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Installing a Vent-free Heater
Flame On!
By Emily Fagan #99408
One of the best upgrades we installed to make our rolling house into a cozy
full-time home is a vent-free, blue-flame propane heater. Even though we have
a factory-installed 40,000 BTU furnace in our 36-foot Hitchhiker fifth-wheel,
it was so loud we nicknamed it the “Fire Breathing Dragon.” What’s worse, it
requires lots of propane and electricity to run.
D
uring our first winter of dry
camping in Arizona years ago, we
discovered that everyone else was
basking in the silent, comfy warmth
of their efficient vent-free propane
heaters. After studying their installations and warming our hands over
many different units, we knew we had
to have one. What a great decision
and straight-forward installation that
turned out to be.
Pros and Cons of Conventional RV Furnaces and Vent-free
Heaters
Conventional RV furnaces use a
big blower to bring cold air in from
outside, heat it up and then blow
22 . ESCAPEES | November/December 2014 | www.escapees.com
it into the rig through grates in the
floor. Air heated by propane becomes
moist, and the furnace also vents the
moisture-laden warm air back outside. Standing outside the RV near
the furnace vent, you can warm your
hands quite nicely. What a waste of
good heat!
Vent-free heaters don’t exchange
the cold outside air and the warm
inside air in this manner, so not only
do they not heat the outdoors, but they
consume less propane to generate the
same amount of heat. They also don’t
use any electricity, a boon for those
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living on solar power. However, since
the warm, moist air is not vented outside, the insides of the RV’s windows
sometimes become wet. Wiping them
down, cracking a window open and
circulating the air inside helps. As
a last resort, we sometimes run our
furnace for half an hour or so to warm
up the rig in a vented manner and then
use the vent-free heater to maintain
that warm temperature for the rest of
the day.
Selecting a Vent-free Heater—
Infrared Radiant Heat Versus
Blue-flame Heat
There are two different types of
ventless propane heaters: infrared
radiant heaters and blue-flame convection heaters. Both are excellent,
and the choice boils down to personal
preference. Like the sun, infrared
radiant heaters heat the objects in the
room. Standing in the sun or near one
of these heaters, you feel a baking
warmth on your skin. When you move
away (or stand in the shade), that
sensation vanishes.
In contrast, blue-flame heaters use
convection (the principal that heat
rises) and warm the air much like a
central heating system. If you stand in
front of a blue-flame heater, you feel
lots of warmth wafting over you rather
than baking your skin. These heaters
are most effective if the air is circulated, and a ceiling fan situated above
the heater is perfect for the job.
Either way, both types of heat feel
great when you are chilled.
Catalytic and Ceramic Infrared
Radiant Heaters
There are two types of infrared radiant
heaters for RVs. Catalytic heaters
use a platinum-impregnated pad as a
catalyst. A chemical reaction in the
pad causes a flameless combustion
that radiates heat. These heaters have
been around for decades, and the most
popular brand among RVers is the
Olympian Wave.
The other type of infrared radiant
heater is the ceramic brick or plaque
heater. Ceramic heaters operate in
a similar fashion but use ceramic “bricks” or “plaques” that glow
orange and radiate heat. There are
many popular brands of these heaters,
including Mr. Heater, Kozy World,
ProCom and Empire.
The one disadvantage of an infrared
radiant heater is that the heat source is
not only extremely hot but is partially
exposed as well. Most heater designs
place the bricks or catalyst behind
a protective metal grate. However,
anything that accidentally comes into
close contact with the catalyst or brick
could burn and potentially ignite. It
is wise to keep an eye out for a pet’s
swishing tail or a toddler’s curious
fingers poking into the metal grate.
Blue-flame Heaters
An alternative to infrared radiant heat
is blue-flame convection technology.
These heaters use a flame that burns
blue like the flame on an RV stove.
The flame is situated behind a ceramic
glass window so it can be seen, but the
heat at the front of the unit is not extreme. Vents at the base of the heater
draw cool air in from the bottom. The
blue flame heats up the cold air, and
the heated air is released out the vent
holes at the top of the unit.
The blue-flame heaters don’t
require a fan, but if you use one to
circulate the air, the cold spots in the
RV will warm up faster. After a lot of
experimentation, we found it best to
orient our ceiling fan above our heater
to blow upwards so the warm air flows
to the ceiling and then spreads out. We
control the heat in our fiver’s upstairs
bedroom by opening or closing the
bedroom door partway.
Safety
Many people worry about safety
and asphyxiation with vent-free gas
heaters. It turns out that they have
been scrutinized and studied to an
extraordinary degree for decades.
All manufacturers must submit their
designs to ANSI (American National
Standards Institute) to ensure they
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Our Website roadslesstraveled.us/rv-heater offers more details and photos from our vent-free heater selection and installation process.
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DIY Installation
The first decision is where to put the heater. Hanging it on a wall
keeps it ready for use all the time. However, standing it up on its
own two feet gives you the option to move it around and store it
when not in use. We stored ours in a closet for our first summer,
but we now keep it set up all the time, as we never know when
we’ll be somewhere chilly for a few days.
You will need to tap into an existing low-pressure gas pipe.
Good options are between the propane-based appliances: stove,
fridge, furnace and hot water heater. The best spot in our rig
was between the stove and the fridge at the back of a kitchen
cabinet (see photo 1) where a length of three-eighth-inch copper gas pipe was exposed.
Our project was to attach a length of flexible gas hose to this
copper pipe and install a valve so our new flexible gas line could
be shut off. Two specialty tools were required for the job: a pipe
cutter and a flaring tool. These cost less than $10.
Before the installation, Mark attached the feet and a male
copper elbow gas fitting to the bottom of the heater. Then he
connected the thermostat sensor to the back of the heater.
