ultraheat pads with battery?

[back40]

new here...this is an excellent site!!!...found it from RV.NET

I just ordered a KZ toyhauler that has exposed tanks. I plan to add the ultraheat 12v/110 pads.

As per the ultraheat specs:
(2) 50 gallon fresh tanks with 2 pads 11.8 amps each= 23.6
(1) 32 gallon grey tank with 1 pad 9 amps= 9
(1) 32 gallon black tank with 1 pad 9 amps= 9
misc pipe and elbow heaters= 20
conservative estimate 62 amps total

We will use it for snowmobiling in northern vermont were temps will range -5 to 30 with an average night temp in the teens. We have a 5hr drive up on friday night so the tow vehicle will be providing 12v power.

Saturday we are out @7am-6pm. Can a bank of 4-6 AGM batteries power these tank heaters and the furnace set to 50 when we are gone?

We can then run the genny when we are back from 6pm-10pm to replenish but then we would like to turn the genny off from 10pm-6am.

Repeat for Sunday...then 5hr drive home.

AGM batteries like this http://is.gd/4VCeK

Am I dreaming or can this be done?

tia,

mr

[coal]

Thats alot of power to be drawing out of your batteries for extended time. 6 of those batteries is 660 amphours, but you should only draw them down to 50% that leaves you with 330 amphours, which will give you around 5 hours of heating pad service. This is providing that the heating pads are working all the time. I have never used the pads and thinking that maybe they heat up and then shut off, maybe cycle on and off?????????? that will save you some power if thats the case.

Is it possible to enclose your underside, then run some heat from your furnace?? I assume your not hooked to land power?

[coal]

Is your basement storage area heated, I installed a 65 gallon fresh water tank there, to supply the fiver. This would eliminate 20 amps of power draw.

[GoinKZ]

Welcome to the forum.

I would recommend when possible to run the pads off 110V, that's ALOT of DC amps. If you do run them off DC even with 4 of them your going to have the batter charger realy chasing it's tail to catch up
I'm thinking if you perhaps "cycled" the use of them for different time periods it might lessent the overall Amp demand

Trailblazer has theese installed, maybe a bit better versed on them.

[coal]

Also figure on a couple of converter chargers to charge that many batteries within a reasonable time. Couple of Iota 65 amp unit with the smart controller to float and maintain those batteries would work out very well.

I run 4 Crown 6 volt units with two Iota's, works well recharges within 3 hours. I fulltime in Ontario Canada without hookups all winter long.

[Trailblazer]

First Welcome to the forum.

As GoinKZ says I have two of the 12v/120v ultraheat pads installed. One on the gray tank and one on the black tank. I do agree with both coal and GoinKZ, that is a lot of power to be drawing from your batteries. Now these unit turn on when the temp goes below 44 degrees and turn off when the tank temp is above 64 degrees. I am not sure how long it would take to get the tank temps up to 64 degrees but to be on the safe side when calculating battery usage I would assume they are on the entire time. Now due to the battery draw, I did not connect up the 12v side of my tanks heaters figuring I was only going to use them on 120v.

Getting back to your setup, do you have your tank and pipe heaters separately switched? If so an option you might want to consider is to run the pipe heats while you are away and not the tank heaters. The idea being the pipes would probably freeze sooner than anything in your holding tanks. Others can jump in here but I say your holding tanks are going to take a lot longer to freeze just do to the sheer volume of them. Therfore, you might want to run only the pipe heaters while you are out and then turn on the tank heater when you are back and have 120v power. Again the amount of time it would take your large tanks to freeze would depend on the amount of liquid in them and the outside temperature. Also if you have a heated enclosed underbelly, you could turn your furnace onto a very low setting and let it come on from time to time to warm the underbelly. Remember, you don't need to keep the tanks at 70 degrees but instead just above freezing.

Coal, GoinKZ what are your thoughts on just the pipe heaters and maybe some RV anti-freeze dumped into each holding tank while they are away?

