DIY forced air propane heater?

[trae]

Hey folks, wondering if anyone's ever built or seen a home made forced air propane heater?

I came upon this on the local classifieds:




Not a great photo I know. What I could surmise:

- the hose on the right is attached to a small fan powered by the battery
- you can see the standard green propane bottle attached to a burner underneath the heat exchanger
- the hose on the left goes to your tent or whatever

The seller claims that a single bottle lasts about 7 hours and brings the temps up about 10c in his tent. No idea about the power consumption for the fan.

I know diesel heaters are all the rage now, but my vehicle is gasoline and I'd love to avoid another fuel source. I know about propex heaters (https://propexcanada.com/product/hs2000-blown-air-heater/) but that's a little much for me at this time.

Having said that,

- Has anyone built/seen something similar out there in the wild?

- Any thoughts on this design?

 

[Ozarker]

Looks like rocket science, let's make it simple, heat air with any heat source, turn on a fan and blow air past the heating source, bam!, forced air heating system.

Gat an ammo box, flex exhaust pipe, propane burner and tank along with a battery operated fan and put it all together.

 

[trae]

Looks like rocket science, let's make it simple, heat air with any heat source, turn on a fan and blow air past the heating source, bam!, forced air heating system.

Gat an ammo box, flex exhaust pipe, propane burner and tank along with a battery operated fan and put it all together.

Sounds simple enough

I would want the air traveling past the heat source to be fully isolated from the combustion so that I dont bring the results of said combustion into the tent.

 

[rruff]

The seller claims that a single bottle lasts about 7 hours and brings the temps up about 10c in his tent. No idea about the power consumption for the fan.

If you are cheap and therefore considering a janky furnace designed and built by someone else... get a good sleeping bag, and a nice fluffy down blanket to throw over the top. Your ~100W of resting body heat is sufficient with decent insulation. If you hate getting into a cold bag and waiting for it to warm up, then get a little electric blanket to warm your bag for 30 minutes or so before you get in.

 

[FlatlandYankee]

I’ll DIY or garagineer a *lot* of things. Combustion and sleeping space is not one of those things.

 

[trae]

I’ll DIY or garagineer a *lot* of things. Combustion and sleeping space is not one of those things.

Agreed, but I'm curious now.

Seems like there used to be a Zodi tent heater that got discontinued because if the fan died the unit melted.

Australians seem to have Companion Aeroheat which superficially looks like a new version of the Zodi:
Of course @rruff is 100% correct, in vast majority of the cases a sleeping bag is sufficient.

Anyway, needing out on gear here.

 

[rruff]

Anyway, needing out on gear here.

It's an affliction...

It's happy hour... have another swig or whatever spins your props, and scale it back a bit... just for fun. You are talking about a RTT which has ******** for insulation anyway... so the heat you add will mostly be wasted. Insulate your body and you will sleep well...