These parts came with the heater.
Next, he turned off the gas to the rig and cut the threeeighths-inch pipe under the cabinet with a pipe cutter, spinning
the cutter round and round to score and then cut the pipe. Then
he rejoined the two severed pipe ends with a T-connector (see
photo 2) that would connect to the new gas line to the heater.
This required flaring the two ends of the severed pipe so female
connectors could be attached and then screwed onto the two
male ends of the T-connector.
The male base of the T-connector needed to be connected
to the male side of the shut-off valve, requiring a female-female
gender changing connector in between. The other male side of
24 . ESCAPEES | November/December 2014 | www.escapees.com
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Photos by Emily Fagan #99408.
the shut-off valve would connect to the female connector on the
flexible gas hose. We bought the flexible gas hose with female
connectors pre-installed at both ends and a stopper connector to
use when we put the heater in storage.
A salesman at a gas and plumbing supply store helped Mark
select the right parts, and he laid them out on the floor (see
photo 3) of our trailer to be sure everything would connect as
planned. Then he practiced flaring the pipe, the trickiest part of
the installation, on a scrap piece of copper pipe.
The flaring tool (see photo 4) has two parts: a clamp with
wing nuts and a series of holes of different sizes and a C-clamp
with a cone that wedges into the end of the pipe. Mark inserted the pipe into the appropriately sized hole, letting it stick out
about one-eighth inch, and tightened the wing nuts. Then he
inserted the cone into the pipe end and rotated the C-clamp
handle. Bingo—the pipe end flared slightly. (See photo 5.)
Confident with the way the tool worked, he slipped two female connectors onto the ends of the real pipe under the cabinet
and flared both ends. (If he had forgotten to slip the connectors
on first, it would have been impossible to put them on once the
pipe was flared.) Then he screwed the T-connector into place
between the two ends of severed pipe and attached the valve,
gender changer and the flexible gas hose onto the base of the
T-connector to form the new gas line going to the heater.
Last of all, he drilled a small hole in the base of the kitchen
cabinet, slid the gas hose through the hole and attached it to
the heater. He tightened each fitting using two wrenches, and
then tested each connection for gas leaks by putting a few drops
of dishwashing detergent in a small spritzer bottle of water and
spraying each fitting with the mixture. Where bubbles formed he
knew the connection wasn’t tight enough.
meet the guidelines set forth in the
ANSI Z21.11.2 standard, a document
of some 119 pages that includes 33
separate tests a heater must pass before it can be brought to market.
Since 1980, all heaters have been
required to include a tamper-resistant oxygen detection sensor (ODS),
which shuts off the gas supply to the
unit if the oxygen in the air drops
below 18 percent (normal is 21
percent). In 1996, the American Gas
Association Research Division conducted a study that found “vent-free
gas heating products performed well
within nationally recognized guidelines for indoor air quality.” A second
landmark study that was extensively
peer reviewed found that vent-free gas
heaters don’t emit enough moisture to
cause mold, even in very tight homes
(and RVs are far from tight!).
In addition, the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
has stated that it is does not know of
any documented incidents of fatal
carbon monoxide poisoning associated with an ODS-equipped
vent-free gas heating product.
Operation at High Altitude
Most manufacturers officially rate
their vent-free propane for operation
up to 4,500 feet of elevation. However, many run just fine thousands of
feet above that. We use ours frequently at altitudes as high as 9,000 feet on
cold summer mornings in the mountains—and it feels so good!
Sometimes the ODS on our heater
shuts the unit off. However, if we
open the RV door for a few minutes,
we can turn the heater on again.
Usually, this happens only when we
are cooking at the same time. Ironically, since most RV stoves and ovens
don’t have an ODS, they keep right
on going while the very smart heater
shuts itself off.
lation. A smaller unit will need to run
at a higher setting for a longer time
than a larger unit, and one that is too
small may not be able to heat an RV
sufficiently.
We installed a 20,000-BTU unit
(rated for 600 square feet) in our
36-foot fifth-wheel. Some units come
with a thermostat, which makes it easy
to control the temperature in the rig.
Ours is a simple dial with numbers
from one to five, and we quickly figured out which setting is just right.
Most units can be hung on a wall,
but many also come with feet so they
can be freestanding. We installed our
unit using a flexible low-pressure
gas hose so we can move the heater
around the room. At first, we had a
12-foot hose, but we replaced it with a
4-foot hose after a year or so because
it was bulky and awkward.
Prices for vent-free heaters range
from under $100 for the small portable
units to over $300 for larger units with
thermostats and feet. The best deals
can be found online, and Amazon sells
all the brands. Back at the time of our
installation in 2008, we were quoted
$70 to $100 for the installation labor.
Mark is handy, though, so he opted to
do the installation himself.
Success
The first evening after our installation,
we cranked the heater on full blast.
Within minutes, we had to strip off
layer after layer of clothes until we
were down to our skivvies. We have
loved this heater ever since.
The following Website provides more in-depth information: www.ventfree.org
This is the Website for a coalition of the major vent-free gas heater manufacturers. It
includes a detailed consumer guide for selecting a heater, safety records and
studies, state by state regulations, manufacturers’ Websites, instructional
videos and many informative publications.
Emily and Mark Fagan have been traveling full-time since 2007. Until
recently, they split their time between their fifth-wheel trailer and their
sailboat, but now they are back on the road full-time. They chronicle their
journey with beautiful photos and fun stories at roadslesstraveled.us,
and their site also includes many pages of tips about the RVing lilfestyle.
Sizing, Pricing and Options
Vent-free heaters come in many
sizes, and there are even some small
portable units available for those who
don’t want to do a permanent instalwww.escapees.com | November/December 2014 | ESCAPEES . 25