Idleaire ?
 

can anyone share thier experience with this new Idleaire system it seems kinda cool. Although i never have tried it myself it looks awsome.

works great,only problem I have is you need to leave a little crack in the sleeper curtain so that the heat or ac gets to the bunk,I usually like it completely dark so this is a small sacrafice.
The cable tv is good,I haven't used some of the other services like internet or telephone.
Cost me $1.85 an hour with a 1 hour minimum.

If you have to pay for your own fuel it is definately much, much, much cheaper than idling. Well worth the money.

Idleaire is great if you live at the truck stop .

I do not "live" at the truck stop,but I do have to take a 10 hr break.

Huh the majority of my 10 hr breaks take place on shipper/receivers property or rest areas in route as they make better use of time ,And I rarely shut down at a truck stop for my 10 HR ,and only hit the truck stop to fuel and shower and then I'm on my way again...So if your taking enough 10 Hr breaks to make idleaire a worthwhile investment you spending a-lot of time there . :wink:

I like idle air. Im an o/o without an apu yet and when I can find it i use id rather pay the 1.85 an hour than idling my big motor and its alot quieter :P

a 10hr shut down is 18.50 and 10 hr at 2.50 a gallon is 25 .00 at 1 gallon per hr ...for only saving $6.50 that AC better be darn cold off that idleaire station .

IdleAire has internet and stuff too. Its a good idea for the o/o, but I wouldn't as a company driver.

I see more and more of them popping up, so they must be doing well 8)

Of course they're doing well, the government (in other words, we) are paying for them...

Personally I hate idle aire. I have used it when they first started. Will not keep the cab very cool on a hot day in El Paso or San Antonio.

Then my main bitch is that they are reserving parking spots.....so you pull into the truckstop pump on 200 gallons and want a shower and something to eat and the only spots are the idle aire ones with red cones in front of them. The truckstops need to figure out if they want to sell diesel and chicken fried steaks or make commission off idle aire. Then there is the damn issue that if there is no regular spots left and you park in an idle aire one, they harass you if you back in and if you idle your truck or run your APU they come by every 10 minutes and tell you that it is a quite zone and need to turn it off.......Had the manager at the Petro in Bucksville, AL tell me that if I was parked in the idle air that I could not idle and if I did not like it I could leave.....so I have not been back to that Petro.

My company has put APU's on '05 tractors and up, having an APU is 100% better than dealing with the jerks at Idle Aire.

I think Trace Atkins is one of their big time backers and that is one reason they are building all the new locations.....I hope they go broke.

I think there was a thread just recently bashing IdleAire. Newbie just wanted to hear the benefits, not the rants. :roll:

You need to go reread the author's original post. He did not ask what idleaire was about he ask for EXPERIENCES with idleaire and mine have not been very positive.

There is alot more to idleaire than just how their equipment does not work on a very hot day. In how they have ruined the parking at so many
locations and how they absolutely haress drivers trying to get them to sign up and use it....in some locations they are worse than lot lizards.

I use it and love it myself. Now as to a hot day in El Paso Or San Antonio. Use just a little common sense. Put up a window curtain on your front window to block out the sun. And put the AC on manual high speed. Does the trick every time. As to being bugged by there employees. It hasn't happened for me. And I do sometimes pull into one of there spots and do not use it. All in all I like there service.

My last expeirence with Idleaire was at the Petro, I-285 in Atlanta back in November. Had filled the tanks.200 gallons out of 240 capacity, then parked under the Idelarire racks...tons of parking spots...and started to walk into the restaruant for breakfast...guy on a golf cart comes whipping up, and tells me to move my truck if I'm not gonna use Idleaire.

After a "deep" discussion with Mr. Rambo-aire and a Petro security gal....Petro manager comes out...tells Idleaire that I have every right to park in one of those spot's, and that Idle wasn't to harrass anymore clients!... That manager knows that we have trucks fueling there every single day, as well as showers and eating. We do not however use Idleaire, as the company pay's for motel rooms, so there is no need to sleep in a daycab or a sleeper truck.



Haaaa. :borg:

I bet the harrassment continues to this day at that facility.

Gotta love em!!

Now there is also the financial part of using idleaire. All in all it is not very cost effective.
1. you can only use it at truckstops for the most part.
2. when compared to an APU, if you use idleaire 125 times a year for 8 hours you can pay for the APU, and have the benefit if using it wherever you are parked.
3. Most apu's have 110 power so you can fire it up anywhere to use a microwave and prepare a hot meal, saving even more when compared to buying a meal out.

