5 Ways to Heat your Van Without a Diesel Heater

[Music] hey everybody scott pdx today is friday january 22nd okay so it's winter time here in the pacific northwest and we're blessed with somewhat mild conditions but i know some of you back east are living in a lot cooler places than i am however even out here you know it gets into the 30s and below freezing at night and it's nice to have heat especially if you're hanging out in your van overnight sleeping overnight camping overnight or just chilling someplace that you want to have a little bit of warmth and a little bit of comfort so this is in my 2018 nv200 it's a small van this is a small camper van if i had a bigger sprinter van i would probably install a diesel heater and and have a little bit more robust system but in this van i'm limited on space and so even as a smaller van as the nv200 is i actually have five ways that i can heat the van don't get me wrong i love the diesel heaters i would love to have one but to have one you really need to have a couple of things one you need to have a dedicated power source really that's a second battery that battery needs to be charged from the alternator or if you're in a place that you can charge it via solar and keep it powered up all the time that works also but you should have that second battery because i don't want to rely on my starter battery to run my heater and get up in the morning and be stuck someplace so you really need to have a second battery source now i have a little jackery a dedicated battery little portable battery pack and i could probably run the diesel heater on that but that just doesn't seem ideal second thing with the diesel heaters is that you have to have a diesel tank someplace now here in the united states the nv200s are all gasoline engines they're not diesel engines and so you can't run off uh a main diesel tank you have to add a second little uh can someplace that holds your diesel now that works fine you know a lot of people on a bigger van there's all kinds of places you can stash that tank here on the nv200 i don't really want to have a diesel tank in the sleeping quarters and i know people do it and it's just fine but you know i just it just is something i'm not that interested in right now now the good news is that there's other ways to heat your van just fine without a diesel heater they all have a little bit of compromises but uh we'll talk about what each one of those are and uh go over the heat options that you have all right so the first heating source to consider on your van is the van itself i mean it's an automobile and it's got a heater so why not use it you know the funny thing is when i first got this van i went camping a couple of times and you'd wake up in the morning and i would go to turn on one of my other heat sources and it took me a couple trips before i realized i could just get out of the bed start the van get back in my sleeping bag and wait 10 minutes for the van to warm up and it seems pretty obvious now but at the time i just didn't think about that but that's a great way to heat up your van i mean why not use what the van has it's got a good heater in there just use it now the disadvantages of using your engine to heat the van is it's not very fuel efficient just idling your van to run the heater is not a great way to use your gasoline okay the second heat source that i have in my van is a stove top heater so let's talk about what that looks like all right so my van i've got a drawer with a stove butane stove pull this out it's just your typical butane stove heater open this up you have a butane can align it to the tab push it in now it's armed you simply just turn it on to start it that's not very efficient just to turn it on like that so i've got a little canister heat source that goes on top of it so let me get that out keep it down here kind of behind a few things bear with me first i got my kettle i got my pots and pans little backpacking pot and pan set i've got this little deal you may have seen these on other channels so this little can fits on your stove it's got little tabs to align just to kind of keep it a little bit sturdy but all it is is it's just a hollow cavity with a bunch of holes in it that just absorbs some heat turn on this and presto i'm going to turn it down a little bit you can see how the heat's coming on the side i don't need that much heat to run this thing it works pretty good the thing you got to be careful with on these is that this thing gets really freaking hot it actually comes with these little this little fork thing here that you can put up here to to lift the can on and off i usually when i'm running this thing i just run it and i just don't touch it until it's nice and cool but the advantage of this particular heating source is that i keep it in here all the time it's the same stove i use all the time i keep a couple of the butane bottles you know i got a couple of spares plus the one in the stove itself there's no moving parts you know it's just real simple and what i'll do sometimes in this nv200 this front seat folds flat and becomes a little bit of a table so when i get up in the morning or when i go into bed at night i can just turn it on for a little bit let it go i would not run a stove like this all night long plus i would be real careful that you'll notice that i have a carbon monoxide detector up there uh because anytime you have a combustible flame in a van or a closed space you're going to get some carbon monoxide so you want to be real careful about that so the main advantages of the stovetop canister is that