LP furnace

[cody]

I'm looking into areas of concern for my bus so that I can possibly head to Tn for the colder months and one area is my bays in the bus, I'm looking at adding an LP furnace so that I can run a duct to the basement to keep the pipes from freezing in the cold arctic weather a person will most likely encounter in tenn. lol, I may possibly even need 2 furnaces, depends on if I can sneak up on a S&S while they are sleeping to get a good deal on one or 2 of them, because I've priced new ones and even surplus ones and it would stretch the already short finances so now I'm looking for salvage yards where one or two might be had cheaply, so my question is for those that use them how nasty is the LP usage, do I need to be connected to a pipeline, I presently have 2-30# tanks, would I be looking at larger tanks, I realize it depends on the insulation and other great stuff but I'm just trying to get ideas, right now I'm using a ventless wall heater that works great and ever since I took the batteries out of the detectors it hasn't bothered them at all, actually it doesn't bother them with the batteries either lol, I just thought I'd throw that out there for the purists that believe we're all going to die if we don't kill ourselves first lol.

[John Z]

Hi Cody. My limited experience is those things consume both propane and house batteries at an alarming rate. And they are noisy. I quickly installed a ventless blue flame heater and have never used the furnace since. Sorry i don't have some concrete numbers for you.

[cody]

John, that one of the things I'm hearing that they are noisy and thirsty, I already have a ventless heater in the living room but it's with the pads and not the blue flame variety, most of my piping is within the heated area of the bus but my concern is the holding tanks and fresh water tank I've thought about electric pipe wrap but that wouldn't be practical with the tanks, I'm not sure if they would actually freeze or not, just trying to second guess my options here. 

[Tenor]

Cody,
I run 2 19.5kbtu furnaces and it works great.  I used suburbans, since they only require a small hole in the wall for intake and exhaust.  One is for the bathroom/bunk area and the rear bedroom.  The other is for the front living area.  I just spent 4 nights in it in the Metro Detroit area last week.  No problems.  Not too noisy.  Ive been down to the 30's in temps so far and I've had no issues with being warm in the coach.  At night, I'll either not run the front one, or keep at a lower  temp than the rear.  During the day, I do the opposite.  Poor man's zone heat!  Additionally, you use less propane in smaller furnaces and you have redundancy in case of emergency.  Good luck!

Glenn

[cody]

As far as the noise factor goes, I'm wondering if installing one in the bay of the bus would work out, it would be quieter cause I wouldn't hear the fans running in the upstairs and I could duct the heat to the upstairs area using insulated ducting and use floor registers and then have one set up to blow into the bay area directly, the exhaust could be ducted thru to the outside the same as any other install.  now to get an idea on the amount of gas usage lol.  Would it be cost effective to swap out my 30# tanks and put in 40# tanks, I really don't have any idea on how drastic the gas usage is with them.

[Eagle]

Cody Propane has anywhere from 91330 BTU's per Gallon to 103000 BTU's depending on whose chart you look at.

[Madmike]

Ventless should not be used at altitudes above 3,000 ft. They don't even sell them in colorado.

[JWallin]

We use an Apollo hydroheat system and have a duct into the utility bay.  We have been fulltiming in Colorado for two years. Our utility bay is insulated (only about R-3) and we haven't frozen yet, and last December we were as low as -15 at nite for two weeks. We stayed about 77 degrees inside.

[luvrbus]

Cody, another option for you is the Jim Phypers  simple hydronic heating for RV's using a hot water heater,heat exchanger and a pump I will give you a pump forgot were I read about it but I know some in Quartzsite use his system and it works if no one else can provide a link I'll do some checking for you


good luck

[cody]

Unfortunately, webasto's and hydroheats are beyond the meager budget I have right now, I'm just emerging from a deep dark medical financial hole.  Thats why I'm concidering sneaking up on S&S's at walmart on dark nights with a wrench lol.  

[Lin]

My guess would be that if you install propane furnaces in the bays ducting the heat up and exhaust out, you would be covered for freezing.  The duct to the house would, of course, be insulated.  But the heat from the exhaust duct and the furnace itself should be all you need for that particular bay, especially if you use something like polyiso board on the doors. 

Getting furnaces cheap is another issue.  If you get lucky, you might find them on Craigslist.  I just looked and saw a bunch of them for under $200; many were under $100.  The problem will be finding them close enough.  I don't know if people would be willing to ship them.  You could use one of the universal search sites like this one:  http://craiglook.com/all.html?q=

[luvrbus]

Cody, www.solarhaven.org  shows Jim Phypers setup it uses the hot water heater for the boiler it is pretty simple

good luck

[Slow Rider]

http://www.solarhaven.org/HPArticle.htm

[TomC]

I have a 35,000btu Atwood Propane furnace with four outlets.  It heats well (28 degrees is the coldest) and while it does make some noise, I wouldn't classify it as noisy.  I am going to mount mine in the basement of the truck-the only thing with that kind of installation is that you need to have a return vent in the living area.  Otherwise the furnace would be working to hard grabbing the cold fresh air from the outside.

I just replaced mine after 15 years of use-because I left it on and it ran for two weeks straight-the fan motor didn't like that.  They also make two speed furnaces which would be even quieter. 

I have a 20gal (100#) chassis mount propane tank.  The only propane appliances are my stove/oven and the furnace.  In general, I fill the tank once a year (generally do 30 days a year traveling).  Good Luck, TomC

[robertglines1]

tuff one Cody ..Tenn is a little farther south than us but last winter we had 25 days it didn't get above freezing..would say heat lamp in bay would keep tanks and pump from freezing.maybe on a 120 volt thermostat..keep bay about 35..secret is having it air tight..would hope Tenn winters would be average 10 degrees warmer than here on the Ohio River..very seldom below zero here..lots of overnight in teens..don't know first hand about LP usage..we heat with it at home over 5,000sq ft about 1,200 for heating season.late Oct Thru march into April a little about 6 1/2 months with 2 months heavy usage--jan and Feb..Hope this helps  ..go south young man----Bob