So how does my 2000w blown air heater (truma i think is the brand) use less power than a 2000w fan heater designed for use in the home? If it has a thermostat it will cut off the heating when the temperature is nice and warm. And without a thermostat you will end up so warm that you will need to turn it off for your own comfort (my conway cruiser had a 2000w fan heater with no thermostat built in and we had to turn it off because too much heat is as uncomfortable as too little). For safety i could understand domestic heaters being frowned apon, but it is fair to say that a 2000w heater uses 2000w nomatter what its intended place of use is!
------------- Why am i doing this instead of camping??!!
That is true doit, 2000w is 2000w. I don't make the rules, I was just pointing them out. Most sites that I've stayed on have 10amp supplies, so if you have your heater on at 2000w then you can't boil the kettle for a cup of tea without tripping the supply!
Maybe I've just been unlucky with the sites I've visited. In my experience they don't like domestic heaters.
POWs,
I understand where you are coming from, as i quite often stay on a 10a max supply. 10a gives you a max of 2400w of power at any one time so you are quite right that using 2000w of power for heating will use most of your max allowance. I find the heater set on 1000w is 99% of the time plenty warm enough! Usually the thermostat controls the heater as opposed to it running all the time and struggling to keep the van warm. Overnight i turn it down to 500w and again 99% of the time we are plenty warm enough. As i previously posted it is quite important that we all use only the power we actually need. So if you need to boost your warmth by setting your heater to 2000w, put your lighting on 12v and switch off your battery charger and heat water using gas. Once you are warm you can turn the heater down and use you battery charger/mains lights/electric water heater etc. And remember that using electricity as sparingly as possible will keep pitch fees as low as possible. Electric is 'free' - it is added onto your site fee and you do therefore actually pay for it. So use it for sure but use it responsibly to keep site fees realistic! Also consider a fan heater will give instant heat but does not store any heat - an oil filled radiator is slower to warm you up but will work a bit like a mini storage heater and stays warm for a while when using no power at all plus makes no noise at all. My fitted truma heater has a heavy metal 'core' to store heat like an oil filled rad. I use it on low settings on electric, and if it gets too cold i boost the heaters output using gas. This way i never trip the site supply, i keep warm and i do not use the gas too fast - i recon this is a good compromise hehe. Hope that all makes sense!!
------------- Why am i doing this instead of camping??!!
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Topic: electrics
