Electricity free auxilliary heating ideas?

Joeson1

Guest
Hello,

I wondered if anyone had any ideas for heating that wouldn't use any electrical power, and that wouldn't involve gas...

I am fulltiming in Scotland, and it is freezing at the moment. I've got an amazing eberspacher diesel heater which I love; it gets the van really toasty and uses hardly any fuel... However... It really does deplete my leisure batteries meaning I have to drive or generate every other day if not more. It also means I can't keep the van warm at night, and with temperatures dropping below zero, I am worried about my water boiler freezing up.

I basically don't want to use gas as I have little in the way of additional gas storage, and I have a small supply of free waste oil.

It's a self converted van and there is virtually no free ground space, but there is room higher up for a flue to come out the roof. I was thinking about fabricating a small oil burner, either drip fed or perhaps even using a wick (I've attached a drawing of the sort of thing I was thinking). This would have to be relatively small and light weight so I could rigidly suspend it from the roof, with a small flue. I wouldn't expect it to necessarily to keep the van toasty, but be enough to stop things freezing at night. I was thinking maybe I could add fins around it, maybe a small low-powered fan to distribute warmth...

I'd love to hear if anyone had any better ideas or suggestions - I can't find that anyone else has attempted something like this, and that doesn't fill me with much confidence!

Best wishes,

Joe
 

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Free Heat

I have heard that sex can make a lot of heat:) I would not know as Im way past that sort of thing.

Hope you get some sorted soon, heat that is. :lol-049::lol-049::shag:
 
while searching the net a while back I did come across a small wall hung solid fuel heater, like a miniture wood burner type thing, it was designed to be used in boats so should be safe enough in a motorhome.
 
gallery 050.jpg this little fella kept a 9 metre bus warm,so as you can imagine,you could go a lot smaller,something like a 6kg fire extinguisher would do it,and with metal baffles can be fitted in all sorts of places.the one shown was an afterthought ,which is why its sort of hanging there !
 
Have a good read of this site. They claim to make an oil burner that doesn't need compressed air or electric to work.

Waste Oil Burners

The only issue i see whilst it doesn't require compressed air or electrcity it does look like it has a high oil consumption rate to me.
 
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I'm no expert but have you thought about a solar panel to keep the battery topped up? I know the sun is low at this time of year but mine seems to working quite well at the moment.
 
n brown said:
View attachment 10380 this little fella kept a 9 metre bus warm,so as you can imagine,you could go a lot smaller,something like a 6kg fire extinguisher would do it,and with metal baffles can be fitted in all sorts of places.the one shown was an afterthought ,which is why its sort of hanging there !
Click to expand...

Something like this would be ideal if you could find some floor space, drip fed paraffin probably best. All over Iran when I lived there they used very simple drip feed paraffin heaters, and believe me it gets cold just north of Teheran. The longer the flue the more radiated heat you get..
Brian
I ''ll see if I can find some info on the net.
 
A DIY drip feed oil burner going to use a lot more fuel plus wont have all the safety features that your eberspacher currently has. You need a lot of confidence to run one of these without constant safety attendance. A wood burner is very labour intensive to keep running and cleaned when you already have such a good heater installed instead. I would only consider these in place of not having access to an eberspacher heater.

SO your issue is really only the 50w it needs to run the eberspacher and i would look at solar panels and or a small wind turbine. Ebay has a few 500 watt turbines for about £250 which should give you 30w to 100w even in the smallest winds as of course 500w is the max power in strong wind conditions. OR a 250w solar panel is about 200 quid delivered will give about 4-5 hours of power around 100w in bright winter sun during December. You still need your main engine top ups occasionally but will improve greatly as sun improves the rest of the year.

You may notice in the last couple of years a lot of road traffic signage has an 100w solar PLUS a small 250w wind turbine on top to give some power in almost all conditions as a hybrid solution. This is the best solution for any off grid camping/remote free energy source.
 
I don't think your idea will work too well.

Seeing as heat rises, you want to input your heat lower down so it permeates through the whole van. That system will be quite good at keeping your head warm and heating up the roof lining, but not good at much else. Even a fan wouldn't distribute it very well from that height.
 
Thread last two replies make a lot of since. I am afraid that I have not been able to find exactly what I was looking for on the net. There is a lot of info available amongst the boating fraternity who are quite an imaginative bunch. I remember one of our local club members swearing by a small solid fuel stove on a 24ft wooden boat. Unfortunately he is no longer with US so I can't ask him. No he didn't burn with his boat!
 
An interesting thread - I'm after some kind of wood burner for my Tranny van, which is an unoffical self-conversion and where the fixtures and fittings are not actually fixed or fitted, but all removable and I haven't really got a layout except large dog cage behind front seats, with a board on top which doubles up as a work space for cooking on camping stove, and several rows of shelving the full length of one side, and a high shelf the full length of the other. My bed is a sunlounger which folds away or doubles as a seat.

I need something fairly cheap to build or buy, which runs on scavenged wood, and is not too big and which ideally could stand on a wheel arch, so that it's not too close to the dogs cage, and the area of the van where he is most. I already have a patched hole in the roof where a leaking whirlygig vent was removed but it would involve having a dog leg bend in a flue as the hole is pretty central above the rear axle. It also needs to be removable so that, for insurance purposes, the van is a van - if that makes sense.

I've wondered about making (or having made) some kind of flue which would fit over the top of my storm kettle as that would be perfect for what I have in mind.

