For all those campers who love to spend time in the fall admiring the change of the seasons, as temperatures dip and mother nature readies herself to unleash several inches of frozen rain an hour, changing tree leaf colors and giving a slight nip to the afternoon breeze; my family and I can relate to you.
My husband and I were on a trip last fall about this time of year (October) with our 18ft travel trailer enjoying a relaxing evening out at the camp fire.
We were slightly north from our home state of Ohio at the Spirit Lake Campground in northern Wisconsin. Everything had been going great, that is, up until we decided to get the TT ready for the evening by turning on the propane heater. While it had sounded as though it kicked on and was almost ready to be turning our cold TT into a nice evening get away from the cold that was not the case.
We first were alerted to the problem when we smelled propane OUTSIDE by the fire. Immediately we knew the pilot had gone out or there was a leak. As it turns out it was a bit of both. He shut the propane down at the cylinder while I opened the windows and door. We decided after about half an hour that it was safe to go back in. While we were glad to have the propane smell gone from our TT now we had another problem; the cold! We didn’t have an electric heater, only an electric blanket. However, lucky for both of us, we had each other for warmth that night.
The following day we looked at the local heating supply store and most of what they had was for propane or house hold electric heating systems, neither of which would do as my husband isn’t a pipe fitter and has limited experience with plumbing. We were due to stay at the park another 4 days and not having heat while the outside temperature was less than 50f was not an option. We turned our search to the internet (what a great thing technology is! Thank you smart phone!)And in doing so we found 12volt-travel while searching for electric heaters for our camper.
As we looked through the heaters on the site we came across a type of heater we hadn’t seen before, DC Powered Polymer Composite Heaters. We decided to have two of them sent next day air so that we didn’t have to cancel our trip that was going to extend all the way to Oregon. Granted we didn’t expect to go all that way without propane heat; we figured it best to have a backup after our little adventure the day prior. Both heaters worked right out of the box and heated the entire camper to just over 60f in about an hour.
Luckily the rest of our trip went rather smoothly. We only had to use the heater for another 3 days prior to leaving the camp and finding an RV service shop to fix the propane issue. It was a learning experience for us; never rely on one device\object that if it fails can throw a huge monkey wrench in your plans.
Lacey and Tim,
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