As most of you know I have been looking for a BOler furnace for over a year now. Want a small one.

I have been looking at the small Atwood 12,000 btu furnaces (like the Suburbans). They are a small propane furnace that will mount nicely in my cabinet with only a small vent required on the outside for venting. The particular model uses a 3.4 Amp draw fan to push out the air....some questions:

It does vent so its safe right?

Is the fan REALLY loud? or comparable to the fantastic fan?

Is 3.4 amp enough to kill my deep cycle really quick or will it last a weekend with the furnace running (I am in BC not the prairies).

I have ran a Fantastic Fan and found its okay for my battery (2 amp draw I think?)

its only $175 so its a good price.


PLEASE let me know what everyone thinks!!!


thanks - Kurt

Kurt.....
3.4 amp draw is alot but if you want heat that's the price you pay..... all these furnaces are about the same amp draw and they get a little noisy (a little louder than fantastic fan) but i have no problem sleeping thru it.... there are catalytic heaters out there but can be dangerous if not given enough air......your furnace would be safe!
As for battery usage..... do the Math. Lets say you have a 100 amp hour battery that shouldn't be brought down no more than 50%... that will give you 50 amp hours for usage of whatever in the camper now a simple 50aH divided by 3.4 amps = 14.70 hours of useage without using anything else in the trailer. Just try to figure how many hours your furnace would actually run or keep track of the usage and you may get by depending how cold outside it gets.
You could always use one of those "coleman Pro-Cats" during the day when your awake and use the furnace at night only for safety.
Hope this helps.
Joe

thanks. Atwood also makes a low amperage draw model that only draws 1.8 amps but this one is a local/private sale so I don't get that option. I think the price is reasonable at $175 which is the reason I am drawn to it...that and the small size.

I really plan on running it night only....rest of the day I am outside. I suspect the body temperature of the 3 of us will help in maintaining the temperature somewhat.....as these are controlled by a thermostat and are large at 12,000 btu's how have the rest of you Scamp owners found the Suburbans....are they on often through the night?

Lastly...where does Scamp mount the Suburban models....I suspect below the sink right? Also anyone have a photo of one installed with the cabinet door open...I hate to lose the extra cabinet space but this is as small as they come in the "vented" variety.

one more...I assume the moisture problem like the catylitic heaters will not be a big issue seeing its vented...right?

Condensation is an issue even with electric heating, but a vented furnace should produce very little condensation because the combustion chamber where the burning is done and the water is produced is directly vented to the outside; the heat is transferred to the inside air chamber by conduction, so exhaust gas and products of combustion should not be involved.

BTW, this process is less efficient than catalytic or ODS non-vented heaters because there is a lot of waste heat blown to the outside in the exhaust. Hold your hand near an RV furnace exhaust to demonstrate this.

Also, there is one blower motor but it typically has two fans or squirrel cages on one shaft to drive the burn chamber and the warm air chamber, which is why they use so much electricity to operate.

Kurt,

I think you are correct in saying the Atwood and Suburban direct vent heaters are the safest. They utilize outside air for combustion, so they don't deplete the oxygen inside the trailer. I had a Casita 17SD with the factory Suburban heater (12,000 BTU, I think) and it was satisfactory. It didn't deplete the battery over 3-4 days of camping. The thermostat wasn't very good, so the temperature wasn't as uniform as you would like. Some Casita owners have upgraded the thermostats in order to get better results. The fan was noisy enough to require increasing the volume on the TV or radio. It's louder than a FF. The heater was installed under the sink and the fan distributed the heat well enough. I didn't sleep with the heater on usually, but you could certainly do that if you wanted to.

Some folks have gone to Olympian Wave Heaters or even the Mr Buddy. These use inside air for combustion and you definitely need to have a window open when you use them. I think their safety in a travel trailer is controversial. BTW, I have an Atwood Direct Vent 16,000 BTU in the Bigfoot and it is toasty.

Hi Kurt
You can buy A Atwood OR Suburbans Furnaces on E-Bay
at a good price.
http://motors.search.ebay.com/rv-furnace_W...ksid=p1638.m146
Jean-l

thanks for the tips. I think I will buy it....how have the rest of you got them installed in your Scamps?

Also, do you have to run the fan for them to distribute the heat or are they strong enough to throw it out without the fan running?

Just looking at my cupboard today trying to figure out how to mount it in there.

Kurt one thing you might want to check out is the depth of the furnace . I bought a used Hydroflame and found that from cabinet to outside of trailer is 19 3/4 inches and the furnace was 22 1/4 inches . So they can vary in sizes
Happy Bolering
Bailey Boler

will do,

anyone have pics of this thing mounted in the cabinet.

Anywhere else you can stuff them?

Hi Y'all! Here's something you might be interested in. A Funace that uses 1 pound of propane for every 5-7 hours of burn. Draws only 0.17 amps at 12 volts. And puts out 5500-7500 BTU's. It also has a flame viewing window for that "fireplace" effect.Click to view attachment
To paraphrase Will Smith: "I Have GOT To GET Me One Of THESE!!!"