Petrol Stove in a Camper Conversion?

MOB993

Is there any regulations/rules saying a petrol stove can't be used in a Camper Conversion??

I have weighed up all options gas, electric and petrol. Petrol is the most powerful, fuel easily available and not that expensive to run or buy. I have a single burner petrol stove and it is brilliant where as the more popular choice: gas...has a fuel thats not as available as petrol, not as powerful and when its cold gas stoves are more than useless(and thats when you need them most for that cup of tea! )

I personally think gas is more dangerous in the confined space of a camper compared to petrol so I don't need someone to give me a lecture on how dangerous they are. I do currently have one.

MOB993

MOB993 wrote: »

...all options gas, electric and petrol.

You missed a couple, diesel heater, solid fuel.
Rules/reg's no idea other than ask your insurance company.

MOB993

True.

Moomat

Alcohol stoves are pretty common so I reckon you should be ok.

2kW Wood Burning Stove
3kW WBS

MOB993

Any body use 12v cookers or the likes..

moodrater

MOB993 wrote: »

Is there any regulations/rules saying a petrol stove can't be used in a Camper Conversion??

I have weighed up all options gas, electric and petrol. Petrol is the most powerful, fuel easily available and not that expensive to run or buy. I have a single burner petrol stove and it is brilliant where as the more popular choice: gas...has a fuel thats not as available as petrol, not as powerful and when its cold gas stoves are more than useless(and thats when you need them most for that cup of tea! )

I personally think gas is more dangerous in the confined space of a camper compared to petrol so I don't need someone to give me a lecture on how dangerous they are. I do currently have one.

Well petrol for a start contains benzene, its almost impossible to burn completely in a stove so you have CO, aldehydes, smoke particles, not to mention cetane improvers like ethylhexyl nitrate in some petrol like topaz. I know it was ok for your grandparents but things have moved on thankfully.

pablo128

Some cars, such as the BMW E39 530d had a small single cylinder diesel powered heater in them. Starting one of these cars from cold, you would only be around the corner and you had heat.
I wonder could one of these motors be adapted for use in a camper.
This is what i'm talking about. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-BMW-5-SERIES-E39-GENUINE-DIESEL-WEBASTO-HEATER-8387112-64253B-/271436641498?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f32e274da

MOB993

MOB993 wrote: »

Any body use 12v cookers or the likes..

Pointless.
Producing usable heat with electricity is about as wasteful as you can get. Unless you're talking about induction hobs which will outperform tanked buthane/propane in terms of net embodied energy.
You could run an induction hob on a pure sine inverter with a trailer of batteries to support it (750Ah storage per day for 2.5 hours cooking thereabouts on a 1kW cooker)...then again your MPG would suffer for it in the long run so no hope. Even microwaves are a waste of time imho.

The most efficient way to produce heat is burning something.
Think about it; getting the ESB to burn something on your behalf to turn it into steam, into mechanical labour, into induction, into high voltage transformers, transmission losses, more transformers, domestic power, rectified battery charger, lead acid charge reluctance, inverter losses :rolleyes:.

pablo128

pablo128 wrote: »

I wonder could one of these motors be adapted for use in a camper.

The air heaters might have more potential than the ones T'd off the coolant system. Unless you'd prefer the option to preheat the engine with some crafty valves...sher might as well run a coil to a hot water tank while yer at it ...or just use the hot water tank as your heat sink instead of the engine and DIY a fan assisted heat exchanger en-route in the living quarters.



Some of them you can remote initiate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1KByh2nHq5c
Direct YouTube link

MOB993

Having looked at this again. I think I'm gonna go with a combination of gas petrol and electric. One maybe two of the single gas hobs (only e12.50 for a hob and e2.50 for a canister from halfrods) with the canisters that are more available, a small microwave and I will just pack my current petrol stove.
For heating it I will be using a small 12v heater.
Will be getting a leisure battery and inverter anyway so can run the microwave on that and I would only ever use for maybe 2-3mins at a time.

moodrater

MOB993 wrote: »

Having looked at this again. I think I'm gonna go with a combination of gas petrol and electric. One maybe two of the single gas hobs (only e12.50 for a hob and e2.50 for a canister from halfrods) with the canisters that are more available, a small microwave and I will just pack my current petrol stove.
For heating it I will be using a small 12v heater.
Will be getting a leisure battery and inverter anyway so can run the microwave
on that and I would only ever use for maybe 2-3mins at a time.

