# Blown Air Heating in Winter



## kapamp

we are wanting to use our motorhome to go skiing this winter, we have a blown air heating system (Truma 6002 EH) and we have heard that if you are not hooked up that the electrical aspect of the blown air heating systems rapidly drains your leisure batteries. can anybody offer any advice as to if this is true and what we can do to resolve it. people have suggested using a generator but i would be interested to find out if alternatives are avaialble.


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## Technophobe

Quite a lot of blown air heating systems are gas only - Trumatic combi's such as ours is (can get an electric option).

If electric is your option, you will drain the batteries quickly. I would suggest gas if no EHU but you will need to consider either carrying enough to cover your trip, getting a refillable system or using locally sourced cylinders with suitable adaptor.

An Efoy system (methanol powered silent fuel cell) MAY produce enough power but I am unsure - Clive Mott on this forum has had one on test recently.

Jon


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## johng1974

I could be wrong but I think Kapamp means the electricity used to turn the blower motors etc ?


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## geraldandannie

Technophobe said:


> Quite a lot of blown air heating systems are gas only - Trumatic combi's such as ours is (can get an electric option).


Ah, but they need electric (12V) to blow the air around, and this is what can drain the batteries. As far as I know, the electric heating options need hookup, as they're 240V ac only.

It all depends on how long you're staying in one place, and how long you're going away for, and how many 12V leisure batteries you have, and how much you use the heating, and how many other 12V devices you use when you're away. Practically, if you're in one place for more that a couple of days, and on one leisure battery, you're going to need some way of recharging your battery. A solar panel won't give much at that time if year, and could get covered in snow.

Gerald


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## Technophobe

geraldandannie said:


> Ah, but they need electric (12V) to blow the air around, and this is what can drain the batteries. As far as I know, the electric heating options need hookup, as they're 240V ac only.


Thanks Gerald (and Johng too) - I stand corrected.

Jon


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## johng1974




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## Boff

kapamp said:


> we are wanting to use our motorhome to go skiing this winter, we have a blown air heating system (Truma 6002 EH) and we have heard that if you are not hooked up that the electrical aspect of the blown air heating systems rapidly drains your leisure batteries.


Hi,

it does certainly drain your leisure batteries, but not "rapidly". We are regularily staying in places without hookup, also during (German! Alpine! :wink: ) winters. So outside temperatures always below -10 degrees C, sometimes -20, and Truma heater running permanently.

We have one 100 Ah leisure battery. And if it is full in the beginning, and we are not too wasteful with other electric appliances, then it is absolutely no problem to stay for 2 nights without hookup or running the engine. Sometimes, when we visit relatives in the alpine upland, I leave the van for 3-4 days on "standby", means heating set to about 15 degrees, all other consumers off. No hookup. Again, no problem.

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## Wizzo

Hi Kapamp,

We have a Carver gas room heater and Fanmaster with electric option. The Fanmaster can be used with the gas heater when on 12v and also as an electric heater when on hook-up. The fan and control alone, according to the instructions, use 1.5amps for the blown air aspect. This means that if you had the blown air heating on for say 10 hours a day you would have used 15 amps out of your leisure battery. Because of this I tend to use the Fanmaster very sparingly. The gas fire can be used in stand alone mode but it is more effective in blown air mode.

I think I would be struggling to get more than 4 days use out of my aging 85amp leisure battery in the winter.

JohnW


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## Sagedog

We ski in (should that be from or with :? ) our MH and it is great the cheapest way we have found and we regularly get 3 weeks in a season.

Heating if staying on an aire can be hard without a mains hookup as you have hinted there wll be a drain on the 12V. When we first used our Swift to ski we didn't run the generator for 3 days and the 12V served the blown air really well but my it did drain, on the 4th day we had to run the gennie in the eve to top up the batt. Not an issue as there is, as most MH Skiers will be on here to say, a sort of happy hour when we all use them Normally from 5pm to about 9pm.

Last year we were in our new Adria with better insulation and hardly really felt the cold we ran the gennie each night to really keep the batt to strength and wtch some DVDs. we were staying in the aire at Les Menuires 1850metres.

In short get a gennie and be one of the gang!!

Any questions about skiing with the MH don't hesitate to ask.
Have a look here Motorhome meets skiing


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## maddie

Hi we regularly go 3/4 days with a 110 amp hr battery but with the heater on the low blow setting and thermo-stat set mid way during day and a lower night time setting.The high speed gobbbled up batttery power after not much more than 1 day and was also painfully noisy.
terry
edit forgot to say Trauma gas blown air :lol:


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## eddied

Ciao, you will certainly use quite a bit of 12v. amps from your battery for winter blown air heating. Apart from normal Honda or similar generators, EFoy fuel cells have been mentioned. Another thought - Gasperini self energy system, a sort of automatic small generator :
www.egasperini.it

saluti,
eddied


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## timbop37

geraldandannie said:


> As far as I know, the electric heating options need hookup, as they're 240V ac only


I think Gerald is right. The Compass blown air heating, using electric as an optional extra, is for hookup only. As is the boiler, which can run on mains or gas, but not 12v.


