from the unit as it will not burn as clean. The instrutions will say the same. This also goes for i door gas fireplaces. They need make up air.

[Sandia_Man]

I hear you, our propane furnace is pretty loud, and inefficient to boot. When we are boondocking we use one of our remote start gennies to run space heaters for a couple of hours before going to bed and again at dawn. No neighbors to worry about and we are able to get dinner or breakfast ready plus quick charge our battery bank at the same time, all while heating up our rig. Works for us and rig is quite toasty at bedtime, by dawn interior temps are in the fifties, press remote start and fall back to sleep for an hour waking up to a cozy warm rig.

With our TT we can camp in the 20's without our plumbing freezing up, since we are not using propane furnace to divert heat we did wrap tubular pipe insulation around most of our plumbing as we do camp without hookups in cold weather often. We pondered using other interior propane options but had an onboard Onan that easily powers 2 space heaters with room to spare, 5 years ago we added a remote start Champion inverter genny to the mix, powers a single space heater on high for the living/gally area, and another space heater on low for bath/bedroom space.

[pianotuna]

JimK-NY wrote:
Personally I would never trust any unvented heater, catalytic or not.

This.

cats can reduce O2 levels much lower than blue flame--but I will NOT use an unvented heater.

There are many vented non electric units.

[ReneeG]

2oldman wrote:

SteveAE wrote:
Tried a Buddy Heater, but didn't like them (smell and headache).

Boy I'll say. Just tried that and got a headache within an hour.

We've used a Heater Buddy for years and have never had an odor or headache. May be that you're sensitive to it. But that would mean the stove fumes and oven too.

[Sjm9911]

Never run a portable propane heater inside without make up air. Thats why you had headaches from the Mr. Buddy. Always have a co detecter also. How long are your trips, what temps and what is your battery set up like? Unfortunately, you dont have a ton of options. Portable propane, or the on board heater. The on board will burn through the voltage before the propane. You may get used to the sound in time and can recharge the batteries through solar or a generator. Otherwise you are back to the portables. Some have installed diesel heaters, but that sounds like work and you have to carry another fuel.

[ktmrfs]

we dry camp a lot, our solution is use a heavy quilt, set the thermostat at 50F at night, then either get up in the AM and turn it on, or use a setback thermostat to warm the trailer before you get up. The noise alone is enough to interupt our sleep. And it hard to find a furnace that is low power draw.

On the Mr. buddy etc. Any indoor propane heat source is going to dump about 1 gallon of water in the air for every gallon of propane burned, Mr Buddy, stove, oven etc. WH and furnace vent outside. Now in a dry climate that water may be fine and even desireable. In areas with high RH to start with, it can result in condensation problems.

[DrewE]

Some RV furnaces are quite noticeably louder than others. It may be practical to replace yours with a quieter model. Typically, all other things being equal, the physically larger furnaces (with around the same capacity) are quieter than physically small ones, since large fans are quieter moving a given quantity of air than small fans. There are many other variables, though--the exact style of fan, etc.