My Van is reasonably insulated; however I sometimes find myself in zero temperatures in the Northeast. When this happens my furnace runs constantly. I have a curtain of warm window material separating the cab from the cabin that helps a great deal - although it was pain to make. I have two sleeping bags that I was thinking of hanging on the rear doors to add additional insulation. I also have a set of blackout curtains that I could hang instead of the sleeping bags. It seems obvious that the sleeping bags would be better...but I thought I would seek the wisdom of the group.
Murph...
A couple of sleeping bags or even some inexpensive queen or king size comforters doubled up would likely make a big difference. Hard to insulate all that steel framing in the back. Layer up over the top of it reduce the heat suck.
Are you trying to keep your sleep area warm during sleep time or you want your whole van area warm the whole time?
Hi @Murph...
Single pane glass is some of the “low lying fruit”. There can be other areas also. @GaryBIS has a thermal loss calculator on his website that you might find handy to consider.
The Cab 🤔 ,,, If you go t,the effort of insulating that, there is still many SF of glass.
www.buildagreenrv.com
Single pane glass is some of the “low lying fruit”. There can be other areas also. @GaryBIS has a thermal loss calculator on his website that you might find handy to consider.
The Cab 🤔 ,,, If you go t,the effort of insulating that, there is still many SF of glass.
Heat Loss Calculator for Camper Van Conversions – Build A Green RV
www.buildagreenrv.com
Vans have limitations that simply can't be overcome. At best a van has minimal insulation and an overwhelming number of places for heat loss. In colder climates your best bet is short term warm periods. If you want to sit inside all day you'll need a heat source running constantly and you should never open a door. But if you did that you'd have a real condensation problem.
My recent cold weather trip was tame in comparison to what ur dealing with. But two things worked for me. 1. A throw rug on the floor. My Floor is FREEZING, no matter how much heat the heater throes out. And 2. a heated mattress pad. I kept that on all night. The heater made the cab too hot so I kept getting up to turn it off. So finally I just left it off:
Thermostat is a Webasto option, but bad things can happen if it's not run full on. I made sure the rheostat was accessible from the bed.
We encountered bitterly cold weather on the way home from Kip's this week. On the way up, we stayed at a rest stop and an Applebees, so I covered windows. On the way back, we found a little secluded empty park, so I didn't cover anything. We were able to plug in our nominal 1500w electric heater—I say nominal because it is >30 years old. 18° outside, 56° inside overnight, which was perfect sleeping. Webasto when we were up and about could only maintain 67°.
We encountered bitterly cold weather on the way home from Kip's this week. On the way up, we stayed at a rest stop and an Applebees, so I covered windows. On the way back, we found a little secluded empty park, so I didn't cover anything. We were able to plug in our nominal 1500w electric heater—I say nominal because it is >30 years old. 18° outside, 56° inside overnight, which was perfect sleeping. Webasto when we were up and about could only maintain 67°.
From Renogy for their LiFePO4 batteries:
TEMPERATURE PARAMETERS
Standard Operation Temperature: 25℃±5℃
Storage Temperature: -13~149℉ / -25~65℃
Charge Temperature: 32~131°F/ 0~55°C
Discharge Temperature: -4~140°F/ -20~60°C
These are conservative numbers applicable to any LiFePO4 battery:
Don't overthink the issue. Storage at high temperatures is the primary calendar aging parameter. High SOC (i.e. high terminal voltage) is contributing, but unless you float the battery at 14.6v you are not going to notice the effect. Storage cool and anything less than 100% SOC (e.g. 13.3v) is going to be fine.
I don't know about charging when cold. My charger refuses to charge when it is 32 or lower. The batteries always report 4-9f warmer, but that makes sense since they are a large insulated thermal mass. That has only happened once Fun with Home Assistant and Renogy electronics
TEMPERATURE PARAMETERS
Standard Operation Temperature: 25℃±5℃
Storage Temperature: -13~149℉ / -25~65℃
Charge Temperature: 32~131°F/ 0~55°C
Discharge Temperature: -4~140°F/ -20~60°C
These are conservative numbers applicable to any LiFePO4 battery:
Don't overthink the issue. Storage at high temperatures is the primary calendar aging parameter. High SOC (i.e. high terminal voltage) is contributing, but unless you float the battery at 14.6v you are not going to notice the effect. Storage cool and anything less than 100% SOC (e.g. 13.3v) is going to be fine.
I don't know about charging when cold. My charger refuses to charge when it is 32 or lower. The batteries always report 4-9f warmer, but that makes sense since they are a large insulated thermal mass. That has only happened once Fun with Home Assistant and Renogy electronics
Yeah, the technology is really advancing and the prices are droopping! I wish mine were self-heating.
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If you have 300 watts of solar on the roof, I wonder if a 200 watt electric heater would help. In sun, you'd break even for the most part. If you have a B2B charger, your batteries would recharge faster. You'd need some big batteries to make it through a cold night. For example, 600AH of batteries would be able to run a 200 watt heater for about 30 hours before killing the batteries.
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