Last summer, after spending many nights traveling around, mainly for mountain biking with our TT (300+ nights in 5-6 years), we wanted a bit less luxury and more flexibility/options and moved over to a truck camper. Ended up finding a 1983 Bigfoot which matched my F150 well (1000lbs stock/dry). It was a cheap experiment. I gutted it and rebuilt it as essentially a hard shell tent for basic camping (still in progress). It's worked well, the comforts are obviously down compared to our 25ft TT (that I had set up with SOLAR, etc), but the places we can access are incredible.
I think we are hooked on the camper life. Actually, I'd really like to get into the Van life, but having at least AWD, preferably 4x4 is essentially mandatory where I live and want to travel. After doing the rebuild of my camper, I am also not really interested in building up a van, even if I could find/convert something in AWD/4x4.
Last weekend we did our first winter camping trip for some backcountry ski touring and visiting friends skiing at a resort 5 hours up the road. It was great, but obviously heating/drying out stuff was tough. I had my small 1000w honda generator running a small space heater (on low) and a small buddy heater running before bed, or during breakfast. Nothing running during the night, mainly for security on the generator and even with a CO detector, wasn't a fan of the buddy heater running over night (being a voly firefighter and chemist). Condensation was a problem.
So moving forward, I'm seriously considering 'moving' up. That will be a F350/3500 SRW truck and buying an appropriate 4 season truck camper.
Just here asking for advice from those who travel during the winter months with a factory camper. Our winter trips would likely be 3-7 days.
How are you dealing with heating? Ideally we are camping without services, but obviously paying to plug in for a couple nights might have to be a reality (not that hard to find in ski towns). Biggest battery bank you can get to last 3-4 nights (400 amp/hr)? Solar seems to be very ineffective in winter. Install a secondary heater that doesn't require a fan? Ski storage? We aren't adverse to sleeping at below freezing (-10 seems to a limit), but we need to be comfortable and heat up the camper now and then, especially to dry stuff out.
Any advice is appreciated. Slowly combining everything I'm reading to make the best choices for us.
I think we are hooked on the camper life. Actually, I'd really like to get into the Van life, but having at least AWD, preferably 4x4 is essentially mandatory where I live and want to travel. After doing the rebuild of my camper, I am also not really interested in building up a van, even if I could find/convert something in AWD/4x4.
Last weekend we did our first winter camping trip for some backcountry ski touring and visiting friends skiing at a resort 5 hours up the road. It was great, but obviously heating/drying out stuff was tough. I had my small 1000w honda generator running a small space heater (on low) and a small buddy heater running before bed, or during breakfast. Nothing running during the night, mainly for security on the generator and even with a CO detector, wasn't a fan of the buddy heater running over night (being a voly firefighter and chemist). Condensation was a problem.
So moving forward, I'm seriously considering 'moving' up. That will be a F350/3500 SRW truck and buying an appropriate 4 season truck camper.
Just here asking for advice from those who travel during the winter months with a factory camper. Our winter trips would likely be 3-7 days.
How are you dealing with heating? Ideally we are camping without services, but obviously paying to plug in for a couple nights might have to be a reality (not that hard to find in ski towns). Biggest battery bank you can get to last 3-4 nights (400 amp/hr)? Solar seems to be very ineffective in winter. Install a secondary heater that doesn't require a fan? Ski storage? We aren't adverse to sleeping at below freezing (-10 seems to a limit), but we need to be comfortable and heat up the camper now and then, especially to dry stuff out.
Any advice is appreciated. Slowly combining everything I'm reading to make the best choices for us.
Kayteg1 wrote:
My conversion is Sprinter van, who has front seats pedestal and that is where the heater fits perfectly.
My van already had aux fuel pickup, so I used it, but reading how low temperatures affect heater priming and that the aux pickup ends at about 1/4 fuel tank, I am keeping the heater tank as spare.
It is 5 kW heater. I don't have much use on it yet, so don't know all the specs, but when running on low speed, it suppose to draw ca 1 amp.
The 5 l (1 gallon, 1 quart) tank suppose to last for 2-3 days.
tons of youtube videos about those heaters.
It seems those units are really working well for a lot of the van crowd. I bet it won't be long until the camper crowd turns on to them. IMO, a much better option then wood. Way more heat for a given cubic inch of stored fuel. Plus they blow so one could rig it to heat basement model TC's.
