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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1998 00:28:54 EST
Reply-To:     CarlMarin@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Carl Turner <CarlMarin@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: which catalytic heater?
Comments: To: Vanagon@Vanagon.com
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Tom writes: <<<<<<snip> 1. What size of heater do I need to keep my westfalia reasonably warm during a night of camping? Both Olympian and Plat-cat have two basic sizes, a 3000 and 6000 BTU model. Would the smaller 3000 BTU model sufficently heat a vanagon? snip <<<<<<<<<<

Just as a datapoint for your consideration, I just fired up my Olympian 3100 that came with my Westfalia for the first time. Didn't blow up so I was happy about that ;^) Obviously hasn't been run in some time (and was new in 1990 apparently) but it fired up and stopped stinking after 15 minutes or so. I'm at 6000 feet elevation and it was about 30 degrees outside, 15-20knot wind and snowing. I left the unit on high for about 2 1/2 hours to see how it did and checked it occasionally with the CO detector from my house (the cheap kind, not the kind with the LED readout, alas). The heater was able to take the inside temp from the 30 degrees up to about 53 degrees in about 15 minutes as monitored by my little stickon LCD thermometer mounted to the overhead shelf (about a buck at Kmart BTW!) It ne,ver was able to get above 55 with the wind blowing and the window I had cracked open an inch on the windward side but it definitely took the chill off the air. Windows didn't start to condensate until about 45minutes to an hour into my little test run. Not too bad really. I suspect it would have done better if the wind hadn't been blowing so hard.

So I have no way of knowing about the state of the platinum catalyst as to contamination or anything and I don't know how efficient this thing should be if new so you might take my numbers as kind of a worst case for the smaller 3000 BTU sized units.

Depending on the size and cost of the larger 6000 BTU units if I were to be buying a new one I might take the suggestion of one of the other listmembers and get the larger unit and figure I could always run it at a lower setting if it put out too much heat.

BTW, mine is mounted on some cheesy legs and just freestands in the middle of the floor. I think I'll try to make a better looking folding platform for it at some point so it stores under the back seat a little neater. PO had this set up with a T in the propane line under the fridge and the loose hose with valve and quick disconnect hides under the fridge when not in use. To hook it up I fish the loose end out and connect it to the 18 inch long hose permanently mounted to the heater.

Hope this helps,

Carl Turner 84 and 85 Westies


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