Dickinson Marine heater

[uriedog]

Anybody using a Dickinson (or other) type propane or solid fuel heater?

I am thinking of putting one in, but would like to here some real world numbers of how they work.

[pjay9]

Your pics really show how it is set up. Good for you and I do hope it works well for you. Pls show us a wide pic so we can see the relationship of the layout. Now for improvements...isn't that always the case. :>) There has to be a way to have a pot of coffee sitting on top!!!! HEHE!

[uriedog]

Weight is about 20lbs. I will put a rail on the table side. Nothing needed in the front lots of room there

So far it is working pretty good. I think I will go to a bigger roof thimble. The temp on the chimney gets a little higher then I like.

I have only had 2 fires in since I put it in. Hopefully I'll get a good fire going tonight after work. Trying to burn it as much as possible to work out any bugs. It's was only -10c last night, so it's hard to get a good idea of how well it will heat the space.

In the second pic I had it burning charcoal. We are trying lots of different brands to see what works best. So far Kingsford seems to burn really long, but leaves a pile of ash (not buying that again). One of the other brands we tried left behind almost nothing. I burned it all day long on Saturday and only had about 1/2" of ash in the bottom.

[pjay9]

How much does it wiegh? What are you doing for front people protection...rail grate...guard? Looks like it belongs in a cabin. I just wonder about the safety of you not the TC.

[MORSNOW]

Nice stove euridog! Can't wait to see it installed, wood makes great heat!

[uriedog]

I am using a roof thimble for 4" pipe, and 3" non insulated stove pipe. Sheet steel with a one inch air gap on the walls behind and beside the stove.

I have a sheet behind it now, the same distance from the stove as it will be in the camper. Temp in front of the sheet is 130'F, temp behind the sheet is 68'f. So that should work fine.

It is set up now almost exactly as it will be in the camper, so only some minor changes might be needed once in the camper. I am glad I was able to test it all out before install, it would suck having a hole in the roof and finding out I need to change my set up.

So it's been running out in the garage for 9 hours now. It seems to be holding the garage at 20'c (68F) and it is -1'c (30'F) outside.

[garryk6]

That's some sweet fabrication! What are you using for an insulated stack? And what are you using for any type of heat shield? Can't wait it see it installed and in action!
Garry in AK

[uriedog]

All done! Hooked it up to the chimney in my garage for a test fire. Works really really well. It is heating up my 450 sq ft poorly insulated garage with no problem, the camper is less then 100 sq ft well insulated, I think it'll work well.

I'll paint and install it in the camper this week.

Picks Picks

[uriedog]

Now off to the garage to finish and test it out. Should be done in a couple hours!

[uriedog]

No problem. Here they are

[MORSNOW]

uriedog, You must be a registered user on the other forum to see your pictures, we cannot see them there.

[uriedog]

Major issues with the hydro flame in the camper DOH!! no problem, I'll just put my spare in. Doh!! major non repairable gas leak $$$$.

So after much research i decided to go with the Fatsco Tiny Tot. Small round cast iron. Only one issue, can't get one here before late January. Not soon enough, as our entire Christmas holiday is based on the camper being operational.

So given the fact that I am a fabricator for a living, I will just build my own. 6 x 6x 1/4" HSS 12" tall will give more volume then the Tiny Tot in the same amount of space. I can improve on their design by adding a vent to pull combustion air from outside instead of from the interior. And I can add a baffle inside to retain more heat also help keep the flue from getting too hot. Doors will be made from 1/4" plate so no warping there.

We plan to install it in the center of the camper, so it should be easy to distribute warm air around with a couple small computer fans

Got a good start last night as I have only one week to build, test and install it in the camper. All that's left for this morning are feet, hinges, and door seal.

So if all goes well, we will no longer be depending on Batteries to run the heater!

PICKS HERE

[wanderingbob]

On a 34 foot sailboat we had a Dickinson solid fuel heater , vented thru the deck . Worked very well . Instead of wood we carried charcoal that we stored in small popcorn bags .When a fire was needed you drop one bag in with a small squirt of lighter fuel and lit the bag . Never get your hands dirty and it would burn many hours .

