When I first moved in, it was the middle of August and I had to quickly retrofit an air conditioner to cool the space enough to sleep. By the time October had come around, I had used the wood stove so much that I started to need an automatic heating system, something to turn on while I was sleeping or at work, and so I bought and installed a diesel heater. This worked out really well until recently, where now I have to repair it, so I removed it for the time being and installed an automatic electric heater.
Honestly, I didn't expect to live in the truck throughout the whole winter here in Wyoming, as we get some pretty dramatic winters. But now it's nearing the end of January and we just had our first -14F night, and it worked out just fine. At first when the temps would drop at night, when I only had the woodstove, I would get it to around 78F before I went to bed, and it would drop down to the low 60s by the time I woke up; I would start a fire and warm the space back up in the morning, make my coffee, etc. My propane cooktop puts out a good amount of heat as well, so I would plan to cook longer for the days where it was going to get very cold. The temperature would reach the 50s or 60s outside during the day, so the truck would sustain a good temperature inside since it would get warmed back up during the day.
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Once it started dropping temp at night and our highest temps of the day was only 40 or in the 30s, it started to get difficult to get everything I needed done and also have a constant fire going. I also had to go to work, so I would try to cook and get a fire going as hot as possible so it wouldn't freeze in here while I was gone. This worked well until the end of October this year, where it started to freeze and stay around freezing all day. Once that happened and I was chopping wood everyday, I invested in a diesel heater.
Honestly I loved the diesel heater. I would have installed a propane heater since I already had that fuel source, but propane heaters are not designed for higher elevation (higher than 4,500feet) and I need something that could run at elevations closer to 10k feet, where I'm planning to go, here in the Rocky Mountain range. Diesel heaters are one of the most efficient heating sources with btu output per gallon on fuel, and the daily diesel cost was reasonable.
I bought a Vevor Diesel heater with a 5,000btu to 8,000btu rating. I was using the diesel heater primarily because of it's ease, but after a month I had already fixed a fuel line issue, water in my diesel made it combust incorrectly, the manual had no real instructions for the controller for any actual troubleshooting when I would have to reset it, and the last couple of days (as I started writing about how much I love the heater) it started smoking real bad out of the exhaust and I discovered it was filled with soot since I wasn't running it at max capacity and so on and so forth. So I removed it (December 21st) and I'm back to using my wood stove and two small Dayton electric space heaters I bought at Grainger. I think in the summer, I'll re-build the heater with a different controller so it adjusts the air mixture better, and get this going again. They're so efficient, I really recommend one if you're planning to stay in the winter anywhere.
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| Two mechanical ceramic heaters - only for now as they take way too much power. I covered up the holes to the outside and put in my cabinet instead, running two power cords from the garage. |
Another important thing to consider for winter living is your water tank. My tank is a 25gal tank (for now) that is mounted outside, and I have a copper 3/4" water heater line running from the output of my tank to my shutoff valve inside. I wrapped the copper line with an electric warming cable that's designed to stop the pipes from freezing, and this worked well when the temperature would rise back up to 50 or 60 during the day. Once it stayed below freezing for a couple days, the heating cable couldn't put out enough heat to compensate for the heat loss and so the tank froze. Once my tank froze, I disconnected my water pump and switched to water Jerry cans only. I have a water bladder as my water tank, so I couldn't put in a trough heater (what they use to keep water tanks from freezing on a ranch for example), but I'll be replacing it with a solid container here in the summer.
So right now, I have two 6 gallon Jerry cans that I keep on my kitchen floor, and a 3 gallon beverage cooler that I place on my countertop by my sink to wash my hands and dishes, etc. using gravity feed. I keep two 1 gallon jugs filled up,one for the toilet and one as an extra, and I have a Brita pitcher that I drink out of and make my coffee with, etc. I really like the countertop method, and this has worked out really well! At least for now.
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| I keep the two water cans by my kitchen / wood stove |
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| I lift that blue container into my bathroom and fill it up with the cans - works good for now. I need to clean a bit though! |
At the moment, I'm hooked up to my family's garage and riding out the winter. If i didn't have hook ups, i would have to run my generator and I doubt my battery bank could handle even one of those heaters, so I would highly recommend a nice brand of diesel heater if you're planning on over-wintering somewhere.
