electric heaters

[Guest judy]

I have been looking for ceramic or halogen heaters on the internet for a peugeot symphony as I don't like to use the gas for too long. Has anyone any ideas of the best buy and if so where is the best place to get it. Are they safe?

[Guest Roy Hamilton]

Judy. I bought a small halogen heater with 2 settings 400w and 800w at a Shepton Mallet show. Special Show offer £10.00 It provides good instant heat and is very safe. The tip over switch is so sensitive that just walking over the floor switches it off.

[Guest Keith T]

Hi Judy...we have just returned from what must have been the coldest two weeks away in our Rapido. This was spent in Staffordshire and then 10 nights at Abbey Wood CC Site, London, and I think every day and night lucky if we got any +temps! The heater on board is very efficient, but costly like yours on gas. I also see no reason not to use what we are paying (dearly) for, so took a small fan heater plus timer. This worked perfectly, and kept us very warm, even to the extent of pre-warming the van prior to our returning at night. Personally, I do not like the halogen heaters as they take up too much space, whilst the fan heater is very safe, and of course small. Suggest you consider this as an alternative.

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

Can't help with ceramic/halogen heaters, but Homebase currently has special offers on fan-heaters and, if you've got carrying-room (so perhaps not with a Symphony) smallish convector heaters that benefit from operating silently.

[Guest Neal]

Judy In two years I have seen halogen heaters priced from £40 down to £7. The cheapest one had all the specification of the dearest one, ocsilation, switchable outputs, tip-over switch etc. You just need to keep your eyes peeled on the High Street and shopping malls. Regards Neal P.S. No, I don't have one, I prefer a fan heater.

[Guest PeteC]

Judy why a ceramic heater ? We ave a fan heater with variable output From 3Kw down to Fan only We have used the fan only option more than the heater, to cool or circulate the air in the van during the warmer days - and we have camped at -7C and that at mid day. Dont know what the night temps were - the Built in Blown air heater doesnt seem to use so much gas

[Guest Dave]

It was a sad day when Truma got hold of Carver. I mean why are we all carrying fan heaters round with us, why no electric heating in vans ?? Fan heater are noisy clicking on and off when you are trying to sleep. I carry a little oil filled radiator i bought in Spain 500W it cost me about 30 Euros. I am sure you can get them here, nice and quiet and just keeps the overnight chill off. well in Spain it does.

[Guest Clive]

We have a small low cost fan heater purchased last year on the Isle of Wight over Easter. I looked at hallogen but they were BIG and BRIGHT. I cannot sleep with the light on either. Eventually, once in bed all heating gets turned OFF and we cuddle up together! A hand pokes out from under the bedclothes in the morning to turn it back on before I get up for breakfast duties! RE gas. LPG works out at one third the cost of bottled. Not so expensive after all if you fill your own! The oil filled rad sounds interesting providing it can be safely located, preferably permanently located where fabric or paper cannot be left lying on it.

[Guest David Powell]

Have you looked at electric green house heaters in a big store where there is a wide choice? They are interesting. I keep one in the 'van set to 5 degrees all winter to stop anything freezing up.Then when we go away, we put it in the cab set to a little bit higher temperature as required. On the models with fans, the fan is only on when the heat comes on, some models are convection only, they are neat and safe. Just another little idea to kick around.

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

Dave (response 8): I'm surprised by your "It was a sad day when Truma got hold of Carver". It was well recognised within the leisure industry (and was openly admitted to me once by a Carver manager) that Carver's policy was to follow Truma's lead when it came to heater innovation. I would also argue that Carver's products were generally inferior to Truma's, particularly those copy-cat appliances orientated towards motorhomes (eg. Carver's problematical P4 versus Truma's E-Series). A lack of integrated 230V air-heating on many new motorhomes can hardly be blamed on Truma. Their S-Series gas convector fires have been around since Year Dot and the Ultraheat 230V option can be added to these heaters going right back to 1981 models. If motorhome manufacturers have chosen to shun this type of heater in favour of more powerful pure blown-air appliances with no 230V air-heating capability, then your complaint should surely be with them not with Truma. (In fact, to address this very limitation, Truma has recently released a variant of the C-Series Combi heater - the C6002EH - that includes 230V air and water heating.) There are lots of reasons for the popularity of 230V fan heaters: for example, small size, cheapness and 'value-for-money'. For motorcaravan owners who prioritise on the 'motor' element of their vehicle and don't spend time on EHU-equipped campsites a fan-heater will be perfectly adequate for the odd occasion they do access a 230V supply. Obviously, if the priority is to use the motorhome as a 'caravan', then integrated 230V air and water heating will be a significant benefit. However, Truma have marketed, and continue to market, heaters and boilers with a 230V capability, and there are still plenty of motorhome manufacturers fitting these appliances for those motorcaravanners who consider 230V heating a prerequisite.

[Guest pete]

Hi Derek Uzzel We have a deisel heater which gives us warmth when driving, something that the majority of van internal heaters fail to do. and: You are not supposed to run gas heaters on the move for safety - but doubtless some people do. We also have an immersion heater for hot water when on site - we mainly use sites with EHU rather that wild camping We also carry a fan heater AND an electric form of cooker Our 4.5kg gas lasts for the whole of a 3 to 4 month trip during Spring and again in Autumn We also have a full gas cooker and oven to use should the need arise

[Guest AlfM]

Hi We carry one of the oil filled heaters for use when we are on electric, got it after the clubs put their prices up and said we had to have a serviced site unless the warden would let you on a non hardstanding pitch. The initial cost is higher, but less risk of fire, and if it is cold at night you can leave it on without noise or light as from fan heaters and halogen. It also serves in winter when I often put it on to take any damp out of the van when it is parked.

