87. A freezing night in the campervan!

hello there in my Christmas video I mentioned how I wanted to try out the diesel heater that I installed back in it might have been February March just Springtime anyway because I never really given a full usage test I checked it worked but I've never actually been away in the van for any period of time to see that it will work in a sort of ongoing keeping me warm basis and I happen to have today and tomorrow fre and the temperature is what I would describe as chilly it's not amazingly cold it's about four or 5° C today and I think it's going to get down to about 1 or 2 Celsius so just above freezing overnight and I thought that's pretty good not so cold that if it doesn't work I'll be absolutely turning into an ice box but cold enough to see that it actually does do the job and can keep me warm so I've got a few Provisions together I'm not going far away from home so that again if it all goes horribly wrong I can just drive back but I thought I would go away for a night in the van and see how well the diesel heat does however having not run it now since I installed it which is several months ago I suppose before I even leave I ought to just check that it will still start up first things first then let's power on the electrics turn the switch in here where's it gone there it is okay incidentally how's the old battery doing 13.5 vol it's just been sitting there quietly ticking over with the solar keeping it topped up of course in theory you shouldn't keep a lithium topped up to full but I don't think there's a way of telling the charge controller not to do it anyway it's probably fine let's stick the heater on it's actually colder than I thought 2° C now the other question is I can't remember how to actually work this thing so let's just try turning it on does that make it come on I honestly can't remember or is that just setting the heating temperature mode I'm going to have to read the manual aren't I all right back in a second now I just kept pressing buttons until we got to setting the temperature at 20 and it went whoosh and it's come up with a red light but it's making a very gentle woring noise down there where the heat comes out there's a faint were in a minute then it should start clicking the pump to bring the fuel through if all is going [Music] well there is heat coming out of the exhaust pipe so I think it's all looking good touchwood it's a few minutes later and it's pumping out hot air so that is a good sign I'll turn it off now and head off to my [Music] destination [Music] right well let's do is it says and call I am arrived and it's a nice quiet little campsite uh one two I think three other people here all very quiet though no signs of activity and spoke to the lady whose number you have to call when you turn up she sounded very friendly offered to come down and show me the ropes I said there's nothing I really need I'll just park up and make myself happy and that was absolutely good she told me where the bins are and the toilets no showers on site but that's fine and it's really a fishing site there's a big lake here which I can actually see out the side of the van I'll get a shot of that in a minute I'll go for a walk in a second do a tour uh but I'm not interested in fishing it's never been my thing no interest in that at all but a nice quiet spot and I've got no real plans the only plan was to come away in the van for a night and see how well the heater does at keeping me warm the van is currently very toasty cuz of course I had the um Van's own heater on as in the cab heater while I was driving along so that's fine it's nice and toasty as soon as it starts to get chilly again I'll stick the diesel unit on uh the one that I installed and we'll see how how that goes but I might just go and do a quick tour or I might have some lunch let's have lunch and then I'll go out for a quick tour this afternoon inverter while I wait for the kettle to boil I thought I'd have a quick look at what the um victron stuff was saying and I noticed that the battery is 99% charged I mean it is drawing 75 amps to run the kettle so we're starting off from 100% charged basically and also a second ago it said it was 6° C the shunt is now at 7 I suspect that's warming up because of all that current passing through it so essentially in the box where the battery is the temperature is about 6° so it's not icy but it's not [Applause] warm I brought some pre-made cheese sandwiches with me so I just need to add a little tomato I could put that in for an exhibition at the Tate I need this cup of tea very much Perfecto luno magnific if I say so myself all right lunch is done so before it gets dark which will only be in a couple of hours time let's go for a wander around the sight well first of all this is the view looking forwards from where I've parked very distantly in all that fog I think there's some hills over there possibly the mulvin I'm not sure which way I'm facing anyway that's quite nice now if you keep turning left over there is the fishing lake so I'll wander down that way if I can see a way through the electric fence and just a quick look back at the site as you can see a small number of gravel plots there is electric if you need it but I don't and they're quite wide plots orbe it nothing dividing them I think it's a working farm of some sort well the gate in the fence appears to be locked so I may have to go around another way however there is the fishing lake which I'm sure if you are into fishing is a thing of loveliness it is really quite quiet here just the odd passing vehicle if you need to empty your chemical toilet toilet this is the Eland point just tip it down that hole and wash out your toilet with the water from that hose and then just down from that Eland point there is a freshwater Supply point and I believe that's the toilet block so let's go have a look I did pick this place because it had good reviews on Pitch up which is where I