12 volt car heater thingies ? ...

any body got 1 ? what kind of heat do they thro out ????
or any idears ..... as you will have read my wife runs a equine laundy ! now we are hunting for drying options ( beer with me here )
we use a calor gas heater in a 6 berth stripped out caravan to dry them at the minute but its costing a small fortune, we cant put prices up as we have a fair bit of compwetion , im looking for idears to make this procese as cheap cheap as posible ? free would be even better ( cant use tumble dryer as it damages rugs )

Waste oil burner might be an option for heating...use any old engine oil for fuel...

Alternatively you might do better with a space heater than a calor gas heater...they use more gas but you would need to run it less, and it more importantly gives you air movement.

The other suggestion I have is to reconsider how you are drying...what I mean by this is that if you are just running a heater in a caravan then this isnt going to be effective or efficient. Your heat will all disappear out of your ventilation, if you have no ventilation then you will just trap the humidity in, so things wont dry effectively as the air is so humid in there.
I would be more inclined to consider air flow, and get lots of it...and some means of extracting the moisture via a condensor of sorts. Basically turn your van into a giant condensing tumble dryer (but without the tumble action!). Static heat is great for cooking, but no good for drying...to dry you need airflow and a means of extracting the moisture.
Put simply I would put in a duct with some fans that will give you plenty of airflow of hot air around the van, but dont duct this to outside or you will pump all your expensive hot air out...pass this hot air which is heavy with moisture over a cold surface in your ducting and the moisture will be deposited on this surface...This surface can be hollow and kept cool by a cool air system which ducts air from outside the van through it and then back out of the van using another fan..then fit some sort of drain so that the water runs away from your cooling plate to outside or into a container. This is basically how a condensor dryer or low bake spray oven works...your system at present from how I understand it is more like how your cooker works.
To get more effeciency I would insulate the windows, and anywhere else that attracts moisture at present, as the moisture is not collectable and extractable from these points.

As a quick fix in the interim until a better system could be installed, you could look to add a couple of fans in there to give airflow, and run a dehumidifier to extract the moisture,
Or simply duct a space heater into the front, and an extractor out at the rear...granted your heat is going to go out of the extractor, but so is the moisture...This will work like a conventional tumble dryer as opposed to a condensor dryer, but I would think even with the increased gas usage of a space heater, your overall drying cost would still be significantly cheaper as it would dry much much quicker and better as you are increasing airflow to pick up the moisture and positively extracting the moisture rich air.

Hope this helps mate...

i like the dehumidifier style ducting greg , clever yet common sense ............... ok , iv the pen and paper out readt for a trip to b&q me thnks :drink:

Hi,
I agree with Greg on this one..

Maybe you could build a condenser unit and duct the warm/hot air over it, you may be able to make this more efficient/cold by gutting an old fridge cooling system and using that to chill the condenser plates. This should be no more expensive than running a normal household fridge and may allow higher throughput of air or collection of moisture as your condenser plates will be almost icy..

You could pump on hot air from the heater low down in the caravan then take your feed out pipe from the top somewhere and duct that back over your pre-chilled condenser then back into the caravan at a low level again. IMHO this would also help to keep the air moving.

Of course, using gas also adds to the condensation, electric heating is dry so wont add to the problem, an industrial dehumidifier will add a little heat and extract moisture, can be plumbed to allow water to leave via a hose to outside. Of course it would probably distort an old, damp caravan body too, but theres always going to be a downside to whaterver you do.

How long would a 12v rad fan run on a battery gents ? Will post a picture of my thoughts later !!!!!

max would be a couple of hours, current draw can be 30 amps, they'll flatten batteries in no time at all. Better off powering it through a battery charger perhaps?

Problem there is ain't got 240volt to the van ....... I have got 3x 20watt solar panels ! Lol

Now that better weathers coming, invest in a washing line and let nature do her job

Better weather ! Scotland lmfao , I had 3 different seasons in my village yesterday ! Snow , rain , sun , hail and fog :-)

they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard mate.
ash

you need something like an EBERSPACHER night heater it runs on derv abour 2lts per 24hrs

just google EBERSPACHER you could try a breakers or look on ebay :drink:

Can get cheep ones out of Ex BT vans...they had em in the back, and they are 12v, not sure if the truck ones are 24v?

Just to clarify. Truck night heaters are 24 volt, didn't know BT used 12 volt ones in there bodies though, that's orth looking out for.

Regards

Stuart

baz
EBERSPACHER do 12 & 24v heaters
some caravans/RV have them fitted on 12v so do cruisers and canal boats

there is one on ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EBERSPACHER-D ... 5565552979

Found out you can get a little electric gadget that can be wired inline that will up the voltage from 12 to 24 volts, a fella a work who is fitting out a camper has just fitted a 24volt Eberscher heater and one of these gadgets and it works a treat......Result

Regards

Stuart

theyre called voltage droppers/ swoppers baz, we used to have them fitted to the ciggy lighter power sockets in our trucks so we could run tvs on 12 volt instead of 24v etc :wink:

What about running a small generator for the 240v if you need it, shouldnt cost much overall, few litres per day of fuel to create power as required?

Fogman, fully aware of droppers in 4, 8 and 16 amp, wired in dozens of them, it was just that the use of a stepper is rare in the circles I move in. And using one to run a 24 volt night heater from a 12 volt system negated the search for 12 volt specific night heaters.

Regards

stuart

wwwspicrosoft.com/Heater/Heater1.htm

check out this link, i built one of these last winter and it kept oyr workshop toasty in minus 15 :dance: