Portable Electric Heaters - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Jim and Barb · RV-Dreams Family Member

Portable Electric Heaters

Sushidog · RV-Dreams Family Member

Electric heaters draw too many amps for use with solar. The most efficient way to use solar to heat is by letting it shine in your windows and heat the interior.

The conversion rate of BTUs per amp/hr is identical regardless of what type of electric heat you use. I like the little cube (ceramic) heaters as they are very compact. Some like oil filled heaters because they are silent, though large and heavy. I purchased a heater on-line that had an electronic thermometer/thermostat which would control the ambient temperature to within 2 degrees. It was neat but only worked for a couple years before it broke. Now I use a couple ceramic heaters with a simple dial type thermostat. Though not ideal as far as temperature regulation, they are very reliable. My advice is to but whatever is on sale, as one is about as good as another.

Chip

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have one of the small electric fireplaces thats portable ......kind of nice if you have the room gives you the heat and a nice realistic fire display....you can turn the heat off and keep the display on or set the thermostat....I bought it at home depot for 129.00 looks good in the coach

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

One consideration, when you are not on solar and still want to use electric is the amount of power the heaters use. We had a wonderful Vornado heater at the S&B and had to give it away. We absolutely could not use it on 30 AMP power without turning everything else (fridge, all non-LED lights, any other electronic gadgets including the stereo) off. Our other little electric heater doesn't use that much power, it also is not as quick and efficient at heating the place up, but we only have 50 AMP HU about 30% of the time so it didn't make sense to bring the other heater.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Solar does not provide enough electricity to run a portable heater. A heater is a large electric load. I like to tell people that each solar panel is around 1/2 kwh (kilowatt-hours) per day, in very rough terms. A portable heater will use more than 1 kwh in one hour.

In general, a portable heater uses 13 amps and produces 5100 BTUs of heat. If you run it for 10 hours, you will use 16 kwh. In the US, we see rates of 8 to 40 cents per kwh, so that is $1 to $6 a day if you are running on a meter for one heater running 10 hours a day. (36 cents a kwh is what you pay above 1000 kwhs where my sister-in-law lives and then they add taxes). If electric is included in your rent, go for it. If you pay by the kwh, you better know the rates and you might find that propane is cheaper. If your RV is longer than about 25', you will need two heaters and 50 amp service. Below about 25 F (-5C), you might need more heaters. You might have to change some wiring, in many RVs they have two plug circuits, each is 15 to 20 amps, and that includes your TV, microwave, toaster, etc. To run many heaters you might need to add some dedicated circuits. There are a large variety of heaters, tall, oscillating, oil filled, but most go with small boxes that run $20 to $30 with thermostats instead of a few settings. You will find a large selection at any Super Wal-Mart.

Then there is basement heating, if it is below freezing you might need to put small heaters in the basement, they do make 200 watt ones ($15 to $18 for a Lasko Personal Heater). For the basement you will need some kind of thermostat, like a temperature controlled outlet ($12 to $15), which turns on at 35 F and off at 45 F.

The rule of thumb is one gallon of propane is equivalent to around 23 kwh of electricity for heating, or about 6 kwh per liter. An examples is if propane is $3.00 a gallon, electricity has to be less than 13 cents to be cheaper. I suspect in Canada, propane will be cheaper if you are paying for the electricity separately.

Sushidog · RV-Dreams Family Member

Down south - in LA and TX, electricity runs from 11 cents to 16 cents per kwh at monthly RV parks. In TX propane runs from about $2.20 -$2.50/gallon; in Louisiana it's $2.75-$3.00/gallon. FYI

Chip