Re: 1974 Model 05 Silver Eagle
Chadluc said:
... or the idea i had that seemed the best was to get 2 rv furnace's. I could have a furnace for front and 1 for rear. I could turn on 1 furnace just to heat the rear, second to heat the front when i wake up....any idea's? I like the catalytic heater idea
You could use one RV furnace. Put the thing in the basement. Build a plenum and duct to your "rooms". If you pulled the OTR a/c unit out of the Eagle, you should be able to get to roughly the backside of the rear axle in the center (you should be able to "squeeze" around the cabling and linkages to get a custom duct thru there). So you should be hitting your "bedroom". Or put your closets over the rear wheelwell and duct thru the floor of the closets. Use a vent that you can close to shut off other "rooms" Downside to the RV furnace is that they use a lot of fuel (mine doesn't but it's an older model). They are also noisy. Our furnace wakes me up every time it kicks on. I thought ours was loud but we are next to a newer Fiver. Their furnace sounds like Pratt-Whitney when they would test the jet engines. And it kicks on all night long... every 15 minutes, roars for 10 and is silent for 5. I have heard that an RV furnace can blow thru a 20# tank in 1 week. and that is in North FL (which does get cold). My biggest complaint is that they will "blow out" the chambers before the burner will kick on. That means they are blowing cold air inside before the burner kicks on and the heat starts up. Ours will flat heat us out. But the temp swing isn't fun.
I think a mix of heaters would be best. There again this is a subject the you need to look at how you will use your bus. In our case, we stay in Parks mostly. Our electric is usually either included in our site rent or it's metered. Since 2006, when we started fulltiming, LP has consistently been higher to use than electric. So we use electric space heaters with the thermostat on the furnace turned down to where it will kick on when the electric heaters can't keep up.
If you boondock or wallydock a lot or in very cold weather, then a propane heater will be preferred. Using a generator to heat with is not very efficient. If your propane heater uses fans to move the air (like RV furnaces) you run a very high risk of killing your house battery bank overnight. A vented cat or blueflame would be a good choice in that instance. Also you could heat the room you would use most.
Heating needs to be tailored to fit your needs. A back up in case one system "fails" (like if the power goes out or you run out of LP... or it breaks) would be good to plan for.
For us... Electric heater with fan (faux wood stove) will be in the fireplace mantle (living room)... we can turn it on for a slightly chilly morning or evening. Small electric heater in the bathroom/shower area so that that particular area can be closed off and a shower can be taken in a warm room. Also since our clothes closet in in the same section it can be a warmed up dressing area. The original fan forced rear heat exchanger will be powered with a LP water heater (filled with anti-freeze) with an electric
"hott rod" or
lightening rod added to it (it's an old RV water heater) and ducted thru the bus. That way we can use either the campground electric or LP. We will put the fans on two switches so that we can shut down one fan to conserve battery power over night. The original fans as well as the hot coolant circulating pump run on 12vDC. Our A/C unit will use the same duct work as the heat system. At some point we MIGHT put a solar panel on the roof to handle the 12vDC stuff... or not.
