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Outside Guy
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 01:18pm
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I'd like your opinion on something. I have a 12 x 16 cabin at my farm. I wired it with a power inlet box (and lights, plugs) so I could connect my 2500 w inverter generator to it. That all works fine. At night, however, I prefer to shut down the generator (I like the peace and quite). I use my small wood stove for heat in the winter. However, I was wondering if any of you ever used a small electric heater that didn't draw much and had a thermostat connected to a battery powered generator? Do they make such a thing as an electric heater with a thermostat (so it would kick on after the fire died down) that didn't draw too many watts and that might be powered by a battery pack or battery powered generator? Thanks! Chris
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hamish
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 01:32pm
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No they do not make anything that would be suitable, if you want it to last any amount of time.
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Ontario lakeside
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 02:27pm
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An electric heater with thermostat is easy enough to find. Your problem will be that a battery pack with enough power to run it for any length of time will be very expensive. Resistive electric heat is very power hungry.
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Brettny
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 02:54pm
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12x16..put more wood in the stove, better quality wood or insulate better.
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ICC
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 03:24pm
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Example. Many people have used golf cart batteries for small cabins. A typical golf cart battery is 6 volts with a capacity of 205 to 225 amp-hours. Most users have 12 volt inverters, so we need at lest two golf cart batteries in series. 12 volts with 215 amp-hours is a capacity of 12 x 205 (average value) = 2580 watt-hours. We know, or should know, that we should never use more than 50% of the battery capacity on a regular basis, or we greatly risk shortening the battery life. So we have up to 1290 watt-hours available to us with 2 golf cart batteries.
A typical portable electric heater is rated at 1500 watts. If that heater ran full time in one hour it would use 1500 watts x 1 hour = 1500 watt-hours.
1290 WH capacity would therefore only run the heater 1290/1500 = 0.86 hour (about 51 minutes.)
Sure, maybe the heater would not run all the time, but I would bet that it would if the weather was cold enough to need to heat overnight.
That calculation also does not take into acount the reduction of effective capacity that cold weather causes. At freezing temperature you may only have one half the normally available capacity, depending on the rate of discharge. Then when the cold battery is run down to half charge there is risk of it freezing. Not a winning situation.
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 03:31pm
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Another simple solution to ponder. Get an RV Furnace out of a newer 20' job.... They use 12VDC to run the fans with direct vent and electronic ignition & thermostat. Easy enough to find one out of a newer RV / Camper that was wrecked or written off.
I just replaced my old DuoTherm in the powerhouse with a newer (3 yrs old) Suburban NT-20S and it only cost me $300 CAD. It's direct vent and actually uses 1 7/8" diameter pipes to run air in & exaust out (car auto exhaust pipe to extend them to go through the walls, very tight fit), just had to open a space big enough to install my own thimble for safety reasons. I also attached it to a 12V HD AGM Marine battery which has it's own solar panel & charger keeping it separate from my solar system. Although I do have 12VDC available from my system via a Buck Converter should I ever need it.
Hope that helps.
Steve
Check Kijii or Craiglist and call a couple of RV repair places, you might be pleasantly surprised.
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FishHog
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 2019 04:53pm
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any kind of resistive heat off of batteries is very hard to do unless you have a huge battery bank or its for a very short time.
Toaster, curling irons, blowdryers, coffee makers are all very hard on batteries. An electric heater is just a bigger version of these things.
Wood or propane, or keep running the generator are the only realistic options.
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Outside Guy
Member
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# Posted: 20 Dec 2019 08:46am
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Thank you all for replying! I figured that was the case, but wanted to tap ya'll's knowledge. Nothing a few more times feeding the wood stove won't cure. Thanks again! Best wishes to all of you and a blessed Christmas!
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Outside Guy
Member
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# Posted: 20 Dec 2019 08:47am
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By the way, thanks Steve S for the RV furnace idea!
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hueyjazz
Member
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# Posted: 20 Dec 2019 11:50am
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Housewarmer makes a nice B vented through the wall 35,000 btu propane heater.
I that doesn't need electric but you can get them with an optional blower. Some can even be hooked to a thermostat. I installed one in my cabin as a backup to wood stove.
In truth it helps with the one that must be obeyed in that it gets cabin up to temperature quicker when we arrived weekends to a sub zero cabin. It takes a while for wood stove to really get cranking. Plus it helps to not have to get up and throw those logs on for the 5 AM feeding.
I've got oaks on my property. Always hated to cut them down but when I find wind falls I would save them for the late night feeding of stove. They make a nice bed of long lasting coals
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