book a lot of my sites and also it was fairly cheap only £15 for the night which these days is cheap now I know it doesn't include showers uh but £15 is it seems to be at a good rate these days you don't get much for Less than5 it seems and here's one of the two L certainly does the job and there is a sufficient supply of toilet paper always good if you are thinking of coming here for fishing there's your fee also worth just pointing out they do have a nice big rubbish bin here I do believe there's a second Lake down there actually quite a lot of lake look you've got one there and then another one there as well [Applause] yes quite right too I was thinking when I got back in the van that I would put the heater on but in fact having just got back in the van having walked around outside where it is getting pretty Arctic it's probably about 3 or 4° C it already feels infinitely warmer just to be inside the van so I'm going to hold on for a little bit longer it is now 3:00 in the afternoon the warming effect of just coming back in the van has worn off so I am going to stick the heater on if I was this cold at home I would have either turned the heating on or put a blanket over myself or something so I think it is reasonable now to stick it on right here we go again on it's saying it's the 13 in here I'm not sure I believe that uh heating temperature mode 20° yes please here we go I think 20 is a perfectly civilized temperature to aim for especially as with the control unit there and the vent there the control unit does tend to warm up a bit more than the rest of the van and we turn off before the van actually hits 20 with hindsight that was not a good place to put the controller because I have discovered that when I'm lying in bed my head can hit it and the front of the controller comes off and doesn't seem to be so bad if I'm lying the other way around my feet don't seem to knock it so much but if I'm lying this way which I will be tonight cuz the van is on a very slight slope so my head will be at this end and my head will knock that controller the kettle is on and the heater is on on we're drawing 884 amps from the battery but we are still at 97% so plenty of charge to keep me going overnight the temperature in the battery container you'll notice is 8° so although the heater thinks it's 13 here in the cab it's 8 if you go into the cabinets where the battery is we are getting close to the required 20 there we go 20 yes and it is nice and warm in here now so I'm thinking that thing will wind itself down a bit fact it is isn't it the fan is varying slightly meanwhile I have made more tea because that is what you do I don't understand why that even though I've set it for 20 which is it's the setting that you adjust with the knob it's gone up to 26 de and you can actually tell it in the settings whether you wanted to take the temperature for what it should be doing from this thing or from a sensor inside the heater itself now the one in the heater is currently at 21° cuz it's cooler under there it's near the wheel well but here 26 and this is the sensor I've told it to use but this is the temperature I've told it to go to however it was in um a different mode I've just put it into thermostat mode instead of whatever ever mode it was on before which surely should make it go to the temperature I've told it to go to which is 20 maybe it's time to dig out the manual again the discovery seems to be that it it needs to be in thermostat mode which is what it's now in and as you can hear it's just switched itself off rather than temperature mode temperature mode it was just getting hotter and hotter and hotter thermostat mode it's done what you'd expect why you I'd have expected it to do that in temperature mode you set the temperature get to the temperature but no thermostat mode it is doing what I'd expect it's now blown cooler air out and turned itself off and I imagine it will now get cooler and cooler and then it'll turn itself back on again so that's what I wanted all along and because of that on and off it won't be um using up the juice all the the time so it should last a long time hopefully well it is definitely chilly outside in as much as quite clearly all my breathing is causing condensation on the windows and also though it may not be showing up in the video it is getting quite dark outside so I think I am going to put the window covers on in good news the heater is now performing as expected it's switching itself on heating the van up then it switches itself off Van gets a little chillier heater comes back on again that is all good and it is staying nice and toasty apart from my feet which are freezing but they're always freezing but the rest of me is fine that is all good all sealed in and cozy for the night although it is still only mid-afternoon that's winter for you it is just about 6:00 in the evening definitely getting colder outside the heating keeps kicking itself on more frequently I am going to have a little look and see how we're doing on the fuel in the tank because I cannot for the life of me remember how much this thing uses and I don't want to run out uh when I want to be warm in the morning so I may need to eek it out but uh just have to steal myself to actually go outside where it will be very chilly indeed I have also I confess put a blanket on my feet cuz my feet are just not getting warm at all even in slippers and thick socks so they had to be taken care of rest of me is fine okay let's do it also how loud is the heater out here well it's a gentle Roar you can't hear the clicking of the [Music] pump oh the fuel level is here and it only started about here so it's used virtually nothing that is good news it's halfast 6 which is a little early for my evening meal but I am ravenous warm but ravenous and I was contemplating having a tinned beef bolog thing with some rice but I've decided rice is a pain to do in the van because of all the straining and rinsing and messing