[coal]

I thought too of the rv antifreeze or windshield washer antifreeze, also heard of some guys using rock salt?? Myself I would run the genny and run the heaters on ac, depends too, if he is leaving his trailer, concerned about theft of the genny??? Pipe heaters for sure, as he won't be able to move the valves if they freeze.

Question for the op, if you ordered the trailer, cannot you order it with a enclosed underside?? or maybe pick a trailer that is already done???????

I've done the winter camping with a non enclosed nor heated underbelly or basement heated area. It's tough, I have froze things up real bad to the point where I use a diesel fired salamander heater, some 70000 btus to get things flowing again. This is during the coldest of the coldest Ontario winter. Even my Jayco that I have now, with a enclosed underbelly and the furnace running all the time, family likes heat, one of the lines to my fresh water tank froze up and cracked last winter. Of course now the water pump cannot suck water out of the tank it will suck air now. My fresh water tank is at the back of the trailer and too far away from the furnace for good heat. it was around minus 27 celcious when I had that problem. I now have in my heated basement storage area a 65 gallon fresh water tank which I use daily now, till next May.

[GoinKZ]

Getting back to your setup, do you have your tank and pipe heaters separately switched? If so an option you might want to consider is to run the pipe heats while you are away and not the tank heaters. The idea being the pipes would probably freeze sooner than anything in your holding tanks. Others can jump in here but I say your holding tanks are going to take a lot longer to freeze just do to the sheer volume of them. Therfore, you might want to run only the pipe heaters while you are out and then turn on the tank heater when you are back and have 120v power. ?

This seems a lot more doable/manageable with the power avalabale.

The other thning is if you can keep the cool wind off the tanks, it will be easier to keep them above freezing.

[back40]

thanks for the replies. I'm must preface that I'm well versed on running car trailers but we never had an RV so this is all new. I'm trying to have a system that I can set and forget. Where we park is remote and there is no power. I have a honda is3000 that will be mounted with antitheft bars on the tongue and I think it could last 8-9hrs but I just don't feel comfortable running it all day.

As per Coal, I do have front storage but it is not heated and we will use it much more in the summer so at this point I would not want to try to move the fresh tanks in there and heat that since I will loose the storage. You mention "lota" and I googled that...so I need charge controllers to recharge the batteries fast? If I didn't use one or two of these controllers approx. how long would it take to recharge 4 batteries...all night?

The 266 was the only trailer in our price range that passed my wife's approval for her with us in the summer and KZ does not have any cold weather options for this model. I had read that they did at least insulate the cold water inlet line for a customer last year but refused to do that for me? So I will have to insulate that and put reflectix everywhere I can inside and use the plastic film on the windows.

As per trailblazer, Interesting point about the pipes vs tanks freeze time...I could put them on separate circuits and run the the pipe heaters all day probably on 2 agm batteries no problem and then run the tank heaters on the genny when i get back...I have to think about this more.

Another concept...Is there a micro gas furnace maybe 2000-5000 btu that I could mount under the trailer as a secondary unit and attempt to have it feed only the tank area on it's own thermostat? If so, what would the minimum dimensions be of a custom cover over the tanks?..how much air space is needed from the tank surface to the cover? Could the cover be an aluminum sheet with reflectix? How do you get it to circulate through? If this could be done and not using electric pads, then I would just use more lp and the dealer already said we could go at least 3 days with the 2 20lb bottles anyway. maybe just do this custom cover on the fresh tanks since they are the largest and use heater pads for the grey and black. I also heard you really don't need to heat the black if you pour antifreeze with each flush.

I could put a Mr. heater buddy (which has a fan and "supposedly" can operate safely in enclosed areas) in the from storage area and duct in to custom tank cover...seems like it might work.

[GoinKZ]

Yeah, a MrBuddy under the tanks/around the pipes would likely keep it from freezing. As I said though, gotta find a way to keep the cold wind/breeze that is always prevelant from lapping at the tanks.

Strategicly placed tarp would do.