Wave 6 heater

[Wheeldog]

Bought a new Olympian Wave 6 heater for my 9.5 ft S&S Camper. It isn’t doing very well at all.

It was about 45 outside and was 48 in the camper. It took 4 hours to bring the camper temp to 68 on the high setting. This is the second time I have experimented with the heater. Took about the same amount of time when I did it before. Once it hit 68 inside I turned it to medium. It would stay at 68 but not get any warmer.

In my latest 3rd test I had the wave 6 on high for 2 days. The temp got down to 30 last night and it was 55 in the camper this morning.

I am/was planning to use this to heat my camper this winter……..BUT……I’m thing if it’s doing such a poor job when the temps are in the 30's & 40’s whats going to happen when it gets down to zero?

I am at a low elevation, about 400 ft.

I am trying to figure out if it’s a bad heater, maybe I am doing something wrong, or it’s just the way they work??? Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Wheeldog]

The problem seemed to boil down to the fact that my camper isn't that well insulated and the 6,000 BTU wasn't enough to heat it up. The camper is off the truck so floor and part of the sides aren't insulated and the S&S has those plastic windows across the front. When I put it on the truck I put a 4'X8' ft sheet of foam 2" thick so it helps quite a bit.

My big buddy heater at the medium setting kept it comfortable in there......BUT....medium is 9,000 BTU. I turned it on high (18,000 BTU) and it would drive you out of there.

I sent the Wave 6 and accessories back to Amazon. I think it is a good heater, but doesn't put out enough BTU's for my application.

Again, thanks for all the responses.

[ghooos]

I have a Wave 8 in my 30 ft. Arctic Fox and was in low 20's temps this last week. With the vents open for fresh air as needed, it was low 60's in the mornings when we got up. That was on medium. That was fine, we were hunting. You can get up and turn on your furnace to warm it up a little bit and get back in bed while warming, then get up. Put the Olympian back on high, and it will keep it up if you want. Low propane use and no electricity for the Olympian.

[ICamel]

It might be better............but I do know this. There are two CO detector's in my camper. One in the sleeper and another in the kitchen area(closest to the Wave6). The Wave6 his never registered anything on the digital readout. The digital readout works as the oven has given off a considerable amount of CO if not vented properly.

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,
........Would it not be better to have a window and a vent opened? That may create a chimney effect to better remove the combustion products from the RV........

ICamel wrote:
Are you opening up too much ventilation? Manufacturer recommends 24 square inches. Two 18" tall windows opened 3/4" is all you need.

Hi Don(pianotuna).........I'm still alive!

[PatJ]

For many many years I had the older version of the Olympian heater that is the exact same as the Wave 6. I think it was model 600.
At this time they were made by US Catalytic, way before they were part of Camco and before they had an optional low-oxygen cutout feature. It was in a 10.5' 1967 Travel Queen camper.

I paid about $550 of early 1990's money for it, made in the USA with a fitted cover. A small fraction of what they go for now so I don't know if there is a quality difference now that they are Camco and made who-knows-where.

I had a window in the back door of the camper I would open about 2 inches, and I would crack the cabover vent about an inch or so. I never camped in extremely cold weather but at least to the low 30's (frosty) that heater easily kept it very warm in the camper with 1967 insulation and single-pane aluminum windows. You couldn't turn it below "low" so I would just open the window/vent further to throttle the temp down when it got too warm. I ran this setup for almost 20 years.

Unless the output power is many orders of magnitude worse than they used to be, I think there is something wrong with your heater. From what I remember of mine, it would pump out heat like sitting next to a campfire.

[Wheeldog]

Thanks for all the replies!! Lots of good information.

[Wheeldog]

Thanks for all the replies!! Lots of good information.

[mike-uswest]

wa8yxm wrote:
I do not know the heater in question (looks to be an LP unit)

I normally use a collection of 1500 watt Electrics. I have special outlets and circuits to handle that much power 12 ga wire. One outlet per breaker. Wire bent around screws on the outlet (Standard house type 15/20 amp) not the anemic RV quick box type. Now for my 38' er I can use up to 4 of them (actually rigged for 5) before I need to kick in the furnace.

One thing about electric heaters

Many folks will try to convince you this or that or some other electric heater is somehow better than the rest... but every 1500 watt heater puts out EXACTLY the same amount of heat. EXACTLY. 100% efficient.. Why do I say this.