it's real simple to work with you just put it on there and turn your stove on and you're ready to go it puts off a nice even heat it does put a little bit of moisture i don't have a hydrometer in here so i can't tell you what the moisture content is but it does you can definitely feel a little bit of moisture but it sure warms it up the cons are it's probably not very fuel efficient working off those butane canisters you're probably going to get three or four hours per canister just purely a guess i don't run it that long typically and it's very dangerous because you don't want to touch that can that can gets real hot and it doesn't look like it's very hot but it gets hot and if you touch it boy that's a nasty burn so you know all these heat sources have some drawbacks you have to be careful about you know hot surfaces on all of them so just use your common sense and it's okay but uh this takes a very minimal space uh the can itself is like 25 30 i bought it off amazon earlier in the fall and you know a lot of times it's back order but it ships here within a couple weeks and it's real simple just works off your regular stove so uh that's heat source number two that i keep in the van all the time okay while this is cooling down i'm going to pull out the third heat source that i have in this van i keep it right out here down here on the bottom which this whole area is accessible from the back door so from the back door i've got a little net right here that has all kinds of stuff in it the heater i'm going to pull out is right down here so let me grab it so here you go so this is called a cupid heater the brand is covia the model is a cupid heater and it is a little butane heater as well so i'll show you how it works open these two little things here heater pops open lift it out like this throw it down over here and that's the little heater notice that uh this is my hand it's a real small little heater you put your butane canister right in there sorry to do it for one hand hey okay okay so let me get a butane canister pull the one out of the stove here uses the same canisters on this stove when you put the canister in you can kind of look through this hole and see where it goes to align it let's see if i can do this with one hand you push it in and you twist it just a little bit like that and that locks it in now this stove is real simple to do all you do is you push it in all right there you go that's lit so it's got a little pezio electric uh deal in there on the stove so you just push this in twist it and on high and then it clicks and ignites it now if this was a darker day you would see this thing as it's definitely a flame there this ceramic element is starting to heat up here this is very similar to a buddy heater you've seen those buddy heaters uh they're very popular and i have a couple of the buddy heaters actually and for quite a while i would put my buddy heater i would store it just right down here which kind of works but you know there's just so little space in this van that anytime i can find a smaller solution it's better and and this little covia heater really puts out a lot of heat uh and it's very small i mean that box that whole canister this thing comes in i mean it's tiny and they put my hand on it you know it's not much bigger than my hand so one big advantage for me with the covia heater is that it works off the same butane canisters that my stove works off of now if you work off of the little propane green canisters then a buddy heater is a better choice for you because those use the same one pound propane canisters uh and there's nothing wrong with that the buddy heater works great and there's bigger stoves you know those old coleman two burner stoves are great stoves they're just physically larger and a tiny little van like this again this is a nissan nv200 van it's the size of like the transit connects or the ram city van or whatever the heck that one is they're small vans so uh every little spot that i can get a little bit more storage is highly welcomed so uh these little butane canisters don't take up very much space i haven't been having that problem finding them anywhere at least here in the pacific northwest maybe in other parts of the country they're a little bit harder to find but for me they're not that bad to find the butane canisters maybe don't last quite as long as the propanes and the for paint propanes are also refillable where these butanes aren't now when i say the propanes are refillable technically they're not but you can buy a little adapter and if you're careful and know what you're doing they can be refilled the butanes they're one and done you throw them away but i also like the butane stoves and heaters and stuff because they typically have an igniter built into it so you just put the stove in you turn the dial boom heat's ready to go there's no screwing things in and then getting a match and holding one button down where you turn the other button like you do on the buddy heaters that buddy heater is definitely a two-handed operation to start this once the can is in this little cadet heater you just turn the dial and it goes i've only been running this cadet heater for just a couple of minutes and it's already 80 degrees in here so uh you've got your adjustment here you can turn it down a little bit up and down it actually came with a little plate you can put right here to where you can put a uh you can kind of cook or warm up your coffee or something like that on it obviously i don't have that in here but to turn it off all you do is just there you go things off now uh i like