tstege, nice work. Could you tell me more about your experience with the propane heater - do you use it while occupying, ventilation while using, how do you have it hung, etc. I was thinking going this route but considering using it just for taking the chill off the camper before occupying. Also, what is the fan and did you install it? What does the cover/top look like and how long can you run before zapping the battery - is your battery a stand alone or set up with isolator or ? BTW, your battery setup looks clean - nice work.
I love the propane heater it is a safe is they can be turns off if it tips over and has no smell. I run it exactly as you stated to heat the back up before bed and when I wake up to make getting out of my bag enjoyable. It will heat the back of my rig up in about 10-15 minutes in 0-20deg temps which is all I can ask for. I can not even use the high setting due to the heat it puts off, I am afraid of damaging the insulation in my roof. For hanging it I used wire cable looped it around the handles and crimped them with a (lanyard? thing like on the end of a dog leash not sure what they are called but you can open them and close them makes for easy removal)on the end of each. Then I anchored two heavy duty hooks into my roof (frame). It is very sturdy my only thing now is trying to figure a way to keep the ceiling from getting to hot. I am thinking of attaching a small piece of metal or using a cut open coffee can so the heat hits that and reflects down rather than right at my roof. I will let you know how it goes. For now this has worked well though we just did a trip to Mammoth and stayed cozy.
The battery setup I would love to take credit for but I had help with that. It is isolated and the battery is a small yellowtop that runs an inverter, fantastic roof van, and 2 lights. If I am just running lights and fan I can leave it on for about 30 hours without turning the truck on. If you were to just run the fan on low which is all you need to keep the air fresh I think you could easily do so for 5-6 days while sleeping without draining it. If you drive at all it starts charging again though. The only time I have killed it is when I have been working on the truck for days on end with the fan and both lights going the whole time. The fan is called Fan-tastic the basic 3 speed model 12V mine has a smoke colored vent (comes in many colors). These are widely considered the best, and cheapest you can buy $90 on ebay, bought it with my slider side windows.
I will upload some pictures of the setup if you would like and you can try and replicate it, seems fairly easy to do. Once I swapped it from my old truck to my new one it all made sense to me, and was actually fairly easy to do. Luckily I took a ton of pictures while taking it off, for fear of re-installing it wrong. Hope that helps let me know how it goes and if you need more info. Tyler