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Keeping warm…driving and parked
Finally leaving Buffalo’s sub freezing temperatures soon for Florida. As I’m driving, should I be using the 120v heat or 12v heat to keep my wife comfy? And how about when I’m parked and not running the generator and no 50 amp service?
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13 Replies
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Jimmy,
When driving and needing more heat than the dash can provide, turn on the 12v heat, then set your SMX controls for heat (double tap) and whatever temperature you want, the Webasto won’t fire, but hot coolant will be circulated through the heat exchangers and you’ll be toasty. If you’re parked and no generator or shore power, the Webasto will fire and keep things warm.
The 110v heat is for your kick heaters and you would have to have the gen running or shore power. Same with the heat pumps, you would need shore or gen power, but you could run two heat pumps off inverter for a limited time.
For hot water, you have 3 sources, 110v if on shore or gen power, 12v with Webasto and also heated from the engine when running.
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Thank you Craig, Bernie, and Tom. Craig emailed me to explain and we ended up on a phone call where he described how the various heating systems work. All news to me. Thank you.
While I was on the phone with Craig, Bernie called me directly. I called him back and Bernie went into further detail about the heating systems. He also suggested I turn off the 50 amp service in my garage, turn on the 12V Heat, turn up the thermostats, to feel where the heat is actually coming out. Now I know we have 12V heat coming out of the toe kicks in the bedroom, galley, and by the front passenger seat. Thanks again for the unsolicited call Bernie.
And Tom reinforced the phone calls with his note above.
I’m ready to roll…well, maybe not. 2 1/2 feet of snow on the ground with 5 feet drifts and more coming today and really sloppy tomorrow. My trip south may be postponed again.
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Jimmy … the snow must be beautiful. Post a picture.
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Jimmy … the snow must be beautiful. Post a picture.
I have a feeling that Jimmy’s looking forward to posting photos that have sand in the background and not snow!
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Anybody that lives or has lived in the western NY snowbelt hates snow and rarely takes pictures to remind them of the inconvenience due to snow, the rotting of cars due to salt used to melt snow, the extra time required because of snow, and all of the dollars associated with plowing, insulating, damage to eaves, winter clothes, etc. probably won’t willingly want photos to remind them of how it sucks to not only live in the snow belt but to pay huge taxes to NY because they live in the snow belt.
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Tom, is the 12V heat and SMX usage you describe unique to the H3, or would it be the same on a mid-90’s XL?
Linda
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If you don’t have a separate wall thermostat and have SMX controls, I would assume they work the same way. I had a 97 Marathon, but don’t remember the setup, maybe someone else will jump in with a similar vintage.
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This is a shot of our front door. You can barely see the line between the fallen snow and the snow clouds scheduled to let loose again in a few hours. As the winter and wind progresses, there will be drifts off the roof that meet up with the snow on the ground. If we don’t knock the snow off the roof, we are completely closed in and shut off from the outside world.
Jon is right. The other thing we have to do regularly is to clean the snow and ice off the DirecTV dish.
For the second year in a row, I’m getting a late start down South. The goal is to spend Thanksgiving in Florida from now on. We have lots of family down south near our Aztec lot, all Buffalo transplants. Mmmm???? I wonder why. In fact, we have more Buffalo family down south, but my mother is still here. Hence the delay.
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I’d forgot about the satellite dish. When we lived in western NY it was before the small dishes of today. Di would go out and push through snow up to her hips to sweep the large dish. When it got too deep for her to get to the dish I would use the Bobcat to cut a path to the dish so she could keep it clean.
Some mornings if we did not shovel a path we could lose the dog who loved to jump into the deep snow.
We came home from a trip one winter to find 5 feet on the roof. I had to immediately get some local guys to help get the snow off the roof so it would not collapse.
I could get the bus into the driveway all the time because it was downhill, but I often pushed snow as high as the headlights. I had to use the Bobcat to clear the driveway once the bus was off the street or it would hang up.
I never missed a day of work due to snow and we never closed our factories due to snow and when I made and delivered burial vaults we delivered and set them in graves no matter what the weather. Snow sucks.
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Jimmy,
My wife and I are from Brockport, we only visit in July and August.
Get out soon.
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Linda, on our 99 Marathon XLV we have both the SMX control and also an old style thermostat mounted next to each other. On mine at least if I turn on only the 12volt heat button then only the Webasto runs and each of the thermostats through out the coach determines the warmth of each area. If I choose 110volt heat then and not the 12volt, then only the toe kick heaters work, but if I select both 12volt and 110volt then both the Webasto 12volt and the 110volt toe kick heaters both come on. Both of these systems work off the old style thermostat, my SMX thermostat only runs the A/C or heat pump off the cruise air’s. Hope this helps.
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Mark and Gail, thanks for the clarification… ours is set up the same way as yours and when Tom mentioned the matter of separate controls for the 12V heat, we figured what he described to Jimbeaux would not work for us. We hope we’ll never be in a situation where we need both 110 and 12V!! Gee it got all the way down to 49 last week for a couple of hours while we were sleeping but it was gone by the time we got up, LOL.
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49 in the coach? or 49 outside?
Last weekend it was as low as 17 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on night and with the Webasto on it was very comfortable. Was reminded that the Cadet toe kick heater in the shower does warm the floor good bit, but not like electric in-floor heat would have! (Note to anyone replacing tile floor in bath area: Include in-floor electric heat; even if you don’t think you’ll ever use the coach when its cold!)
The Cruise-Airs gave us heat to about 27* and then I shut them off and used the Webasto.
We’re expecting 3* this coming Saturday night at the Oneida Casino near Lambeau Field for the Packer game. Could be colder in La Crosse the next night before we head for balmy Vonore, Tennessee.
I’m pleasantly surprised how livable a Prevost conversion is in cold weather; especially once we’ve figured out how we need to manage the coach in that cold weather. I suspect the record cold in a Prevost is either Jon or the Hilgers.
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