[reed_cundiff]

garryK6

Our "home address" is New Mexico but we are full-time RVer's (Baja, Yucatan, Belize, Keys/Everglades, Labrador/Newfoundland, and one trip to Alaska.

We have run the Dometic A/C for 3.5 hours (nothing magic about 3.5 hours, that is just what we have done) on battery bank and solar. We primarily boondock as in dispersed/bush camping as noted so we are generally out hiking/ birding/ photography - or hanging out on the north side of rig on very hot day. However, as full-timers, we are "Goldilockers" as in "not to hot and not to cold, just right!" and so go north or up in elevation in hot months and reverse this in cold. We do have a 34' 5th wheel and a lot more area on the roof.

We generally use an Olympian Wave 8 for heating. The forced air heater is only used in the early morning for half an hour to get the cabin into the low 60's.We sleep in high 40's (when it is cold outside).

Our 235 W panels are 1 m x 1.5 m (39" x 63") and may be to large for your rig. There are 200 W panels that are 88 cm wide (34") that might be of greater utility on a truck camper. You could easily get two of these on the roof and perhaps a third. Just saw on one forum where somebody has two more hinged to the left and right side of rig that he lifts and secures with braces when camping.

The advantage to LFP battery systems is weight and size. You can store about 3 times the energy in the same sized battery box. 180 amp-hrs (2.4 kW-hrs) in a 12" x 13" x 8" box is quite a bit of actual energy since you can utilize 80% of that for a supposed 2000 to 3000 full cycles. Liberty Coaches has apparently cycled their test systems over 3000 times and are still going. Care is required in designing and fabricating a system. The best place to read on this is the Cruising and Sailing forum - where they have a thread that went 4000 posts before they ran out of memory. The primary questions are:

1. Managing the voltage level and whether you do this with a battery management system or limiting voltage. A lot of folks are using a limiter which allows no more than 3.4 V per cell.
2. Worries about charging below freezing. There is a problem with high current levels in charging at low temperature as do electric vehicle folks. Others ayd that with the charging levels generally found in solar/wind systems which are below 0.1 C (10% of maximum charge in watts), there should be little problem.

We left our rig at son's place at 8000' in mountains of northern NM and it got down to -20 F (-29 C) and it cycled for the three months we spent in Guatemala and Honduras with no apparent ill effects. Temperatures where you live are far more extreme but I doubt you do much RV'ing about in extreme times of the year.

Reed and Elaine

[garryk6]

reed cundiff wrote:
Weight and cube are not of considerable concern to motor coach owners. However, Liberty Coaches ($1.8 M and up) have gone completely to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) with a claimed weight savings of about 1100#

A 180 amp-hour (2.4 kW-hr) 12 V nominal battery (4 LFP cells) weighs about 60 to 80 pounds and provides 80% DOD for several thousand cycles. This would provide the equivalent of more than 150# of lead acid. The price of LFP is going down drastically just as the price of solar panels has gone by a tremendous amount in the last several years. Balqon sells one of these for about $2.5 K. This is scarcely a game changing cost for most people.

We full-time (and almost entirely dispersed camp/bush camp) and have 9.6 kW-hrs of LFP and 1.4 kW of solar on our 5th wheel. Our battery bank consists of four Manzanita Micro 180 amp-hr 12 V batteries (each is four 180 amp-hr CALB cells). These four batteries are in series to provide a battery bank at 48 V nominal. Each 12 V nominal battery weighs 64# and is 12" x 13" x 8" (29 kilos and 30.5 x 33 x 20 cm).

We have only tied into line power for 3 days in the last 18 months and have not used generator except to trial. A friend of ours has (will have shortly) 1.2 kW of solar on his truck camper/motorcycle hauler trailer combination.

We have a friend who will shortly have 1200 W of panels on his truck camper/ motorcycle trailer combo. He is looking into LFP
Reed and Elaine

Thanks for that input. Very interesting. One question about your setup, do you use your solar to run an electric heating system or the A/C since your sig shows NM? Or does it just power the propane fired heating system?
One issue for me is roof real estate and coach room for batteries.... But I am very interested in more info!