Portable heater for sleeper

Anybody whose bunk heater doesn't work use a plug in heater? Which one do you use and how well is it? Any small ceramic heaters? As far as the a/c for keeping cool I saw some guys get a portable generator and power a window a/c unit to keep cool.

 

Is your bunk heater broken? As far as a portable unit, to get anything that really works you will need 110 AC. May as well idle the truck.

If you have a bunk heater, they need to be annually inspected and cleaned. YouTube is your friend. Good idea to run them once a month to keep them operating properly.

 

I have park smart system which isn't very good. It runs off another set of batteries, like 6 of them and I need new batteries. Also upkeep of the system is pricey. It does have a/c as well. The heat doesn't work that I seen. Usually it will blow cool for 5 minutes or so then when the batteries drain it will stop until I idle to keep cool and recharge them for a few minutes and happen again.

 

I have used a small ceramic heater before; but it runs down my batteries so quickly and the auto start kicks in a lot: makes better sense to just idle

 

Pull that crap out and get an Espar heater. I’ll never understand this battery nonsense.

 

I second this.

I just don't get cheap owners, oh like a $1200 is going to break you?

I had one owner tell me that if he spent $1200 on a heater, he might as well get a hotel room every night and he did. The stupid ********* **** went out of business because he couldn't afford to fix the truck after that.

Espar, Webesto and even the chinese knock off is better than freezing and making life miserable.

 

I don't do more maintenance on my truck than grease it and occasionally change a burnt out bulb, and even I can change the screen in my espar and clean the igniter. If you have the special socket it is real easy to do. 10 minute job.

As for removing it and disassembling it and cleaning the burn chamber of carbon, I'll pay someone to do it. Or maybe I'll buy another unit so I can tinker with it at home at my leisure. The bottom line.... these units are totally worth every penny of the $1000-$1200 they cost. Burn rate is 0.03-0.06 gallons per hour I think. So in 10 hours I might burn a half gallon or let's just round it up to $2 in fuel. How can you beat that?

 

Batteries are around $100 a pop. Just go buy 6 batteries. It will be under 700 with tax.

 

I could do that. But then what if that system still fails? Ebay has that espar heater for 700. Looks like some work to install it but probably nice and cozy. But that's what most guys probably have to keep warm. I was earlier bundled up this year trying to save as much fuel as possible to stay warm. But does anybody use a plug in heater? I have insulated curtains on my truck to trap the heat or cool air in.

 

Just now it's fall and might as well get ready to save idling