Heat w/out idle...
 

My SO is heading out next week and we need to know if anyone can suggest a GOOD effective heater that can keep you warm at night without idling...it is our understanding that this is what some companies prefer to avoid fuel consumption.

Thanks in advance.

Electric blankets work nice.

Check that...might drain your battery.
Guess I don't know outside of an APU. :?

only thing i know of is the electric blanket unless you have a gen onboard

Re: Heat w/out idle...
 

unless the company provides an alternate heat source, such as an apu,idle the truck,besides the obvious health risk involved in sleeping in a cold truck,you also need to keep the oil and fuel warm and keep the batteries charged up.

I fully 100% agree. You cant run an electric blanket off a truck that isnt running-youll have no battery left. Idle the truck. At the end of the day, the bean counters and pencil pushers go home in a warm environment, and nothing less should be done for a driver.

If the company will pay for idle-air, which is available at many truckstops now, use it. If they pay for an auxilary power unit, APU for heat and cooling, then use it. If its cold, then dont kill yourself. It very easy to catch a cold,flu and whatnot, when its super cold in the truck, and the driver will feel like crap all night.

If they will not provide a driver with a good heat source when its anywhere less than 40-45 degrees, move on.

coleman makes a heater that can be used indoors. it uses the 1lb tanks. the heater cost around $75. I use one in the truck camper for deer hunting and works great.

Dangerous due to CO levels in an enclosed environment!

If the carrier has some sort of fuel bonus, tell us what it is, it may not even be realistically possible to reach with any idling atall... he will need to idle when temps get about freezing. Get a descent sleeping bag e.g: one designed for 2 rated for freezing temps can be found at about $50 shopping around. extra blanket helps. electric heaters will kill the batteries in a matter of hours.

if it was above 40 i usually just used alot of blankets

I know I would not work for a company that would not let me idle the truck, to keep comfortable.

i never worried about the idle time or bonus there were just times i wanted some peace and quite

The way I always looked at it was like this:

If I need to idle the truck to keep the sleeper at a comfortable temp to allow me to get quality sleep and be as rested as possible then I am going to idle the truck.

I could care less about saving the company money where it comes to my safety, especially when the company is too cheap to install any of the many products available that will heat and/or cool the sleeper without idle.

that is right safety first fuel savings later

I would suggest that everyone install a CO detector in their truck. If you or the truck next to you is running an APU, you run the risk of CO fumes entering the cab of your truck, and you may never wake up. A CO detector could save your life.

I use a Webasto heater that the company installed in the truck.It fits in your storage compartment and uses diesel from your fuel tanks. It also has a fan and thermostat. It will not drain your batteries and it works quite well. You will never be cold again

Got a Webasto bunk heater in my truck as well and it works great. Hasn't really been cold enough for me to have to run the truck all night to keep it warm and the fluids warm. Theres been a couple of nights where I woke up to let the truck idle(but only to get teh fluids moving again.)

Hmmm .. If it does not use any batteries .. then how does it turn the fan and fire the ignitor? :wink:

The Webasto unit installed in the company Volvo uses 10 amps to turn the fan and get it fired up. So very often when I fire it up the battery save circuit alerts me so that I have to idle to restore the batteries. Then it uses 2.2 amps to keep a fan turning. I believe the burn chamber works like a jet engine and once fired up uses a turbine situation to keep air moving. However, at least the Webasto installed in my company truck, it uses a secondary fan to circulate hot air.

I had one installed in my truck, it was well worth the money, it does use power from the batteries but very little, as long as your batteries are good you can run it all night and not have a problem, and it is very quiet, I personally could never sleep with the truck idling,

I wonder why more companies wouldn't invest in these things for the comfort of their drivers, or if they are worried about idling?

We also use Webasto. Most Truck Companies up here are using them. (Northern Michigan)
I have to use the lowest setting...or it roasts me out of the cab. You can barely hear it run. Now if I can only hook up to a quieter Reefer unit. :?

Get a job that you're home every night you don't have to worry about camping in a truck lol. j/k. if I ever buy another truck and go back on the road I'll make sure it has an on board gen set on it. As far as the companies go they are too cheap to provide such luxury it'll cut into their profits,besides you can freeze your azz off or sweat it off in the summer. Then they can take it out of your fuel bonus for idling too much. What about idleaire?

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.

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.