Electric and heating questions

moldmkr · 10-18-2008, 03:01 AM

Left yesterday morning for South Dakota. Temperature outside was about 48 degrees. The dash heat heated the front of the coach but it took a long time to get the rest heated up. The coach was cold because we did not have any heat on while it was sitting in driveway.
Question is, how can you heat the rest of the coach while driving down the Hwy. Do you run your thermostat heater on gas or electric or is there somehow to draw heat from the engine.
Another question, can you run the inverter to recharge a battery on a portable DVD player as you are going down the HWY and will the engine keep the house batteries charged while doing this?
We are plugged into 50 AMP service and the load meter on the control panel does not show any amps being used. I have the coffee maker going right now and it does not show anything.
Thanks in advance for all your help

moldmkr · 10-18-2008, 03:01 AM

Left yesterday morning for South Dakota. Temperature outside was about 48 degrees. The dash heat heated the front of the coach but it took a long time to get the rest heated up. The coach was cold because we did not have any heat on while it was sitting in driveway.
Question is, how can you heat the rest of the coach while driving down the Hwy. Do you run your thermostat heater on gas or electric or is there somehow to draw heat from the engine.
Another question, can you run the inverter to recharge a battery on a portable DVD player as you are going down the HWY and will the engine keep the house batteries charged while doing this?
We are plugged into 50 AMP service and the load meter on the control panel does not show any amps being used. I have the coffee maker going right now and it does not show anything.
Thanks in advance for all your help

gMw · 10-18-2008, 03:32 AM

Enjoy your travels...

In my opinion, the dash heat is like the dash AC, only good in the very front of the coach.. Except when travling at -2degs, then the dash heat is useless....

If it's mid 40's or warmer out, I'd run the generator and heat pump to keep the back warm.

The DVD player could work off the generator while its run. Our DVD player runs directly off 12 volts, so we have no problem there. Running off the inverter should work also, depending on the load on the inverter, the engine might keep the house batteries charged. If your DVD player doesn't run off 12 volts, you might check with the vendor to see if they have an adapter.

When plugged into a 50 AMP , 240 source/service (dual phase), the load meter on the control panel does not show any amps being drawn, this is normal. The panel meter only displays if plugged into either a 30 or 50 amp service with 120 volt single phase

jimandsue60 · 10-18-2008, 03:40 AM

There is no way to draw heat from the engine except for heating water.

You can easily run the propane furnace.

You can easily run the heat pump by running the generator while going down the road.

The choice is yours. I personally would run the propane heat if it was that cold.

You can run the inverter with no problem to charge your dvd.

The engine will charge the house batteries while traveling.

You will not see any amps being used while plugged into 50 amps, only 30 amps or less will show you amp draw.

Jim

smlranger · 10-18-2008, 03:44 AM

We've traveled in some fairly cold weather only twice and, like George said, the dash heat will keep the front of the coach warm but it can get chilly elsewhere. In those cases, we used the LP furnace. You could certainly run the genset and use the heat pump but the heat pump is not going to produce much heat when outside temps fall below 34 F or so.

porscheracer · 10-18-2008, 07:41 AM

Unless you're running the genset for other reasons, it makes virtually no sense to use the heat pump instead of the furnace. Unless, of course, you subscribe to the "no propane while moving" school.

Directly heating the air, instead of burning the fuel to make the electricity to run the heat pump is vastly more efficient.

The one thing that everyone has left out of the power monitor equation: It will not display on 50A shore power, but will display on 30A / 20A . . . and on the generator.

dirko · 10-18-2008, 07:53 PM

Hi Ho: For what it is worth: Rv's are never connected to more than one phase reqardless of 50 or 30 amp. What the 50 amp does is to use both sides of the 220 volt single phase so that each side is effectively 180 degrees out of phase with the other.

By the way, I still like the heating system on the gas motothomes. We can effectively heat the entire coach with the engine heat even when it is substantially below freezing, as the heat is circulated throughout the coach. The only gotcha is to use enough propane heat to take care of the basement storage (including tanks).

Dirk

NeilV · 10-19-2008, 02:28 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dirk Ostermiller:
Hi Ho: For what it is worth: Rv's are never connected to more than one phase reqardless of 50 or 30 amp. What the 50 amp does is to use both sides of the 220 volt single phase so that each side is effectively 180 degrees out of phase with the other.

By the way, I still like the heating system on the gas motothomes. We can effectively heat the entire coach with the engine heat even when it is substantially below freezing, as the heat is circulated throughout the coach. The only gotcha is to use enough propane heat to take care of the basement storage (including tanks).

Dirk </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dirk,

Do you have the Home Comfort Package with the auxiliary automotive heater? That was optional and not a standard feature on your coach. I have been tempted to put one in myself. If you have heat pumps in your Basement Air Unit then you have the Home Comfort Package.

Unfortunately this is not available on the Meridian however a bus style auxilary heater may be available that could be installed underneath in a cabinet toe kick area. I have installed these in the past when remodeling Kitchens and Bathrooms when the home owner wanted to remove the forced hot water radiators from the walls but still needed to heat the room.

Olive · 10-19-2008, 03:30 AM

My previous coach, an Adventurer, had the aux automotive heater. It did a good job of taking the chill off the coach when traveling in cold weather. If I closed the bedroom door it made that room quite toasty when stopping for the night.

FDchief · 10-19-2008, 08:49 AM

LP furnace

I do have the optional automotive aux heater. However my fan is making noise and I hear that you have to pull the water heater on my coach to fix it. Furnace works fine when it's that cold.

dirko · 10-19-2008, 11:09 AM

Hi Ho: Yes, we do have the aux auto heat. If we are moving it does a great job of heating the whole coach with outside temperatures well below freezing. However, the bearings on the blower do require oiling, and it is normally only possible to get to them with considerable disassembly. Ours is noisy sometimes, sometimes not, so service so far is one of those things that I manage to put off.

Don't know about adding one, but assume it would be ok if it was originally an option. The heat, of course, comes from the same coolent that circulates through the water heater. This is also a cool option because hot water is always available without having to run the propane or electrical heater.

Dirk