this cadet heater it uh it works pretty darn good i mean it's it took it from probably 70 to 80 degrees in here in like five minutes that being said uh it's still too much of a heater i mean if i lived in a uh you know snowy area or took it up skiing or you know in a real frigid place then it works good you know it's it's a it's a strong heater even for this size van it's almost too much heater now the little element in this thing turn around again the uh the catalytic element which is this little white thing it's a stone little catalyst uh heater it's the same as what you have in a buddy heater the buddy one is about twice as big the uh the big buddy has two of those so it's four times as big but this little thing that's plenty heat on here i found that a buddy heater in this van was too much i mean in two minutes it was too hot now the other disadvantage to uh this cadet heater is uh buying it you know i i bought it off amazon and it shipped direct from korea i believe i believe it's a korean brand and it took a couple weeks to get there but uh i got it last year and honestly i only have used it just a couple of times it uh it just i don't camp where it's that cold out and hanging out in the van a whole lot but the few times i did use it it was definitely uh definitely liked having it and i typically do the same setup with this heater as i do with the the canister on the stove heater in that i'll fold down this front seat and put it there so it's away from my bedding and in the morning i can just with the canister in there i can just get in turn that dial in let it warm up the van a little for five minutes and then i can get out of my sleeping bag and be nice and warm so uh it's it's been a great heater it's definitely heater i would definitely recommend for a small little van the next two heat sources i'm going to talk about require power so let me show you what my power situation is in my van currently right down here there's a little jackery power center pull that out i'm sure you've seen these on the internet before it's just a little uh power station incidentally under my seat here i keep the small little inverter and the cables to charge the jackery and a whole bunch of other cables to charge a variety of items i'll sit in that little tray under that seat the fourth power source i want to talk about is an electric blanket down here i have found at walmart a 12 volt electric blanket yeah uh i'm not going to open the whole thing the color of the blanket is uh the same as uh as the color of the little bag here and this just works off of 12 volt 12 volt connection it was a very inexpensive little purchase i think i paid 20 dollars for it it's got a very simple uh high low off heat connection on here a little button dial here and this just plugs right into my jackery just turn this little button on and then that powers the uh 12 volt connection and that will heat up that uh that's what that blanket all right so why do i have a heated blanket in here that's kind of silly so when i use that heater blanket is if i pull off on the side of the road i just want to take a little nap or i'm just farting around in here i don't want to dig out all the uh the other heat sources and i maybe don't want to run the vehicle it's a nice little option you know just to kind of keep you warm just in a little small area occasionally i'll have my dogs with me and i've also used it before just to kind of heat up on one of these benches a little warm area for the dogs to lay on uh i wouldn't try running it all night i think i did once and uh it didn't on low it didn't discharge the jackery totally but it took it down quite a bit and uh and i i wouldn't recommend doing that unless you were plugged into power also which which i can you know i carry an extension cord and the chargers for the jackery and so i can plug it in at night and charge it all night long and then use this as a 12 volt power supply and use that electric blanket also so you know the electric blanket is also safer you know there's no flame like the other heaters that i just showed the butane heaters you know so they're they're definitely safer you know there's less chance of fire there's less chance of burning yourself and uh you know it's it's actually come in handy a couple times and it really doesn't take a whole lot of space plus it's also a blanket so if i get cold and i just want to cover up with something it's always there although with the cables in it it's not the most comfortable blanket in the world but but it's there and it's a good choice so that's heat source number four that i keep in the van okay so let's talk about the fifth heat source that i have in my van the very last one and that is an electric heater so let's take a look what that looks like so first of all i store it also in the same cabinet all right okay so this is a little broan is the brand a ceramic heater and it's a 110 or 120 volt heater it uses 1500 watts and so you know you can't really i could probably run this on the uh jackery on low but it's not going to last very long this is definitely an option that you want to have when you're plugged into shore power but i've used it a couple times that way so what will happen sometimes is that when i'm out camping around after a couple days maybe i'll want to go into a state park where there's a shower and uh and i'll buy a if it's cold out i'll have a site that has a 110 power and then i can run this little heater they're real simple to use you just plug it in and then turn it on and go this particular one has a off it's got a fan only low heat and