Hotlanta - Not

[dale farley]

More results of global warming. For the first time in the recorded history of Pensacola, we have just completed 10 consecutive days of below freezing temperature.

The ice on top of the ground in my barnyard never melted today. That is very unusual for it to be that cold all day. It was 14 degrees this morning and will be about the same in the morning. Of course by the end of the week, it is supposed to be back in the 60's.

[truk4u]

Dustbowl,

Why on earth would they wire in the amp hog kick heaters on either one of the inverter legs? This makes no sense at all!

I've had two coaches with Aguahot and when operated on electric (not the diesel) position, they would heat the coach, hot water and bay heaters through the heat exchangers and the amp usage was very low. If the electric portion of the Aquahot could not keep up with the heat demand, then I switched to diesel. These were late model units, 2003 and 2004.

So in theory, in Michaels situation with no electric, Aquahot should handle all his needs while unattended as long as the auto-start was active and there would be no need for any kick heaters.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We spent 10 winters with our first coach in Western NY with the bus stored in a barn. No insulation, no heat source, only a cover to keep the snow from it. The sides had cracks big enough to see through so the barn was essentially the same temps as the outside.

We went through sub zero temps every winter, and had at least one week each winter when temps never got above zero in the mornings. To protect against freezing I followed a very simple procedure. Make sure the water tank is full. Set a small cube heater in the water bay, leave it on the 500 watt setting and do not turn it off. The water temp will get up to a safe temp (around 50 for our weather conditions) and the mass of water acts as a heat sink to moderate the bay temps.

For the house I used a three position electric heater with a fan. The normal setting was 500, but if it was gong to get in single digits I used 1000 watts and 1500 wats if it was going to get sub zero. The fan was critical in keeping the air inside evenly heated.

I opened all cabinet doors so the plumbing also got heat. I placed the unit in the kitchen.

The key to freeze protection is to maintain safe temps, not to try to bring them up to safe temps. The interior of the coach hovered around 45 degrees when I did what I described above. The key is to keep the wind off the bus. The windows will wick away the heat if it is windy outside. If you cannot keep the bus out of the wind, plan on using a lot more heat.

[michaeldterry]

Ed and Tom - all good "educational" stuff for a neophyte (dummy) like me. I can verify that my toe kick heaters will, in fact, run off the inverter, but yesterday while out at the bus, I turned them off and am now just depending on the AquaHot and the basement heaters to keep Evangeline from freezing. Both days that I've checked so far, the generator was running when I pulled up to the bus and since I just recorded the genset hours for the first time yesterday, I don't know how long it had been running, so I turned it off manually (but left the auto-start set to "On"). I did go into the inverter menus yesterday and set the "Maximum Gen Run Time" to 3 hours to avoid the possibility of 18-24 hour runs in between me checking the bus and the associated fuel consumption. Hopefully this will be a moot point soon when this cold snap abates and I can safely turn off the generator auto-start and the main power switches!

As an aside, we are in negotiations with a father/son team who have opened a secure storage lot near our home recently called ParkMSellM RV Storage to put in a 50 amp service for us if we'll park Evangeline there. They are just getting started and are motivated to have some high end bus/RV units onsite to attract additional business. We hope to have an agreement hammered out this week. The initial offer is that if we'll store Evangeline there, they'll give us the first year free! On the power situation, we're talking about me contributing up to $200 to have the service installed and separately metered (I would pay for exact usage off "my" meter). There is an existing power pole/breaker box just a bit too far from where we'll park the bus under a large metal "shed" (used to be a lumber yard and the shed was lumber storage), so they'll have to run a line under the concrete tarmac. That's another thing I like about the possibility of keeping Evangeline there - it's reinforced concrete instead of the nasty gravel she's currently parked on!

In any case, it will be at least several days before we have a deal and get power installed, so it's no help to my current crisis. That makes your advice all the more important to us! Thanks again!

I've also told them that, if they would invest in a few (several) RV park style electrical hook-ups in the parking/storage area, it would be a huge differentiator to attract RV/bus storage clients and they were intrigued. I need to get contact and product info from Jon to pass on to them (or someone at Jon's daughter's company to pass on their contact info for Jamestown to call on them). I'll PM Jon with details, I guess.

[truk4u]

It's amazing how the mass of water can keep things warm. I have the 20 gallon hot water heater on to protect the plumbing bay. Even though the water heater is on the starboard side, the inside temp of the bay on the port side is above 50 degree's. Bus barn has been down to 25 degree's on a couple mornings. The floor heat on a low setting of 70 is keeping the inside temp at 50.

[sawdust_128]

Dumptruck: I have no idea.

However, as I said, I checked and yes indeedy they do come up on inverter and watch the batteries go bye bye. I have not checked to see if the situation is the same with the electric heaters in the bays.

I agree, Aqua-Hot is more than sufficient to keep the cabin and plumbing bay at safe temps. However, there is no aqua-hot for the storage bay. If heat is needed for important things (those 48 cases of Bear Pee Beer) then you need something else.

I believe that Vantare has the Xantrex's programmed to fire the gen-set either on battery condition or on high load detection.

ON EDIT: Thinking about this some more, I do seem to remember that the load was measured-battery-voltage-based. If draw-down was severe, there was a voltage that triggered the genset at 15, 10 and 5 minutes after monitoring three different low voltage readings. There may also be an load amps observation in the mix as well. I'll try to check these.

Michael,

1. make sure that you go to the "Meters" menu on the inverters. There you will be able to check the actual and the temp adjusted voltage state of the house batteries. I usually leave one inverter at this position so I can always get a quick look at the state of the batteries. If you are shutting off the generator before full charge and doing this every time, you may end up discharging the batteries to a detrimental point.

2. Also, if you have a Guest (or other brand) battery tender for your chassis batteries running off of the engine heater circuit, shut that circuit off in the panel. First your chassis bateries should be charged (check the 12 and 24 VAC dash guages). Second, you don't need to be using your house batteries to keep the chassis topped up.

3. If you have time, you should ride out a auto-start through auto-shut-down cycle. You can watch the process as the inverter
a. Verifies the AC-2 (generator) input as good,
b. Goes through the bulk charging mode to float charging mode (different on the two inverters)
c. finishes float and proceeds to shutdown.

Depending on battery condition when you start, it should take about 3 hours.

You will feel much more comfortable using and depending on this feature once you actually see with your own eyes that it works. I was very skeptical until I went through this exercise.

Somewhere in your docs you might find a sheet for your inverter with the voltages and programming parameters which control the auto-run features. Armed with these, the execise becomes very valuable. If you don't have it, I will talk you through what they should be reading off what I have in my manuals. I believe we previously established that we have the same inverter compliment.

Cheers and I hope this helps.

[sawdust_128]

More results of global warming. For the first time in the recorded history of Pensacola, we have just completed 10 consecutive days of below freezing temperature.

The ice on top of the ground in my barnyard never melted today. That is very unusual for it to be that cold all day. It was 14 degrees this morning and will be about the same in the morning. Of course by the end of the week, it is supposed to be back in the 60's.

This one's for you!!

global warming.jpg

[michaeldterry]

Thanks, Ed! I'll print your post and try to follow your directions at the bus tomorrow!

I don't know what brand/model of chassis battery charger is in the bus, but I have the battery charger switch off on the electric panel anyway.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Don't worry about heating the storage bay, all good beer should be stored refrigerated.





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[michaeldterry]

Don't worry about heating the storage bay, all good beer should be stored refrigerated.
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Jim - point well taken! The heat is not on in the storage bay (gotta keep the beer at optimal temp).