Those cartidge stove actually work out cheaper/similar to the large campingaz cylinders in price if you buy a 12 pack.

Wheres all the 12v power for heating going to come from?

A normal microwave will draw 60-100A + inverter losses plus at that current battery voltage will sag so the inverter will draw even more amps, then theres the inrush current that may tripout/blow your inverter thats if the battery brown out doesn't first. You need massive cables to the inverter as short as possible and at least 2 parallel leisure batteries if you wan them to last any length of time or more massive cable to the the alternator and run the engine at the same time.

greasepalm

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/12v-cooker
looks like cook while you drive nice.and heaters down below.
gas cylinders are usually outside vehicle for safety and proper fitting installed for safety,camping gaz still got all the stuff from camping if needed in a power cut.

haha 12v microwave

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-ME76V-BBH-Microwave-Oven-BNIB-Buy-now-and-collect-today-for-75-/271432197524?pt=UK_HGKitchen_SmallApp_RL&hash=item3f329ea594

moodrater

greasepalm wrote: »

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/12v-cooker
looks like cook while you drive nice.and heaters down below.
gas cylinders are usually outside vehicle for safety and proper fitting installed for safety,camping gaz still got all the stuff from camping if needed in a power cut.

haha 12v microwave

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-ME76V-BBH-Microwave-Oven-BNIB-Buy-now-and-collect-today-for-75-/271432197524?pt=UK_HGKitchen_SmallApp_RL&hash=item3f329ea594

Thats not a 12v one samsung do 12v and 24v ones the 12v draws 62.5A and give 450w microwave power so you need to run twice as long as a normal microwave. They're expensive but a used one would probably be the same price as a good 1500w inverter so if you look at it that way its free lol

MOB993

moodrater wrote: »

Those cartidge stove actually work out cheaper/similar to the large campingaz cylinders in price if you buy a 12 pack.

Wheres all the 12v power for heating going to come from?

A normal microwave will draw 60-100A + inverter losses plus at that current battery voltage will sag so the inverter will draw even more amps, then theres the inrush current that may tripout/blow your inverter thats if the battery brown out doesn't first. You need massive cables to the inverter as short as possible and at least 2 parallel leisure batteries if you wan them to last any length of time or more massive cable to the the alternator and run the engine at the same time.

So a microwave is possible...but just not worth that effort.

Would these gas stoves be allowed when I get my vehicle inspected? Or will it have to be a more permanent/ built in type appliance? I intend on building them into the counter top..

http://www.halfords.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_11101_catalogId_15551_productId_745531_langId_-1_categoryId_212483

greasepalm

ah dam clicked wrong link cheers.

If you try running a microwave on a MSW inverter it'll take twice as long to cook with the same power consumption, if it works at all. They amplify the AC frequency which will struggle for a reference on the inverter.
One 100Ah battery trying to produce a 1kW output makes a 20Ah battery with 50% safe discharge = 10Ah
so 120Wh @ 80% efficient = 144Wh = 8mins of microwave between charges and microwave dinners.

I agree with moodrater re. hard starting an inverter makes for a short service life.

MOB993

MOB993 wrote: »

...will it have to be a more permanent/ built in type appliance? I intend on building them into the counter top..

If it's screwed down onto a surface then it's permanent

These's things look deadly. I'm afraid to look at the price tag.
They do cooker tops too.

Schlick promo vid

Direct link

moodrater

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

These's things look deadly. I'm afraid to look at the price tag.
They do cooker tops too.

