How long to heat your camper in cold

[HappilyLost]

Hello all. For those that use your camper in colder weather, how long does it take for it to heat up from cold? We had a smaller Salem that I feel in low 30s it would heat to 68 rather quickly, maybe 30-40 minutes. Our new camper we took ownership of this week (40 foot cedar creek) took about 2 hours to heat from low 30s to 68. Wondering if I have a furnace problem or if this size of camper is normal to heat it up. Thanks

[nomad297]

Did your previous RV have ceilings as high as your new one? Is your new RV longer than your previous one?

Bruce

[babock]

Every camper is going to be different.

[Sarahcat]

We have a tiny ePro 14fk and with its 20k BTU Suburban heater, heats up from cold (30sF- 40sF) to 70°F in 15 minutes or less. This is our first RV of any kind, so it might be that these large rigs just have so much more air volume. I guess most people here have much larger RVs, so they have a different range of experiences than we have with our tiny house on wheels.

[Skip12]

It does take a couple hours for our 36bhq to go from cold to warm...even more if there if the kids are going in and out often.

When we first got our 5er, the bedroom and bathroom would become saunas or worse. I mostly covered those vents with aluminum foil. We open up all the doors to get an decent distribrution of heat.

Also, consider what other areas are being heated vs your other camper. Do you have a heated basement or underbelly?

[HappilyLost]

Originally Posted by Skip12

It does take a couple hours for our 36bhq to go from cold to warm...even more if there if the kids are going in and out often.

When we first got our 5er, the bedroom and bathroom would become saunas or worse. I mostly covered those vents with aluminum foil. We open up all the doors to get an decent distribrution of heat.

Also, consider what other areas are being heated vs your other camper. Do you have a heated basement or underbelly?

Yes, ours is the 37MBH. We have a heated front storage plus underbelly. Much higher ceiling and much more area to heat than previous 27DBK. Just glad to hear that people experience a few hours and it’s just not my furnace. Our bedroom and bathroom did heat at about 5/6 degrees faster than living room area, which in ours is a giant open concept.

[Freetyme]

We will supplement extra heat some times with an electric space heater. Until furnishings and all reach set temp, it's not just the air you're heating. When it's still too cool to dewinterize plumbing, it takes even our mini lite a while to warm up.

[babock]

And it's more than just the volume of the air space. It's the mass of the walls, cabinets...in the heated space. When you have a trailer that is cold soaked over a long period of time, it's going to take longer than one where the temp inside just got to that low temperature.

[Cypressloser]

Everyone is correct. However, depending on your layout and the location of your furnace, it might be easy to connect
a length of 4" flex duct to the rear of the furnace and pulll it to a dedicated heat register in a toe kick or stair riser. This could double or triple the amount of heat going into the living area. I installed two of those in our RS - what an improvement.

[Kl859]

I have a 32IK 2020 model and my heater runs for long periods yo heat to 68/69 when 28/32 outside. A few points here single panel windows(never again) washer and dryer , 3 slide outs.
Ok my unit leaks along the floor where slides meet floor well all around slide edges.
Large amout of air leaks around washer/dryer where hoses are routed.
The windows transmitter cold air into the room curtains would help.
I insulated where all the washer and dryer vents run and the air infiltration has been reduced by 86%.
Later I will look at what can be done with the fit of slides.
High ceiling eat heat ceiling fan helps to move that back to floor.
I am using about 60 gallons of propane a month. And 100 for electric.

[kayo]

Close your ceiling vents. Heat rises and the warm air near the ceiling will escape rather quickly. Pull you day/night shades down. This wiLl create a dead air space that wil provide insulation, in a lot of cases equal to the double pane windows you may have (NOTE: Rv double windows are NOT like the ones you mat have had at home. They are not sealed insulating windows)
If you have a ceiling fan (I am not familiar with your unit) use it! It will drive the stratified warm air at the ceiling down to the floor

[Tundra 2014]

A lot of factors. I expect you have much more cubic feet to heat and taller ceilings. Take a cooking stem thermometer and put it in a heat vent to check heat of air coming out-@ 85+ degrees. Not sure this is the "right temp" but close. A friends trailer they "forgot to put insulation in the front cap-found it running solar panel wires. I bought my stem thermometer at an appliance repair shop-I use it for the A/C to check.

[AceCombat]

Make sure your thermostat fan is set to auto! Or else your just going to be cooling all that warm air! The ac fan will run all the time sucking your warm air up into a cold ac unit then through really cold coils and back down to you. Your ac is outside above the roof dont forget!

[SlowrideHD]

On our CC, of course it will take a lot longer for the heat pump to warm the entire living space than the furnace. If I turn the furnace on when it is cold then it doesn't take very long to make it comfortable (within an hour).
We have a front bedroom so we have to turn the heat way down at the thermostat at night or it will get very uncomfortably hot up there. What works pretty well, if it isn't extremely cold, is to just leave the fireplace on at night, and turn the thermostat heat down to about 62-64.
Remember that your fireplace remote control will generally work from your bedroom. Sometimes we just turn the heat down really low and use the remote to turn on the fireplace when we wake up, just to knock the chill off before getting up.

[BM Welder]

Two hours is about right. If it's 10 to 15 below 0 it can take my 36 CKTS 3 to 4 hours there's a lot to heat up in a 40 ft trailer.

[jd4010]

Our 37MBH takes some time to heat up as well but we also supplement with electric heaters too (which helps to curb the propane usage --- yes I'm cheap!).

[5picker]

Originally Posted by AceCombat

Make sure your thermostat fan is set to auto! Or else your just going to be cooling all that warm air! The ac fan will run all the time sucking your warm air up into a cold ac unit then through really cold coils and back down to you. Your ac is outside above the roof dont forget!

If you have the option to run the A/C fan with the furnace with your system/thermostat, you ARE NOT cooling that air with the A/C compressor/evaporator coils.

Only the fan runs to help distribute the heat (heat rises) throughout the R/V. The system was designed as an option to work this way and many folks use it.

Also, NO outside air mixes with inside air when using the furnace or the air conditioner.

[TitanMike]

Furnaces come in a few different sizes. Sometimes a smaller trailer will have a furnace that is at the high end of the output needed to heat the space and on a larger trailer the furnace might be right at the minimum for it's size.

On my 25' TT it heats quickly if I leave the bathroom door closed. Opening it and adding the extra space to be heated, it takes a little longer.

The time taken to heat a trailer will vary. What might concern me more is how well the trailer/RV holds the heat once warmed. On my TT I added 1" of "Foam Board" insulation to the inside of all storage doors and inside Outside Kitchen door. 35 square feet of area that around 1/2" thick insulation .

Makes a difference during my cold weather camping with less furnace run time per hour.

[babock]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

The time taken to heat a trailer will vary. What might concern me more is how well the trailer/RV holds the heat once warmed. On my TT I added 1" of "Foam Board" insulation to the inside of all storage doors and inside Outside Kitchen door. 35 square feet of area that around 1/2" thick insulation .

Makes a difference during my cold weather camping with less furnace run time per hour.

I know some people that insulate the pass thrus so the cold in them stays there and not pass through the plywood and frame into the camper.