Bunk Heaters save tons of money

Looked into the DYI apu my self before i got a bunk heater. The problem is, if you go the gas route its incredibly inconvenient If you go the diesel route, the cheapo diesel gens are 2k anyway and need maintenance every 30 hours. The water cooled diesel gens are as much as an apu. So the cheap option is cheep for a reason. Unless you want to change your oil every 3 days, or walk over to the car side with a 5 gallon jug of gas, they are pretty useless. Bot wabasco and espar are working on a/c solutions but nothing great has come out yet. For the summer i use box fans and screens in front windows. For the most part its cool enough and on the worst days i idle, but rarely all night. Last summer i only idled for a/c like 2 full nights and a few other timed for an hour or so just to cool off quickly.


As for truck not starting, AGM is great. I was laid over for 2 days and my wabasco, laptop, microwave, lights etc drained the batts to 11.5 volts. They still turned that truck over at -3F. Now i do put additive in fuel, and I run fully synthetic oil, but it didn't even struggle to crank. Started up after about 3 seconds. the great thing about the AGM though it that they can crank for like an hour before giving up. Your starter will die before they do lol.

 

Check out Leftlanetruckins thread on his homemade apu. Slick set up and isn't nearly the trouble Richter tries to make it out to be.

 

Linky Please

 

Used to have a driver that would spend the night at the hook 45 minutes form home because he didn't want to wake the wife up coming home late (so he said). This truck was doing day trips only so no bunk heater. The nights he decided to play OTR driver cost $40 extra in fuel. Drives me NUTS!

 

Get your mind outta the gutter. He was just looking over her shoulder while they were studying Bible verses.

 

I assume you mean this one?

Not a bad set up, but if your running near full throttle (A/c or electric heat and block heater) it only gets 7 hours per tankful. If ran at less then 3000 watts it will last a night, but still needs to be refilled daily. I don't have pilot cars like he does and I don't want to spend the time refilling it. When i'm at a truck stop, its generally fuel shower food and GOOOOOO. Many times skip the shower if I got one the day or 2 before. Also, according to the manual oil needs to be changed every 20 hours. I dont know if it NEEDS to be changed that often, but that's an oil change every 2 nights. the thing last up to 20 hours at 1/4 load on fuel, so if you only run at 1/4 load you need to change the oil every time you refuel. Either way i don't have time to ticker with it every other night. But hey, if it works for him then great. As long as he is happy with it thats all that matters. I'm gonna wait for espars ac solution to come out. If there is an idle air near by ill use that for the few supper hot days. to me its not worth 3000 bucks for the few nights i actually need ac. Ill be uncomfortable in the summer lol.

 

Lol, i never unplug my mifi or turn off my fridge. the fridge will eventually cut out when voltage gets low enough, but it doesn't over a 4 day week-end. Good batts with a good alternator makes trucks so much better.

 

yea i was spending 40 bucks a night or an uncomfortable 20 (getting up to turn truck on and off, not getting a good sleep) and I knew I had to do something better. one week-end my company screwed me over and i spent more in fuel then i made hauling freight. Now with wabasco, i can go the whole week-end...maybe start the truck up for an hour to charge batts if im really power hungry. (like running microwave with truck off.)

 

Who is going to pay for that mandate?

 

Who else? Taxpayers obviously. Certainly not oil companies. They want truckers and public to procrastinate as long as possible.
I'd just support legislation where all brand new trucks are equipped with bunk heaters.
And enforcement of current anti idle laws within reason.
Would you not invest a thousand to save five in just one year?
I know people resist change and despise being told what to do. They'd rather send their children to fight to countries that depend on them idling all night for no reason.