about you have to do so I'm going to do something much simpler which is a slab of corned beef and some baked beans hang on there we go baked beans it's easy to do and it's easy to clean up afterwards for this purpose I have brought out the cooking machine the induction hob I will tip the beans into that pan and warm them up and then add a chunk of corned beef I know how to live I think we can all agree that Gordon Ramsey will be calling soon asking for the recipe a banana for dessert then another lovely cup of tea and some cake Fit For A King it's just gone 10:00 I've mostly spent the evening just chilling watching stuff on the iPad I think now it's time to go to bed I have been kept very warm by the diesel heater so it definitely fulfills its function all is good on that front I have however turned it off for overnight cuz it is quite noisy while it's running all that blowing air so I'm going to have to throw on all the winter duvet and all the blankets I've got I think to keep myself warm and then in the morning give it a quick blast before I poke my nose out from under the the duvet so I will bid you good night good morning it's gone 9:00 which is very lazy and I have been deliciously warm underneath a duvet and two blankets all night but out here outside the sphere of the duv and blankets it is decidedly chilly and I don't actually want to get up so I think I will pop the heater on again see if we can bring the temperature up and only then I can consider getting out and having some breakfast now the trouble is of course that the heat event is actually down below the bed so all that lovely heat it's going to push out it's going to be a bit blocked so I need to push the bed in a bit in order to let the rest of the van heat up 6° Heating thermostat mode 21 here we go got the hang of this now I have retreated to one half of the bed leaving the slats open to bring the heat up as I will shortly be returning home I have forgone washing and a change of clothes until I get back home it only makes sense however I am going to have some breakfast before I set off let's faint dramatically on the drive home however there is something puzzling me about the van that I've not ever noticed on any other van channels before and it's to do with the window what would you call it I'll show you I don't know what the word is for it you see the black thing what you call this it gets banged onto the metal around the edge of the window and you bang it on with a mallet when you're putting the window in in and it's coming away at the corners I mean that when I put it in was round with the metal and now you can see there's a gap it's gently folded itself away and you might think well if the whole thing is shrinking and if we look at the Gap now I when I put this in there was a little Gap but it seems to me that Gap is got bigger I think whatever this is is shrinking slightly so that Gap is bigger than it was I didn't cut this perfectly but I didn't cut it that badly these ends nearly met and it's slightly coming away there and it's well it's all right there but yes distinctly it's Come Away there and if I try and push it back in there well now of course you've got the window on the other side cuz this went in before the window was glued on so trying to push it back in is going up against the glue that's holding the window in and anyway the whole thing has come away because it seems to be shrunk and if I push that in it'll pull the other end off so this is very weird and it's also happened on the other side this this I can put my finger in that Gap but this was originally well and truly squished onto the metal so is it a known thing that this Tri will contract now what I'm tempted to do in this case is well in both cases is loosen the whole thing up bang it back into the corners and live with a bigger gap between the two ends which I can fill with some sealant or something that's if I can get it back in again given the glue of the window gets in the way of squishing it that is not an issue I had ever considered as being something I'd ever have to tackle again thought once the windows were in and done that was it but has anyone else with a camper van seen this happen where the edging bit the trim strip comes away from the metal it's rather perplexing and annoying breakfast this morning is waffles with fake maple syrup because it's cheaper than the real stuff and of course a cup of tea and just before we finish a look at these state of charge of the battery down to 81% I think that's the lowest I've ever had it that's from running the heating quite a lot and of course the induction hob and the kettle Kettle again this morning heating again this morning and the fridge which has been running constantly the lights take nothing so that's irrelevant consumed amp hours 62 amp hours gone just thinking about that if 62 amp hours gone represents roughly 20% gone that means 31 amp hours would be 10 which means it would estimate the battery's capacity at 3 kwatt hours but in fact it's 4 kwatt hours so capacity has vanished somewhere there and I will assume that is perhaps due to the cold or the battery having sat at 100% for the last few months while I haven't been really using the van and after an entire afternoon and evening of use with the temperature set in the van to 21 and the outside temperature going down to about one or even zero the level is still here and it didn't start that much higher so that really has fairly sipped the fuel I'm pleased with that well breakfast has been had it's now 11:00 I think it's time I'm supposed to leave the campsite so I will head off thanks for watching [Music] cheerio

Channel: Vandemonium

Views: 199,763

Keywords: van, vanlife, camper, campervan, RV, motorhome, Toyota, Proace, Citroen, Dispatch, Peugeot, Expert, convert, conversion, cold, diesel heater, Autoterm, Planar, test, freezing, weather, chilly, heater

Id: NRQRsw-tZXU

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024