Tank Heaters

[kgottleib]

I was planning on using the basecamp year round, live in Northeast, it gets and stays below freezing for weeks at a time, before we have a couple lucky days in the mid 30s to offer some relief. I understand the process of winterization, but what if I simply plug in to shore power (aka my house) and leave the tank heaters on? Is this acceptable? What are the ramifications to consider? If I can avoid having to winterize after each use knowing I'm going to use it in just 2 more weeks I'd like very much to make maintaining it as simple as possible. Do the tank heaters run purely on electricity or do they consume propane? and if yes they use propane how long would one of the 20lb tanks last with the tank heater on, and i realize the answer is a "depends" but others in similar climate as Massachusetts might have a solid estimate for me that would be fine. But I guess I would also wonder about the life of these tank heaters, how they are made, will they need to be replaced if used too much? Etc

Thanks in advance

[BayouBiker]

The tank heaters will protect the tanks, but won't keep the interior warm enough to prevent the pipes from freezing. For that you will need about 100 -500 watts additional depending on how cold it gets. One or two portable electric heaters set at the low setting will do the job unless it drops below 15 or so.

[kgottleib]

Originally Posted by BayouBiker

The tank heaters will protect the tanks, but won't keep the interior warm enough to prevent the pipes from freezing. For that you will need about 100 -500 watts additional depending on how cold it gets. One or two portable electric heaters set at the low setting will do the job unless it drops below 15 or so.

Thanks Brian - good suggestion on a small space heater, the basecamp is a small trailer so the interior will heat up quick even w a small unit, I experienced this in my very first outing w a Safari16 I rented to give the experience a try, took like 3 minutes to be toasty with the smallest portable heater you can imagine. I know the tank heaters run on 12 volt, but do they also use propane? I assume they do.. perhaps a good investment would be some some gauges for the propane tanks so I can get a feel for how much propane they are using. If I'm wrong about the propane let me know

[AdvToaster]

Originally Posted by kgottleib

Thanks Brian - good suggestion on a small space heater, the basecamp is a small trailer so the interior will heat up quick even w a small unit, I experienced this in my very first outing w a Safari16 I rented to give the experience a try, took like 3 minutes to be toasty with the smallest portable heater you can imagine. I know the tank heaters run on 12 volt, but do they also use propane? I assume they do.. perhaps a good investment would be some some gauges for the propane tanks so I can get a feel for how much propane they are using. If I'm wrong about the propane let me know

Tank heaters are electric only. Furnaces use propane.

[BayouBiker]

Indeed. They are generally 12 v electric and consume 20-70 watts depending on temperature and skirting. So they will run the batteries down in 1-7 days.