New dog? or two?

Woolies?

A legendary organic squirrel coat?

Pensionerd.

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 6:49 PM, tom ring <taring@taring.org> wrote:
> I am going to do a one night camp at Surly Darkness tomorrow night and have
> been experimenting with ways to add some extra heat independent of my propane
> catalytic unit.
>
> I am doing a couple of things, both are quite simple.
>
> First, preheat the interior as much as possible.  I am using a 1200 watt
> electric heater running at 500 watts (low).  My current outside temperature is
> 39F, and my van has been at 75F for over 24 hours.  There is a lot of heat
> stored in the interior, especially the 150 lbs of the battery bank.
>
> Second, to heat things up quickly (when the interior was at 37F yesterday), I
> bought 2 4.5 gallon water containers from Fleet Farm.  They actually hold 5.5
> gallons or 46 lbs of water.  My hot water temperature at home is 148F.  If you
> do some simple math where 1 lb of water heated 1 degree F, or cooled, is 1 BTU.
>  I am assuming the low temperature cutoff is 80F.  So (148-80) * 46 is 3128
> BTUs.  I have 2 of those containers.  That is more than 2 hours of my propane
> 3000 BTU heater.  I am using those during the preheat stage and will refill
> them for the camping stage.
>
> I also plan to fill the tank in the van with the same temperature water and
> leave the top cover open.  I think that's another 11 gallons, so would add
> 2*3128 or 6256 BTUs.  Between that, the van 24 hour preheat, my body heat,
> waste heat from the fridge, and the heater, I expect I will be very snug
> tomorrow night at Darkness Day Eve.  Overnight temperatures are expected to be
> around freezing depending on cloud cover.
>
> I hope someone else from the list will be there.  We see people from all over
> the continent.  Good beer, good people.
>
> tom
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Tom Ring K0TAR EN34hx
>
> Never attribute to engineers that into which politicians, lawyers,
> accountants, and marketeers have poked their fingers.
> -----------------------------------------