[Guest David]

Hi, We use an oil filled radiator cost £19 local hardware shop. Very good for night time in recent very cold weather, I also use it in my shed as its safe because of dust. We also have a Halogen heater but prefer the radiator in M home. This is the first Winter that we have used a heater at night. David

[Guest David Powell]

Yes...oil filled radiators are the best if you have the room to fix it securely in your 'van as it is rather heavy and bigger than other heaters, but there is no burning dust when you switch on, and no noise. I used one for years to ward off freezing in the winter when it is parked in the drive, but unfortunately our little 'van has no room to take it with us, that is why I changed to a greenhouse heater, small and light, and more economical when on my electric. If you have room for an oil filled radiator Judy, you go for it.

[Guest Ray]

We have used both fan and small (700watt) oil filled radiators and do prefer the latter, when the temperature is very low the oil filled can be left on all night with the thermostat turned low, the only noise is the occasional click as it switches itself on and off instead of the continious noise made by the fan.

[Guest Dave]

OK Derek fair one. All I know was that my old Carver could manage a manful 8KW on combined electric and Gas, it heated the van up in minutes. I suppose that the answer to this is that it is pretty clear that most motorhome designers never live in the vehicle for any length of time so have no idea of priorities. I notice that Bessacar are bucking the trend in fitting electric space heating. Whilst we are on this subject another wonderfully retrograde step is filling half yoor storage with the Truma boiler, it belongs under the wardrobe where it airs your clothes, not taking up half a locker under a fixed bed, where it is more exposed to frost damage, general damage and uselessly vents air into an empty space.

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

Dave: It's possible to get 7.5kW of output from a Truma S5002 + Ultraheat option (or 7kW from a S55T with Ultraheat). However, I don't know of any motorhome manufacturer who has used either of these appliances, probably because of their bulkiness, and their implementations seems to be confined to large trailer-, or static-caravans. I believe Bessacarr is offering the Truma C6002EH that I've mentioned previously. This is capable of producing 7.8kW of heat (6kW from gas + 1.8kW from 230V) for a fast warm-up of the vehicle's interior, after which the appliance prioritises on 230V. From a personal point of view, I'm going to disagree with you over the placement of Truma Combi heater/boilers beneath fixed beds. I accept that shoehorning this type of appliance into a wardrobe-base (or the corner of an L-shaped kitchen) can save space, but the nightmare begins when the heater needs work done on it. My Herald had a wardrobe-base mounted Combi - it was possible to remove it reasonably rapidly for attention, but only because I had deliberately designed the installation myself to permit this. Commercial motorhome converters tend to be far less altruistic in such matters. I'd rather have an accessible beneath-bed Combi and an empty wardrobe-base for storage than vice-versa. (In fact, my next Hobby motorhome not only has a Truma Combi beneath the rear French bed, but a 100 litre fresh-water tank is under there too. While acknowledging that this rather peculiar arrangement grabs a lot of under-bed space, it does mean that wardrobe-base and both banquette seat-lockers are available for storage that can be reached easily from within the vehicle. While a hinge-up mattress base is fine in theory, in practice the system seldom works well and, in my opinion, it will normally be much easier to insert/remove stuff from beneath the bed via an exterior hatch.) I've yet to see a Combi installation that couldn't be improved significantly. I've seen cupboard-mounted heaters where major furniture dismantling would be needed to remove the appliance. I've seen under-bed installations where Combis stood masochistically naked (just waiting for a good whack from a loose barbecue or folding-bike) and others where heaters were totally encapsulated, sucking air through a single hole that could easily be obstructed by luggage. There's an inherent drawback with the Combi design in that the intake for the blown-air fan is adjacent to the flue-exhaust outlet. As motorhome builders naturally orient the latter towards a vehicle's outer wall, this means that the air intake also ends up facing that wall. But the Combi is a recirculatory air-heater and, for best efficiency, needs to be installed so its air intake is close to a substantial aperture (Truma suggest 150 sq.cm.) that opens onto the leisure-vehicle's living space. Most converters don't even pay lip-service to this simple principle and, in some instances, it's a wonder the heater is able to 'breathe' at all. I take your point about an under-bed boiler's potential vulnerability to frost damage compared to a wardrobe-base installation, though this will largely depend on the respective insulation properties of walls and floors. I'm not sure how a below-bed Combi "uselessly vents air" (as the appliance doesn't operate like that) - unless you mean that the waste heat developed during operation can't be used for the clothes airing possible in a wardrobe-base installation. But it will warm the underside of the mattress above the heater, which some people may view as a useful side (or foot) benefit.

[Guest Mel B]

We've had various types of heaters, we currently have a good 2kw fan heater (switchable as 2kw or down to 1kw) which has a thermostate and safety 'tip over' cut out. It's not very noisy and so if we want we could leave it on overnight but find we don't need to. We've also got a ceramic swivelling heater but I can't use this in the 'van as we have 3 dogs and the other problem is that as the heat is so restricted, ie it's only warm in the immediate few feet near the heater, it's not much use in the 'van anyway but is okay at home in the 'study' whilst I'm browsing the forum! The fan heater circulates the warm air round nicely. Don't go for something too small in output for a coachbuilt as we did initially otherwise it takes an age to warm up. Using a timer is a good idea so that even if you don't have the heater on overnight you can set it to warm the van for you before venturing from under the quilt to make the cuppa! The one we got also doubles up as a cold air fan as we can run it withouth the heating elements being on.

[Guest Andy]

I can not understand why everyone recommends fan heaters: they are so noisy and many are not thermostatted. We always use a convector heater, 2kW in winter and a 500W in spring/autumn. They are light-weight, thermostatted, silent and available from Argos from £15.