Regarding diesel heater cycling, it may vary depending on the manufacturer's controller and controller settings.I don't have an LP, but I do have an Alu-Cab that the wife and I have been living in full-time for the past 14 months now. I have some info to share that you may find useful.
- I can't imagine trying to sleep with a wide open space at the end of the truck. Sometimes we have no bugs, but most night (~80%+) we deal with some level of bugs. They are attracted to the inside of the camper for some reason (heat, lights, I don't know) but they will quickly become a nuisance.
- Our Canopy Camper has the built in, pivoting 'table' opposite the pivoting bed platform. This thing is very handy. During the day it is my wife's desk, and at night it holds a lot of stuff for us, though we usually leave it hinged upwards, and slide things in between it and the outer tent fabric. I would definitely recommend coming up with something like this for your setup. Ours is a tight enough fit that it would prevent bugs from coming up from underneath and into the bed space.
- Insulated panels aren't worth the effort IMO. A diesel heater isn't this on/off/on/off type of device (the internet may be to blame for this idea, but I am not sure). They take ~5 minutes to get going, and then ~5 minutes to shut down. They work best at steady state, meaning they work best when left on for long periods of time. There also isn't enough 'stuff' inside of a camper to really heat soak, and then use that heat to keep the interior warm. When we shut ours off, it gets cold inside very quickly, more quickly than the time it takes the heater to spool down and then spool back up again.
You will be wasting heat IMO. When we run ours we leave our two side windows partially unzippered, near the top. We fully closed the windows on the camper once, when it was 15 degrees out and dumping snow, and the heater got the interior temperature up to 110 degrees(!) before we cracked open the side windows. This is a 5kw version. On low, 1 gallon of diesel lasts us ~20 hours, fyi.










