taglio ive been useing the coleman heater for years in the truck camper and im still here there is no CO. the heater is for indoors or i wouldnt have mention it at all. look at the web site that hstern put up.

 

I'm spending my first night in a truck with one of the Webasto heaters. My 300w power invertor has a louder fan than the heater.

 

The Webasto is fine for the winter but you still have summer which you still have to address. If I was ever to go back on the road I'd want a full blown gen package.

kc0iv

 

I am looking at an auxilary A/C unit that runs on a separete set of batteries, I've talked to other drivers that have it and they say that it works good,

If my truck was newer I would put a generator on it

 

Don't worry, Arrow will pay for his IdleAire usage... and there's a set up on the Tulsa terminal too. :wink: As far as heat... idle if you must. Bunk heaters are nice, I had one with Roehl - but since you can't modify the truck that's generally out. Arrow is starting to experiment with APUs, but they are only really starting to roll that out to a few trucks to see if it's worth it. They wouldn't even let me buy one for my lease truck.

It's good to conserve fuel, but I was also of the mentality that I wasn't going to short myself a nights quality sleep because I was burning up or freezing to death - that makes you unsafe on the road. Idle when he's in the truck, when he gets out, make sure he shuts it off. Simple. Just by doing that, even when I was buying my own fuel as an o/o, it wasn't that big of a hit to my wallet. Once he gets a truck and knows the model of it, for the spring and summer he can get a set of screens to put in the front windows for mild days and pop the vents open in the rear of the sleeper. Stop at IdleAire when he can, and don't leave it idling while he's in the t/s eating or showering.

 

I idled my truck every night for a year. Until the company you work for ponies up and get's apu's you can idle.

 

I have an espar heater/engine heater combo. I plan on getting the a/c unit this summer.

The espar works great, keeps you warm to -30 at least. The engine heater has NEVER failed me. Theres guys that plug in, they still have problems starting.

I don't think I'd ever get a genset. They still use a lot of fuel, they're loud, and I can't justify spending that much, I never sit in truck stops anyways.

BTW, an engine uses about a gallon an hour, the espar at "full heat" will use a litre every 8 hours. A gallon every 30 hours or so. 1/30th the fuel.

 

I could have sworn in CDL school they said that it was illegal to have a heater in a truck. Maybe that was just hauling hazmat. I know i saw it somewhere though.

As for me the idling sound is soothing and the reefer noise doesn't bother me a bit.