Heating your camper

[Leviticus907]

Leviticus....In the end I found for myself that diesel heat was just too expensive and during this research for alternatives to the standard Surburban forced air heat systems that burn through propane very fast on cold nights ...drive you crazy turning on/off all night and eat battery power that the Plat CAT was just an outstanding option as it uses very very little propane and battery power but functions quite well on those cold Montana nights. Mind you I still have the forced air Suburban in my Alaskan but only use it to quickly heat up the insides and then let the Plat Cat take over from there while turning off the Suburban the rest of the evening.

Here is quite possibly the finest description of an Alaskan buildout I have ever come across ...72 pages of excellent discussion of many different topics including heat: https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/alaskan-camper-build-up.9502/

Cheers to your efforts. I'm happy to help with any information I have.

Wow what a whirlwind that was. Page 16 almost had me in tears. It's like reading a life story. Took a few days to get through 72 pages but definitely worth it. And I think no matter what I will need propane for cooking. But I might still get a diesel heater just to give me something to do and modify. I'd like to get the hydronic heater and tap into for hot water in the camper

 

[Teknomad]

I've seen Chinese versions that include a water circuit but they're a bit more expensive. Once they refine their design and the price comes down I'll be looking into upgrading into one of those units.
Mr. McLucky who sounds like Scotty from the Star Trek remake has done some videos so you can see the potential :

Hopefully I'll have my brackets fabricated soon so I can send you some pics of my installation.
Enjoy

 

[enelson]

I looked hard at the Dickinson system and diesel heat but in the end had Bryan Wheat at Alaskan install a platinum ventilated heater from: http://www.ventedcatheater.com which runs on minimal propane and works fantastic. We installed it in one of the floor cabinets and vented it to the outside wall just behind the heater, I upgraded the propane tank in my 10' Alaskan cabover to 30 lbs. The Plat Cat heater is approved for RV use.

We have the PlatCat in our 8’ NCO. We had Alaskan install it instead of the Surburan furnace on our custom build. It is very efficient with propane use. It heats our little camper easily. It’s exhaust fan is a small DC fan and is not very loud. What is loud is the solenoid used to open / close the gas line. It is a very starling noise that wakes us up almost every time. It might be less of an issue if the heater was located further away from our bed in the camper. After 4 years of use with this heater we are going to switch to a Truma Vario Eco heater, which is a conventional propane furnace but are very quiet compared to U.S. furnaces. The Truma also has a sleep mode where the fan is run at lower speed.