Loss in an electrical system is expressed as heat.. IN this system the loss is thus recovered as it's the desired product. So 100% efficient. Most rare in electrical systems.. Even the fan the fan has some loss converting electrical to mechanical (Expressed as heat) Some friction loss (Heat) and of course power is used moving the air.. (more friction loss so it too becomes heat) 100% efficient. it's all heat.

Unless you have a lot of batteries, that is hard to do out in the boonies. I hate the sound of a generator all night.

Mike

[wa8yxm]

I do not know the heater in question (looks to be an LP unit)

I normally use a collection of 1500 watt Electrics. I have special outlets and circuits to handle that much power 12 ga wire. One outlet per breaker. Wire bent around screws on the outlet (Standard house type 15/20 amp) not the anemic RV quick box type. Now for my 38' er I can use up to 4 of them (actually rigged for 5) before I need to kick in the furnace.

One thing about electric heaters

Many folks will try to convince you this or that or some other electric heater is somehow better than the rest... but every 1500 watt heater puts out EXACTLY the same amount of heat. EXACTLY. 100% efficient.. Why do I say this.

Loss in an electrical system is expressed as heat.. IN this system the loss is thus recovered as it's the desired product. So 100% efficient. Most rare in electrical systems.. Even the fan the fan has some loss converting electrical to mechanical (Expressed as heat) Some friction loss (Heat) and of course power is used moving the air.. (more friction loss so it too becomes heat) 100% efficient. it's all heat.

[ken56]

2oldman wrote:

ken56 wrote:
No CO2 to deal with

CO?

Um, yeah, CO.....we all make mistakes now and then.

[pianotuna]

Hi Ken,

I think you mean CO.

Unfortunately, as O2 levels start to drop, catalytic heaters start producing CO. They do not self extinguish either.

Love my oil filled electric fired radiator.

ken56 wrote:
Although it's oxygen depletion that is the issue and not CO2 with the Olympian Wave the possibility is there with the combustion not to mention the moisture issue related to combustion also. As for me, I will stick with electric heaters.

[pianotuna]

Not too useful for boondocking unless you wish to run a generator 24/7. I won't run a generator while sleeping.

Cummins12V98 wrote:
All I can say is "CheapHeat"

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Glad you are alive.

Would it not be better to have a window and a vent opened? That may create a chimney effect to better remove the combustion products from the RV.

I still won't use an unvented combustion heater, thanks. There are through the wall vented units that are more capable than the Wave units. I value the brain cells I still have left.

ICamel wrote:
Are you opening up too much ventilation? Manufacturer recommends 24 square inches. Two 18" tall windows opened 3/4" is all you need.

Hi Don(pianotuna).........I'm still alive!

[ICamel]

Wheeldog wrote:
Bought a new Olympian Wave 6 heater for my 9.5 ft S&S Camper. It isn’t doing very well at all.

It was about 45 outside and was 48 in the camper. It took 4 hours to bring the camper temp to 68 on the high setting. This is the second time I have experimented with the heater. Took about the same amount of time when I did it before. Once it hit 68 inside I turned it to medium. It would stay at 68 but not get any warmer.

In my latest 3rd test I had the wave 6 on high for 2 days. The temp got down to 30 last night and it was 55 in the camper this morning.

I am/was planning to use this to heat my camper this winter……..BUT……I’m thing if it’s doing such a poor job when the temps are in the 30's & 40’s whats going to happen when it gets down to zero?

I am at a low elevation, about 400 ft.

I am trying to figure out if it’s a bad heater, maybe I am doing something wrong, or it’s just the way they work??? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Something is wrong with either your Wave6 or the insulation of your camper.
I also use a Wave6 for comfort heating in a 9.5' Arctic Fox Camper.
Last week when the overnight temps were in the mid 40's to upper 30's the camper stayed around 72F, at an elevation of 4,500'.
Last November I camped at 5,200' where the daytime temperature never got above 41F and the nightime as low as 21F while the inside temp was very comfortable in the upper 60's. And FWIW I usually turn the temperature setting to low after the 10 minute High Temp warm up.
Are you opening up too much ventilation? Manufacturer recommends 24 square inches. Two 18" tall windows opened 3/4" is all you need.

Hi Don(pianotuna).........I'm still alive!

[Shearwater]

I assume that the catalytic heater is not supposed to produce any carbon monoxide. This may be true when the converter is working properly but what happens if it malfunctions? At a minimum, I would invest in a carbon monoxide detector but in fact I would never trust something like that under any circumstances.