high heat the fan only is kind of nice sometimes in the summertime it's another way to get some cool air moving around and then it's got a radio stat it's not a thermostat it's a rheostat so it just tells you how often you want the thing to come on or off but uh this is one that this is probably the only heating source i have in here other than the electric blanket that i can run all night long so if i have consistent 110 power same thing as i'll put the heater up on the uh the folded down front seat and uh i've slept in below freezing temperatures with this heater running all night long and slept great and put it on low and even that is almost too much for this little van low with the thermostat turned down it's still pretty pretty warm i mean this is a small van and you know even at into the 40s if when i have a good sleeping bag and just my body heat and the minimal insulation i have in here i mean i do have some insulation in the ceiling and a little bit on the walls but even that that's plenty of insulation to stay comfortable all night long it's just in the mornings and when you're going to bed at night to where i hate getting being cold right before i get to bed because when you get cold it takes a lot longer for your body to warm up than it did to get cold and so if i can keep the temperature up a little bit when i go to bed i can you know without shivering and having to snuggle up and get all warm then i can sleep a whole lot better and same thing in the morning you know when you first get up in the morning and you get out of that sleeping bag and you got to put your clothes on and for me i got to pack up the bed and do other things it's nice to have some heat on here before i open up that door and get out into the real cold so that's the fifth heating source that i have in here get out there go camping no reason why you can't go out and camp and when it's cold just wear good clothes when you're outside the van stay dry if you can always carry a second set of clothes to to change into i always have a second set of clothes that i leave in here they're kind of some hiking pants and dry t-shirt dry socks for sure and a pair of underwears so uh you know if i do get wet i can always come back in here turn on the heat put on some dry clothes i always keep a towel in here too so i can kind of dry off a little bit and those are just basics you should always have in a camping van just so if you do get wet and cold at least you have an option of warming up before you have to do that lawn drive home or or spend that night okay so those are the five ways that i can heat this van that uh are in this van at all times so uh even the summer time i pretty much carry those things because occasionally i'll camp up in the woods and you can have some very cool mornings and so it's nice to have that stuff in here and each of those items has a dedicated place that i keep them in the van and they're just always there now if i was living in this van full time or this was a little bit bigger van i would do things differently i would probably would install a diesel heater if this was a little larger van and i could maybe hide that diesel tank you know someplace under a bed storage area that that i felt good about i wasn't going to be smelling fumes all the time and and who knows i may still go and add one of those diesel heaters under the passenger seat here at some point if i ever add permanent power to this van but the way i have this van set up nothing is permanently modified on this van so all the fixtures in here can come out and this could be converted back into a cargo van with uh minimal changes required so that was one of the things i wanted to do because a lot of this was just kind of a a test on how the van life was going to work for me and and again i'm not a full-timer guy i go out here on day trips and uh overnight trips and sometimes i'll go out three four or five days in a row just kind of depends on what's going on and so if i was living in a permanently i would maybe want to have the heat in a with a thermostat and you know there definitely are some advantages to having a diesel van don't get me wrong i mean you know pulls a lot of the humidity out of the air it uh all the exhaust is going outside of the van so you know there's definitely some advantages to it and they're pretty inexpensive i mean i think the price that i've paid for that uh covia heater is probably about the same price as a diesel heater it's just the diesel heater requires quite a bit more installation and you can again you need to have a power source and you need to have a fuel can and you know that's just a a bit more involved of a project so not saying one's right and one's wrong i'm just showing you what i'm doing in here maybe there's some ideas that you'll get out of this video to to help you stay comfortable in the uh the cool winters that uh that we find ourselves in and still be able to get out and enjoy camping in your van and hopefully there was some information here and you found it valuable and if so like subscribe all that crap on my youtube channel and if you have any questions or comments uh enter them below otherwise uh we'll see you on the next video so this is scott pdx signing out for now you all take care of yourselves and be good to each other bye

Channel: Scott_PDX

Views: 116,192

Rating: 4.8579688 out of 5

Keywords: NV 200, Nissan NV200, Van Heat, Diesel Heater, Kovea Cadet, Stove Top Canister Heat, 12v Heated Blanket, VanLife

Id: 7c48LrjBQG0

Length: 23min 37sec (1417 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021