I've also just picked up a freebie 6kg (blue) calor gas bottle so I'm thinking of swopping it for a red one and getting one of these Propane Gas Space Calor Heater Patio Bottle Mounted Sealey LP13 GO NEXTDAY £3.99 | eBay

I know it should only be used in a ventilated area but I have another whirlybird roof vent which is always left open because I use a camping stove for cooking and heat, and also have a carbon monoxide alarm which I do check regularly. I use a clip on battery operated hand fan to circulate the heat from the camping stove after I discovered how much warmer it was at the top of the van than at the bottom. I never put the camp stove on for heat once I'm in bed at night in case I fall asleep with it on. And it would only be used for short periods (maybe half an hour or so) at a time, just to get the temp of the van up at night time or first thing in the morning.

Keep posting the ideas and suggestions - it's useful food for thought for me aswell as for Joe.
 
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Wood burner is the way ahead

I have a davey hotpot fitted in my van and use my van all year round.

I can burn most things in it to keep me and the kids toasty, would not advise plastic though.

works a treat but found that the very back of the van was still cold so have just invested in a heat powered fan from amazon. neither option is cheap but together they work brill.

The amount of money I've saved on gas has met that they have payed for them selves within a year.

My next task is to make an larger top for the stove so I can cook on it.

Squibby.
 
Hi Robmac, I did think about a gas cylinder stove but would need to find a welder etc to do it for me, and then I thought that I already have something very similar in the form of the storm kettle which doesn't get used much this time of year, but would be perfect for the job as it's portable, dismantle-able, multi-functional and the only additional cost would be a flue and fitting flue. It gives out a fair bit of heat and provides hot water at same time.

I'm thinking of some sort of fixed flue, with a sliding collar which will fit over the top (chimney) of the storm kettle. In fact only a small part of the flue needs to be fixed, the very top bit which goes through the roof - the rest could be dismantled when not required, but easy enough to slot together when needed. I think the draw would be such that there wouldn't be any problems with smoke escaping through the unsealed joints of the flue.

Is this a totally mad idea or could it be feasible?

This is my storm kettle Ghillie Kettle

and here it is in action outside the van http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww45/whitevanwoman-photos/wild camp 250312/DSCF5988.jpg
 
Hi WVW!

Personally, I'd have a go myself, but for "legal" reasons, will not recommend it here! :)

We'll start off with the negatives, just to get them out of the way and also to let folk know what they might be letting themselves in for. ( Terrible grammar, but ye know what I mean, I hope).

Dangers of a hot combustion stove in the abode:

a) fire risk
b) burn risk
c) gas fume risk
d) smoke damage and dust risk.

I am not au fait with all this carbon monoxide poisoning stuff, so cannot really comment about it. Certainly, I must have ingested and inhaled tons of dangerous combustion fumes and dirty particles over the decades.
Besides leaving me smelling of smoke and probably addicted to it as well, I couldn't estimate by how many years it will shorten my life.
Suffice it to say that I'm still about and don't intend making any drastic changes any time soon. But who knows? I could end up gassing myself, but that's a risk I'll take.

Flues are a bit of a nuiscance at the best of times; one good thing is there's no upstairs on most camper vans so some of the danger from leakage may ( or may not be) lessened.
My view is that 6 inch twinwall is fine. I don't think bends make a huge negative impact. In fact, I tend to favour the old L shape, as I believe it improves the draw.

Outside, we are supposed to have plenty of clearance above the roof. Trouble with this is clearance levels, when passing under height restrictions like low bridges etc.

I want to look into some sort of telescopic device. If my experiments produce dividends, I'll let you know what I found.

Whatever way we look at it, keeping warm with artificial heating is an age old problem that never went away. It's just aggravation and has to be endured for the months of winter in the northern climes.

People say they'll carry this and they'll carry that but, in the end, it's all a damn nuiscance and/or a lot of expensive outlay.

Even if we say we'll keep the heat source outside, there is still the inevitable fuelling and ignition which mechanical devices do overcome at a price.

Maybe, park up near a hot-air blower for the duration would be the cheeky answer! All easier said than done, I'm afraid.
In the meantime, have a go with some old piping through an opening and see whether the resulting mess is tolerable. ;)Then you can think about investing in a "permanent" solution or just ditch the idea.
Also, as has been mentioned, check out what the boaters do. They live in confined spaces and are usually pretty shipshape with their set-ups.

all the best,

sean rua.
 
Canal boats have a suitable insulated feedthrough for their smoke stack with a removable top stack (needed to remove because of bridges etc), but the length aids smoke extraction and helps develop a positive draught.

Floor to ceiling on narrowboat about the same as a van so similar technology used.

Floor mounted heater will suck any damp air from floor level up the chimney, but be carefull if you've sealed up the van! You'll use up all of your air quickly!!

Better to have an air source sealed from the inside of the van is my thought, stops sucking warm air out and reduces draughts IF the fire has a reasonable seal to the van.

So I recon you should checkout some of the canal boat chandlers

Carbon Monoxide is deadly!! Look at the past summer when quite a few campers either died or were very ill through it, and if you smoke, you've already got a head start on the build up of CO!!
 
The problem you would have using the Ghillie kettle would be that with the flue attached you would not be able to tip the kettle to empty it and once boiled dry it would soon burn through the metal. They are a great bit of kit though!
 
Cost of running Eberspacher

I thought of running my Eberspacher on a low setting during the freezing nights while my van's parked up in the garden but am a bit worried as to the cost.

Would it be cheaper to use a fan heater or oil filled radiator on the mains?

I have access to plenty of seasoned wood but don't fancy cutting a flue hole in the roof of the van & there is also the fire & dirt hazard.

Anyone got any idea on the amount of diesel that an Eberspacher uses?
 
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