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## 104477

Hi Kapamp
Our Rapido uses a Truma 6002EH and the EHU need is for when heating the hot water using the electric heating element (rather like that in an electric kettle). 
We were misinformed by the sales and handover guys that we needed EHU for blown air heating when using gas to heat the water!

Rather like maddie's name for it though, see my blog on replacing the 12v fan motor. :wink:



maddie said:


> edit forgot to say Trauma gas blown air :lol:


Regards Rob. :lol:


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## clodhopper2006

We just use our heater without switching the fan on. It might take a little longer to get the heat around the van but on gas it is so efficient it still warms up the van perfectly


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## Boff

clodhopper2006 said:


> We just use our heater without switching the fan on. It might take a little longer to get the heat around the van but on gas it is so efficient it still warms up the van perfectly


Hi,

the heater that kapamp has is, like mine, from the Trumatic C series. In the Trumatic C heaters the electronics has full control not only over the gas burner, but also over the fans. (Plurale because there are two fans, one for the burner and one to distribute the heat. There is no option to switch off the fan, they simply cannot operate without fan.

The bright side however is, that they have compared to other forced air heaters, the lowest 12V consumption, and are very efficient.

And thanks to the electronics they are "set and forget": The burner auto-ignites, and both burner and fans switch off completely when not needed.

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## madontour

It's true that regardless of the fuel used for the heating, running the fans for the blown air will put quite a load on the battery. 

Also bear in mind that cold is a leisure battery's worst enemy - When you are in a ski resort expect your battery's performance to be much poorer than normal.

If you are planning to stay for a significant time away from a hook up I think you'll need to do something to allow you to recharge the battery to support the blown air. 

For what it's worth we are planning to go skiing in the MH this year too. We're lucky in that our heater warms the living space by convection, we only use the blown air for a few minutes to warm the bathroom while we shower, but nevertheless we've fitted a second leisure battery and are planning to take a generator to make sure we can keep them charged.

Enjoy your skiing

michael


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## 104477

Just a note here, the Truma fan motor that blows the warm air uses about 0.2 amps (according to the blurb) unless I have read it all wrong! So as has been said, a couple of days on one leisure battery should be possible.

Having said that it will depend on other usage, lights etc, to this end we replaced our halogens with LED bulbs. The cost of which was equal to a good quality leisure battery, it was the weight of the second battery we can ill afford.

As with most things motorhoming one has to choose the option that is best suited to your needs and budget (both weight and fiscal). 

Regards Rob.


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## ruthiebabe

Hi Kapamp

so you've had clear explanation from Gerald Gerhard etc that it's the motor/fan elements of a gas heating system that drain your battery, and I agree that after about 2 days you will need to top that up. As regular skiers like Sagedog I can't state enough that you need to prepare well as you can't afford to run out.

What no-one has mentioned here is that when skiing it will go dark early so you will have more time using lights etc too and some beautiful modern vans have some very ambient but wasteful lighting! Small point but think about what else you'll be using power for.

The first thing you should consider is fitting an extra leisure battery, or even two. We have two in total but we also have 2 solar panels which top it up well (and yes of course that varies according to weather, but you normally get some sun in the Alps) you need to brush the snow off though. They are a long term investment and not cheap, so if it doesn't appeal you will need a genny (or a fuel cell) as your emergency backup if staying in one place. And even if moving on you'd need a lsignificant journey to fully top up.

HTH, Ruth.


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## asprn

ruthiebabe said:


> we also have 2 solar panels which top it up well (and yes of course that varies according to weather


My understanding is that solar panels work not just on direct sunlight, but in cloudy conditions too. Ours certainly seems to.

Dougie.


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## ruthiebabe

yes we get some charge just less


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## kapamp

many thanks for all your advice, i will sit down and discuss with my hubby what we want to buy to prepare us for hopefully the snowy slopes of europe.

if we decide to by a generator are any particular models and makes better than the others?


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## Technophobe

kapamp said:


> if we decide to by a generator are any particular models and makes better than the others?


I've been looking into generators recently - my preferred option is the range from Honda - not the cheapest, but Honda engineering - say no more!!

Jon


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## maddie

Hi Honda or Kipour suitcase genny's
On the subject of how long--why not try the heating on the drive then you will have a good idea as to how long batts and gas last,this would only cost the price of gas used and eliminate the unsure/worry bit as all vans are diffrent. :wink: 
terry


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## Cordyline

In our experience (during 3 and a half months in the French Alps last season in a Sprinter conversion) we ran the Propex blown-air heater for most waking hours in the van and were ok for charge for about 3 days stationary. By driving to and from car parks and ski lifts each day we could last over a week without needing a full charge on a campsite. HOWEVER - a lot of motorhomers will advise running the heating on a frost-setting all night, but we found this unnecessary as long as you're warm and snug enough in bed. Assuming you don't need an early, energetic start in the morning simply switch the heating on upon waking and don't get out of bed till the van's warm enough!

On the subject of generators.... we chose the Kipor purely based on initial outlay. I still stand by that decision as we couldn't justify spending the money at the time BUT if you want a reliable generator that will actually generate electricity for you when you want it then bite the bullet and buy a Honda. Our Kipor is currently waiting for us to risk shipping it to an engineer for repair after just 2 months of regular use. Really must get that sorted before this winter season if we want to run laptops....


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