I don't think that idleaire is very cost efficient for an O/O or a company paying for it for their drivers, and if you are a company driver paying for it out of your own pocket that is crazy. For ten hours and $18.50 I would rather put a few more bucks with it and get a cheap motel room.

Where are you getting an APU for under $3000? :shock:

125X8=1000

1000X$2.85 an hour = $2850

I am basing that figure on a 4 year life cycle for the truck and apu.

I tried idleaire one weekend. My opinion is: Don't waste your money. I used it for 6 hours with the heat set on high. At the end of the six hours I was cold enough to need to idle the truck anyway to keep warm. The outside temp was a nice 20 to 25 degrees. I have the $10 plastic window adapter that I figure I can use sometimes when the only parking spaces are idleaire spaces.

I generally idle for 2 hours then turn the truck off for 4 to 6 hours. If the temp is below 15 degrees, then I idle the truck all the time anyway. My truck has a sweet spot idling at 850 rpm using half a gallon an hour. So ten hours of idling is 5 gallons, or about $13.50. Ten hours of Idleaire at the silver rate is $21.50. $8.00 more per day/night for inadequate heat and an electrical outlet just isn't worth it in my opinion.

The other major issue that I have is that Idleaire internet has a blanket ban on CAD here. You can't access CAD from Idleaire, so that is a major disapointment.

In all fairness, you aren't including in the cost of fuel or maintainance on the APU.

This hasn't been my experiences at all usually gets way too hot.I call bravo sierra on the .5 gal an hour idling.

Wow, this guy really has a problem with how other people use THEIR time lol I take my break at a truckstop probably 8 out of 10 times and am a very effecient productive driver. Wht does it bother you in 2 different posts that some people stay at a truckstop for their breaks?

Big Jeep is holier than all of us because he sleeps at the customers' locations. Everyone one of us should bow down to the "BIG JEEP". Hehe... "big jeep". That's a contradiction. :lol:

I park at truckstops overnight, nine-and-a-half times out of ten. And I'm always on time, usually among the first in line at the receiver, and I have cold orange juice, a tasty breakfast, and a thermos full of hot coffee at the ready. What the h3ll is the big deal about parking in truckstops?!

You are correct I am not including fuel and maint., but at 125 nights a year at 8 hours that is a very conservative number and the point I was trying to convey was that idelaire is not a very good deal to use on a daily basis.

At my company most drivers are putting 1800-2200 hours per year on the APU. So if you used that many hours of idleaire that would cost 3300.00 to 4070.00. That is more than enough to pay for the APU and fuel and maintaince. The APU's are using about 3 gallons for 10 hours of use.

And I did not use any $$$ for the money I saved on food. Just for breakfast I only eat in a T/S once a week or so, otherwise hot oatmeal or bacon, scrambled egg etc. in the microwave.

I know that I am saving at least an extra $50-$70 on food each week alone. Being able to fix HOT foods in the microwave is so much more convenient. Even have a crockpot that I will cook a roast and all the fixins in overnight and then put in the cooler and have meals off of for a few days. Several days a week I spend ZERO $$$$ eating in T/S.

I am glad that it keeps you warm enough. I have 3 to 4 hours left on my card and I'll try it again sometime just to compare.

You are free to believe or not the .5 gal per hour fuel rate. I only report what the Cat/Peterbilt onboard computer tells me. I have not done a scientific test of idling for one week and measuring the fuel consumed.

I used "PARK-N-VIEW" too. I think Idle-Aire will go that way too.

So [u]YOU'RE[/i] the one!!!! :P

I don't know about "THE ONE", but, yes I did use it. I used the phone and watched TV, also used to phone line to go online. And, I know I was not the only one. I really don't expect Idle-Aire to do much better. They'll be around a while and then that "FAD" will be over too. I think an APU is the way to go. And it's APU's that will put Idle-Aire out of business too.

Park and View was also funded by the government, through grants, just like IdleAire. Once the funds ran out, they went under, just like IdleAire will do.

and it's gonna take alot more to clean up the parking lots than it did with Park-n-View

I really like IdleAire and I don't think it's just another "fad". As for less parking, most of the truck stop parking hasn't changed, it's just structured differently -- but the same amount of spots. I say don't be so closed minded and give it a shot. A lot more fleets are opening up to the possibility of paying for it for company drivers. It's definitely cheaper than APU's (which sometimes work and sometimes don't.) and truck maintenance.

