Overview
My previous camper was virtually unusable in cold weather. The vinyl and aluminum sides provided no insulation and the propane furnace frequently wouldn't light in cold weather. Even if I could get the furnace to work, it used such a large amount of propane, I couldn't run it long enough to keep the camper warm. This was strictly a warm weather camper. In hot weather, I had no air conditioner, so opening the vents was the best I could do.
My Safari Vehicles camper is designed to maintain a comfortable interior temperature in any season. I have a thermostatically controlled diesel heater to heat the camper in winter, and a 12 volt roof mounted air conditioner to keep the camper cool in the summer. Ventilation is provided by opening the screened windows, or turning on the variable speed fan (to be installed).
Heater
The heater is an amazing little package that is technologically advanced and provides plenty of heat while using miniscule amounts of diesel fuel. In the winter, I leave the thermostat for the camper heater set on 50 degrees farenheit and leave the heater on all the time to keep my water systems from freezing. Even in weather ranging from 0 degrees farenheit at night to a high of 20 degrees farenheit in the day with the camper temperature set at 50 degrees farenheit the fuel consumption is only a couple of gallons of diesel per week. The current draw is so small that the solar panels easily produce more electricity than the heater uses. When camping in temperatures as cold as 0 degrees farenheit, I can easily maintain an interior temperature of over 80 degrees farenheit if I wanted to.
The only problem that I have had with the heater occurred when I was camping at 10,600 feet in the Rocky Mountains with a temperature below 0 degrees farenheit outside. The heater flame kept going out when the heater dropped back to the lowest of its four heat ranges. At elevations above 6,000 feet, the fuel delivery needs to be reduced to compensate for the lower air density. I turned the metering screw 1/8 of a turn at 6,000 feet, and an additional 1/8 of a turn at every additional 3,000 feet. Here's the required adjustment:
| Elevation |
Screw Adjustment |
Fuel Delivery |
| 6,000 feet |
1/8 turn |
10% less than sea level spec |
| 9,000 feet |
1/4 turn |
20% less than sea level spec |
| 12,000 feet |
3/8 turn |
30% less than sea level spec |
12 volt air conditioner
I may have the only 12 volt camper air conditioner in North America. My unit was imported . It provides 13,000 BTU of cooling, and is designed for a camper 3 times the size of mine. I haven't had the opportunity to try it in hot weather yet, but it certainly moves a lot of cool air. I figure that when I need it most, the sun will probably be shining brightly helping to replace the 25 amps that the air conditioner draws. Even though this is a large draw, I expect that the air conditioner will only need to run for short periods.
Fan
SVM installed a small fan above the stove for Ventilation in my camper, but I found that it didn't move enough air to be useable so I am going to replace it with a fan that I will purchase from West Marine.