Schlick promo vid

Direct link

You can get diesel heaters for peanuts from galaxy/sharan/alhambra. A complete unit with pump intake and exhaust on ebay is cheaper than the exhaust new.

[edit]Just to point out they're water heaters though so you need a heater core and header tank too and some are wired into the ecu so its not plug and play. The webasto heater from rover 75 is probably easier from a wiring point of view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFyQGqqgxc anyone whose owned a rover 75 will tell you its the best bit )

spaceHopper

moodrater wrote: »

You can get diesel heaters for peanuts from galaxy/sharan/alhambra. A complete unit with pump intake and exhaust on ebay is cheaper than the exhaust new.

[edit]Just to point out they're water heaters though so you need a heater core and header tank too and some are wired into the ecu so its not plug and play. The webasto heater from rover 75 is probably easier from a wiring point of view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFyQGqqgxc anyone whose owned a rover 75 will tell you its the best bit )

You could easily do a closed hot water system with one or two small myson radiators instead of hot air.

moodrater

spaceHopper wrote: »

You could easily do a closed hot water system with one or two small myson radiators instead of hot air.

You'd need a small expansion vessel too. Simple to add a boat/caravan calorifier too for hot water. Probably not worthwhile if you had to buy the bits I'd have most of the bits for free.

Direct link

moodrater

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

Direct link

Thats all you need a load of candles filling up the van with soot, toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, styrene, phenol, acetalaldehyde etc.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison wrote:

We will make electricity so cheap only the rich will burn candles.

Burner ash gets a bit tiresome too.

I suppose the only alternative left then is whale oil.

moodrater

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

Burner ash gets a bit tiresome too.

Thats one of the reasons so many germans burn alcohol now, that and the fact that they dont have to pay the schornsteinfeger to come 3 times a year.

moodrater

I've had the fire brigade called out to me twice. [Edit: might even be 3 times come to think of it]
...curtain twitchers can't tell the difference between a van on fire and a van with a fire...
€600 they wanted to charge me for waking me up at 4am and letting the draft in!

Great for getting the police to call round too...trick is to pop out of the van and ask them what they are doing here before they can! That always confuses the bejaysus out of them.

moodrater wrote: »

...dont have to pay the schornsteinfeger

My flue is due replacement, after 4 and a bit years, bittova creosote foundry with the 16/7/8 (hours/days/m) dampened burn rate. No amount of scrubbin' is getting rid of that fried bitumen smell now. I cleaned it every 9 months or so iirc.
Flue never really gets up to temp. to fully burn the solids with an ambient > 5°C

nailer8

I would steer clear of the microwave option.
I bought one of these 500W modified mains microwaves They draw 900w from the mains (microwaves are pretty inefficient).
I am running it through a 1000w pure sine inverter and it will flatten my 200a battery bank in no time (actually think it might be partly responsible for killing my batteries too. These days i dont ever use it when not hooked up.
I am getting two new batteries at some stage and have a new solar panel and will try it again but all in all it will be emergencies only. And only ever for reheating kids dinners etc. Cooking is always on gas.

I had a Webasto air heater in my old camper, worked great but heavy enough on the leisure battery too.

If 95% of people use Gas it is probably for a reason. And with Propane cant see how it will ever be too cold for it to work.

The heating ability and power consumption of microwaves are completely different things although both are measured in watts unfortunately.

I'm really not a fan of direct gas heaters as they dry out the air and give me a pain in the head. If I was to get one it'd have to be one with an indirect heat exchanger.

nailer8

The heating ability and power consumption of microwaves are completely different things although both are measured in watts unfortunately.

Its actually a good little microwave. If anything it seems as fast as the 800w one at home but ultimately generating heat (space or cooking) from batteries is just not a runner.

If you want heat, burn something. Unless of course you are on hookup, then by all means get your €5 worth of electricity off the campsite.

nailer8

nailer8 wrote: »

then by all means get your €5 worth of electricity off the campsite.

Now there's a challenge! 31.25kWh (2600Ah @ 12v) :pac:...

nailer8

A line of these boys down the side of the camper left on all night might be required.