Propex heater secondhand or new?

[MarkWard]

Our Espar diesel heater sips fuel. Our vanagon is diesel powered so for us it was a no brainer. I mention that because some owners have added a small diesel tank to their gas powered vans to run their heaters. Last time I was in Europe, diesel seemed to be more available than in the US.

Having had experience with a diesel powered heater, I’d likely spend the extra money for a gas powered heater. Save your propane for making coffee.
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[atomatom]

i have a hs2000 and it won't really work unless you've got a very good house battery. as it needs to run electric fans, you cannot rely on it for more than a day or two without a charge. and once i plug in a battery charger, a $20 electric heater all of a sudden seems like a more sensible choice. :/

i would love to hear if my experience is not in line with yours. how many days of use can you get running a propex? i suppose how long you run it is a factor, eg, an hour here or there. i had hopes of winter camping/ski trips without power for at least a week.

my current house battery is a car battery (yes, i know, not ideal). i have a pair of dry deep cycle batteries to go in (~200 amp hours), but they weight at least as much as another passenger, so i'm not keen to keep them installed all the time. how many amp hours do you have on your propex setups?
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84 Vanagon Westy, 1.9L, California raised but defected to Canada.

[jimf909]

[danfromsyr]

a weeks worth of winter heat is certainly going to cost alot of energy storage.

I don't snow camp, so my propex use won't compare to your needs
but when I'm camping for more than 3-4 days I toss an extra pair of Marine deep cycle batts in the camper.

you could tote along a generator, my buddy has a Ryobi 2200w unit that's really fairly quiet.. and uses that to run/charge stuff for extended stays. the new ones have Bluetooth for monitoring and shut down.
he uses a DIY'd crate to travel it in and then it acts as a weathershield/noise suppressor when camped. it is fairly frugal on fuel for the runtime/output needs.
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[atomatom]

thanks jim and dan. maybe i'll build some kind of enclosure so i can easily swap in these batteries. i was looking at the lifepo battery thread which has interesting ideas on places to put them. my propex is under the bench seat, which would be the obvious place for the batteries - i cut holes so the original hot air heater vent is also the propex vent.

the deep cycle batteries have been a great backup during power outages here, providing internet during the extended outages we get here in bc during windstorms. i suppose i could justify one of those tiny generators too, but i really hate the sound of generators when i'm camping. maybe one of those tiny silent ones.
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84 Vanagon Westy, 1.9L, California raised but defected to Canada.

[Honuak]

I'm not sure of the differential power usage espar vs propex.
My experience was that the propex would not ignite below ~20 deg F.
I live at/camp at sea level and adjusted the regulator but it neither propex I had would function. No problems when above 20. My guess has is that propane becomes to thick when cold.
An added bonus to removing the propex and going gas (fridge already swapped 12V only) is that I removed the underslung tank. Never thinking about fuel for the furnace is nice. So far (5+ years) the espar has worked flawlessly, has not required the cleaning that my diesel fired friends have had.
I recently helped a vanagon friend install a webasto gas fired furnace, his propex was also not functioning in cold temps.
Having installed both propane and gas furnaces the work involved about the same. Tappping into the gas line vs tapping into the propane line is the only difference. Both procedures are well covered in this forum.
SAMBA ON!

[westyventures]

[atomatom]

[jimf909]

I had a similar suspicion a few years back. When I tested the propane pressure it was low, about 8 column inches. When I corrected this the temp of the air coming out of the vent increased from about 150F to 185F. It still doesn't heat the van to 70* but it does work better.

[westyventures]

You can safely go to 13" w.c. as long as it lights well.
Much more will possibly overheat the combustion chamber. I replaced the chamber in one that a shop (that I won't name) decided 'a lot more is better' and melted holes in it.
FWIW, 2000 = input btu. Output btu = 1900 btu +/-

[uberaudi]