heat

how will i get heat if i'm boondocking it with no electric for 7 days or more? sharon

[grill-n-go]

You can consider propane catalytic heaters. Camping world has Olympian and Buddy Heaters. Coleman also has some offerings in this category.

A lot of folks are of the opinion that this type of heater is not safe for use inside of your TM, and IMHO some of the arguments have merit. You will need to decide for yourself what you are comfortable with.

We've had the small Buddy heater for over two years and I still have a pulse.
We vent our TM appropriately whenever we do use this heater.

Do a search for "catalytic", you'll find plenty of information on these heaters.

[Leslie & Nick]

Originally Posted by sharon

how will i get heat if i'm boondocking it with no electric for 7 days or more? sharon

If you don't want to go the catalytic heater route, get yourself a gasoline powered generator to power the furnace blower motor, and use your propane tanks for heating fuel. We do just that. Unless the weather is very cold, two full propane tanks should last you several days, maybe a week if you're careful. Try to seal all the air infiltration leaks in the trailer (near the door, alongside the bed(s), etc). Stopping the air leaks makes a big difference!

Nick

[B_and_D]

We also bought a Mr. Heater Portable Buddy (the small one). We've used it a lot this winter. It runs on 1-lb propane bottles. You need to be careful with it, but it does have a tipover shutoff and also a low-oxygen shutoff. If we go camping when it's going to be cold at night, we bring along our down comforters. They keep us very warm at night. Between the down comforters and the Mr. Heater Buddy, we stay warm enough. However, the Mr. Heaters are not supposed to work over 7000'. Over 7000' you would need an Olympian or similar catalytic heater rated for that elevation.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave it on while you're asleep, but you could run it until you are ready to sleep and then turn it on again in the morning when you wake up. Cooking in the morning, using the gas appliances, warms up the trailer too.

[fcatwo]

I googled propane cat heaters and found a lot of discussion about them. You may want to do the same. Some models apparently have a low-oxygen shut-off switch so it may come down to your risk tolerance -- and trust in safety switches. The only deaths I found in my brief research involved cat heaters in tents in which a vent flap or similar blew shut during the night. obviously that is not a frequent occurance as people here use them and live tell us about it.

We had a non-electricity-dependent propane heater in a canvas popup years ago that was vented to the outside and worked well. I don't find them in any current catalogs however so maybe they had safety issues as well -- oxygen depletion perhaps.

[fcatwo]

I'm also aware of a case where an electric heater caused a fire in a motorhome. We were in a private campground across the river from Manhattan and a couple of construction workers a few spaces down came home late in a jovial mood, turned on their free-standing elec heater and went to bed. One of them got hot during the night, flung his blanked off and went back to sleep. Unfortunatley the blanket landed on the elec heater, smoldered for a while before igniting and stunk up the place pretty good before one of them woke up. The second guy was not a happy camper -- and we became aware that murphy never sleeps.

[Denny_A]

Originally Posted by fcatwo

.....snip....The second guy was not a happy camper -- and we became aware that murphy never sleeps.

Nyuk-nyuk. At least he was an optimist!

Denny_A