The problem with idle aire is the shared air is not a good thing. Also, idle-aire is not convienent; We do not always end up at truckstops; What about rest areas, customer lots, terminals, shopping ctr etc.

What truckstops should do is offer 120V outlets and let the truckers themselves equip the cab to their own liking. I.e., electric heaters, A/C units computers etc.

And charge maybe $1-$2 an hour.

I'm becoming convinced that APU units are the only practical solution. Besides hotels.

I like using Idle-aire myself. Also I do not think that it really is going to go under like Park-N-View did.


Here is why I think the way I do. First there some parts of the country that trying to even get idle regulations to cover APU's. While I can not remember the exact location, I know I read it somewhere. Also I think that the government is going step up and start saying that you can have a APU but you can only use it while you are waiting at a customer's place or out in the country or some place where you can not hook into Idle-aire or some service just like them.

While I hope that it never turns out to be like that, since we have enough regulations put on us by people that do not have a clue what it is to be out here. But look at it like this, the government is already starting to tell companies that the trucks are going to have this that and the other.

There's a lot of misconceptions about how the air system works. I wish drivers would really read the literature before coming to a conclusion. You're not sharing air with anyone. Each unit has its own individual HVAC that filters air every 6 minutes or so. The only way you're going to breathe the outside air is if you have your window or vent open. It works just like your home A/C unit. In fact, it's even cleaner as I'm certain there aren't that many folks out there who clean their home A/C units after every visit. IA does that with their units.

Secondly, IA is expanding like crazy. They just opened up their 100th site and there's like another 100 more under construction. You want truckstops to charge like 1 or 2 bucks an hour but that's what IA already charges for the whole sha-bang... AC/Heat, Internet, Sat. TV, 110 (with ports on the outside of the unit for your inverter) and phone for a buck eighty-five an hour. If you ask me, it's a helluva lot cheaper on the fuel, engine and on the body than spending money on a hotel or heaping a bunch of money into an APU that may or may not work depending on if it's factory installed and something as minor as hitting a speed bump puts it out of commission.

I wholeheartedly disagree that Idleaire has not taken away anyspaces at most of the truck stops they occupy. Aside from that it just isnt safe or practical to have to nose in everytime you use it and have to blindly back out of them, its dangerous enough crusing around most truck stop lots without having to worry about backing out of your space everytime, and dont get me started on this reserving a parking spot crap they are doing. Idleaire is whack!!!!!!

So, you're saying idle-aire DOES NOT share air?

And how do we know this? :?

Yes, I am saying IA units does not share air. Have you actually looked up at one of the units to see how they're set up. They each have their own individual HVAC unit. You're not connected up with anyone else.

Here's some links:
http://www.baltometro.org/TIP/TIP200...eSecretary.pdf
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/f...0634/index.htm
http://www.heavydutytrucking.com/2005/06/098a0506.asp

Better yet: http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ederal+funding

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehicles...twork_news.pdf

IdleAire Receives Three Grants for Advanced Truck Stop Electrification
EPA funding will allow Gary, Indiana, to be home to Indiana’s first ‘electrified’ truck stop in an
attempt to limit extended truck idling. Construction of the truck stop will begin this year with
technology provided by IdleAire Technologies Corp. The facility is expected to improve air
quality, reduce noise, and conserve fuel by eliminating the need to idle on site. The truck stop
will cost $835,000, with funding provided by Federal, State, and private sources. IdleAire will
contribute $375,000 towards construction; $125,000 will come from an EPA truck stop
electrification demonstration grant in 2002, while the remaining funds will be provided by the
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. EPA anticipates that in 2005, there will be
40 such demonstration projects nationwide. Further information is available at
http://www.eesi.org/publications/New...te/Jan2005.htm. Source:
Linda Gaines, Argonne National Laboratory

In Pennsylvania, IdleAire has recently been awarded two State grants for advanced truck stop
electrification. Under the Energy Harvest initiative, the company received $360,000 to electrify a
truck stop in Carlisle. Under the Alternative Fuel Incentive Grant program, IdleAire received
$540,000 to install electric power units at an as yet undetermined truck stop. Both grants
require cost reimbursement by the grantee. Further information can be found at
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/newsrelea...eryType=Detail. Source:
Ana Gomez, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

So, if there is Federal grants for IdleAire, just who do you think is footing the bill???

i like to know how rawlco only burns 1/2 gal an hour at 850 rpm's ?