With the diesel heaters being dryer to heat with then the propane furnaces, they'd be worth trying to install in place of the traditional furnace.
Interested to hear your experience with your 5000 btu unit in a van. I've seen a few van'ers recommend staying with the smaller one as it it gets run on 'HI' more, burning off the soot build up. With the 5000, they were running it lower. That lead to soot build up and failure. (Some didn't realize they just had to clean it until after they tossed it out....opps!) So it has to be cleaned or run full blast for a while to burn off the soot.
So if you can, please keep us posted how it's working for you.
Me, wife, and now 11 year old have been winter camping and skiing in our TC for the last 10 years. The majority of our ski camping has been in the parking lot at Mount Baker during Oregon spring break. Baker isn't too high of elevation, but some years there were some low 20F nights, other years it rained half the time and dumped powder the other half. So yeah, it's impossible with whatever heating system to keep condensation down. You can only hope for a sunny day, towels, and your furnace cranking to keep the family warm.
Anywho.
Started with a 3/4 ton Chevy with a Western Wilderness 9' camper. Awesome camper, can't say enough about it. After what I've put it through it's amazing everything still works.
I was always a couple of hundred pounds over in the 3/4 ton when we were all loaded with ski stuff, so upgraded to a 1 ton dually.
I'm was thinking of getting a newer, slightly larger/heavier camper with a slide out, but the more I think about it, a lighter non slide version of what I have now probably makes more sense for some of the situations we take it in.
I always kid that our camper is a tent on wheels, that's the purpose, a warm place to sleep, the rest of the time we should be fishing, surfing, or skiing, or just being outdoors. It's worked out great for us. I think you're on the right track, get a 3/4 ton with good wheels and tires, a newer lighter weight hardside camper with a good furnace and you're good to go. Oh, and a generator, something to charge the battery during the day.
Here's another from Hoodoo, our first trip to the snow in it. It was a good day up at Hoodoo, they have electrical, so if you bring a space heater you're set.
edit: that moment you realize you just posted to a 2 year old thread 🙂
Anywho.
Started with a 3/4 ton Chevy with a Western Wilderness 9' camper. Awesome camper, can't say enough about it. After what I've put it through it's amazing everything still works.
I was always a couple of hundred pounds over in the 3/4 ton when we were all loaded with ski stuff, so upgraded to a 1 ton dually.
I'm was thinking of getting a newer, slightly larger/heavier camper with a slide out, but the more I think about it, a lighter non slide version of what I have now probably makes more sense for some of the situations we take it in.
I always kid that our camper is a tent on wheels, that's the purpose, a warm place to sleep, the rest of the time we should be fishing, surfing, or skiing, or just being outdoors. It's worked out great for us. I think you're on the right track, get a 3/4 ton with good wheels and tires, a newer lighter weight hardside camper with a good furnace and you're good to go. Oh, and a generator, something to charge the battery during the day.
Here's another from Hoodoo, our first trip to the snow in it. It was a good day up at Hoodoo, they have electrical, so if you bring a space heater you're set.
edit: that moment you realize you just posted to a 2 year old thread 🙂
Sorry. My copier did not updated. It is fixed now.
If you own diesel, the cleaner is highly recommended as well.
If you own diesel, the cleaner is highly recommended as well.
My conversion is Sprinter van, who has front seats pedestal and that is where the heater fits perfectly.
My van already had aux fuel pickup, so I used it, but reading how low temperatures affect heater priming and that the aux pickup ends at about 1/4 fuel tank, I am keeping the heater tank as spare.
It is 5 kW heater. I don't have much use on it yet, so don't know all the specs, but when running on low speed, it suppose to draw ca 1 amp.
The 5 l (1 gallon, 1 quart) tank suppose to last for 2-3 days.
tons of youtube videos about those heaters.
My van already had aux fuel pickup, so I used it, but reading how low temperatures affect heater priming and that the aux pickup ends at about 1/4 fuel tank, I am keeping the heater tank as spare.
It is 5 kW heater. I don't have much use on it yet, so don't know all the specs, but when running on low speed, it suppose to draw ca 1 amp.
The 5 l (1 gallon, 1 quart) tank suppose to last for 2-3 days.
tons of youtube videos about those heaters.
