heating van

For those of you who DO NOT have a garage for your van for the winter, and need to use space heaters to keep things from freezing; I recommend the 'Vornado' space heater. Temps had gotten down to 0°-10° for a few nites. This heater has kept the temp inside the van at 50-60°. And that is on the low and Med temp setting.
-I don't know how it does it. The fan doesn't feel that forceful and the heat feels adequate. It is placed in the middle of the cargo area-towards the tM. The warmth is distributed thru out. Even a spotter bottle by the back door does nOT freeze.(I put it there for visual freeze inspection).

Best wishes to all...
Matt

Thanks for the info. Which model do you have? I noticed that Vornado offers a line of heaters. Any heater that can raise the temp that much from your outside temps is impressive. Your observation about the fan not being too forceful is a good thing. I lived in Alaska for a long time and found that heaters that have high velocity actually cool the output of the heater decreasing its efficiency (much like the air passing through the radiator in you car to cool the engine). I have found that running heaters on the low or medium fan settings actually improves their heating abilities. Thanks again for the post.

http://www.vornado.com/heaters


Which one did you get? I have been using 2 oil-filled space heaters on digital t-stats, but always looking for a better way.

I like the electric blanket idea. I wonder if that works as well as a space heater?

Mo wrote:I like the electric blanket idea. I wonder if that works as well as a space heater?

I have tried a lot of different methods over the years with mixed results. I keep the water softener on-board, so I like to heat the entire interior and not just the TM. By placing a heater next to the TM and then placing another in the cargo area with the front set at 55 and the rear at 45, I have not had any problems on the worst of nights. Of course, my van is insulated with foam all around by Butler, so that helps too.

I forgot to turn off my LP one night and when I came to work the next am the van wash warm and full of moisture.   ever since I have wondered if leaving the LP on could do the job.

I would like to know the Vornado model too. Thanks   

I went to that website and the reviews are all over the place. So make sure if you buy one it's from someplace you can take it back if it fails.

It was the larger vornado, from target. There is a smaller one, but I figured why go small when protecting $-TM.

Hey man.

Do this then put a space heater in the truck.

I couldn't find the pic after the paneling was back up. but, just imagine what it looks like after the paneling is back up. It keeps in the heat.

Redid the doors.... they were nasty







this next year i need to get all new rubber gaskets for the doors

@ steam punk. Yep, that's what I did inside. Helps a lot.
my 2nd van which I got in Feb, didn't get around to insulating it. Takes 2 heaters in that one.

I have good luck with oil filled heater. If the power goes out they still heat for some time,and are safe,no hot spots.

Seaswril wrote:I have good luck with oil filled heater. If the power goes out they still heat for some time,and are safe,no hot spots.

Exactly, I am with you all the way.

Mo
The cleaners around the Smoky Mountains of NC use the electric blankets but they also put a couple of moving blankets on top to keep the heat in. They said that they get negative zero temps. and that it works for them. I even designed a alarm system at one time that only used no power unless it goes off using on board horn or a secondary horn using 12 vdc so if the power goes off it still works, let's you know if the temp drops below 40 degrees with a 3-4 degree variable. But know one would spend $175.00 to protect their 20,000-40,000 investment.

That's a good idea to have that alarm that way you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to check and see if the heater is still on.  It's amazing that some people don't want to spend 175.00 to protect their big invest. I would imagine they would only need to have 1 HX frozen before they change their mind about that.

Mo wrote:That's a good idea to have that alarm that way you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to check and see if the heater is still on.  It's amazing that some people don't want to spend 175.00 to protect their big invest. I would imagine they would only need to have 1 HX frozen before they change their mind about that.

Even with an alarm I would be checking on it throughout the night. The real problem with freezing equipment is that you may not know you damaged it until some point in early spring when all heck breaks loose. It happened to my CAT pump a few years ago, the freeze put a very small crack in a piston that caused it to fail a couple of months later...blew the manifold right off while cleaning tile.

I check constantly now.

I have a feeling a lot cleaners will be having issues this spring with the freeze a lot of you guys had this winter.

I think that would be a safe bet Mo.

Great post. I rent a space in the colder months for my truck. This info will help for months that are in the 20's in central IL. Thank you.

Sounds like they are forecasting another arctic vortex later part of next week...and this one will bring more snow than the last.

Hopefully, we all learned from the last bout....

highs in the upper 30s to mid 40s...lows in the low 20s....

stuck in a inversion   crappy air...

but the lows dont freak me until it hits the low teens

We had sunny and 65 yesterday...I went out and mowed my lawn for the heck of it, but it is forecasted to be sub-zero the next few nights with scattered snow and horrible wind chills.

Just can't win....

It's been a crazy winter so far. Bundle up.