The other night when it dropped to -14F (-25C), I was worried I would have to get up in the middle of the night and run the wood stove as well as the heaters, but they worked out just fine. I try to turn them off when I can so I don't burn out the fan motors, so I run my wood stove as often as possible when I'm home. I do work a full time job, so I have the electric heaters run while I'm not home.
It's taken more effort on my part; the grey water tank under my sink froze that night (the one in my cabinet), but since heat rises, I was nice and toasty while I was sleeping. So now I disconnect my p-trap from the tank when i go to bed, just in case.
My batteries are constantly low since the snow covers my solar panels and we haven't had much sunlight, so I'll unplug one of the heaters and charge my batteries, usually every morning. I've noticed that the resting voltage of your batteries will be lower when they're cold, so do keep that in mind. (AGM batteries that is).
My fridge struggles a little when it's super cold. I run the fridge on propane only, and when the temp drops really low, I've been adding frozen water bottles and ice packs to help keep it cold. Especially in the freezer section. If I was parked in the middle of nowhere or something, I would definitely utilize the outside temperatures and make an ice chest outside. Sometimes when I'm done cooking (I meal prep on days off from work), I leave the food in containers outside once I'm done cooking to help them cool off so I can refrigerate them sooner. (and usually this is like 9pm by the time i'm done and washed up so I want to go to bed haha)
The toilet still works perfectly in the winter - I haven't had my urine container freeze, but I also empty it everyday.
Woodstoves:
What I wouldn't give to have an auto-loading woodstove! That would be amazing.
I really enjoy my stove, I love the full bodied heat it puts out, even my tiny one, and honestly I highly recommend a wood stove and a diesel heater combo. These are two fuel sources that are very efficient, and reasonably cheap. I burn wood and coal in my woodstove (it's specifically a combo stove).
When I was only using the woodstove and the diesel heater, I averaged about $65 a month in heating - wood and diesel. I would buy cheap, fast burning pine (which has been fine this whole winter), nut coal for $14 per 40lbs bag at tractor supply, and diesel.
I bought a 4ft maul at Menards to chop wood, I use a fancy wood splitter and a hammer, and (usually) i hand saw the wood to fit in the stove, but recently I've been using my chopsaw to carefully cut the larger pieces to fit and it's saved me a lot of time.
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| The maul breaks the larger pieces, them i break them up smaller with my log splitter (that iron device) |
If you're planning your build, there's a couple things I want to bring up. Coal is a great power source, but it's hard to find in a lot of areas, and your stove has to be really hot for the coal to light. In a larger stove, this means it's going to take more fuel to get it up to that temp - so I really would only get the size stove for your square footage. It's hard to light coal in a small stove though. I have a cubic mini wood stove, 9inch x 11inches (very small) and I can barely get it hot enough to light coal, but it does get there if I had the fire raging for an hour and I have thick coals.
The draft. I did not put in a damper into my flue, but I would recommend one. Sometimes the wind blows so hard here that the pressure difference it creates in my flue as it passes by overhead, creates a vacuum and it forces the air to fly back down my flue pipe and extinguishes my fire! That's wyoming wind for you haha. Sometimes I'd like to close the damper so I can heat up the flue, then open it to create a draft - when there's no wind and it's very cold, it's hard to get it started. My favorite firestarter is just egg carton pieces (the best ever!) and kindling - I don't like to use propellants personally. But it doesn't hurt to have lighter fluid just in case your wood is damp and you can't get it started, etc. I was using cheap extended lighters for a while to start the fire, but I've since invested in a butane torch and it's amazing. I highly recommend one!
When I start running the stove, I usually leave the door open and try to catch all the kindling. In the beginning you may have a little smoke pour out into the room - that's normal, as the flue needs to heat up to create a draft. If it's too much, leave the door open to try to encourage the fire to get bigger (more oxygen) and this will heat up the top of your stove faster, and thus the flue.
Make sure you don't add too big of pieces, because the wood will always smoke before it catches, and it will smoke a lot if it goes out. Then you need to open the door to adjust it... and it will fill your house with smoke, and I've done this a million times already. Always always wear leather gloves when you do anything with your stove - it's frustrating when you're moving wood around in your stove and you touch the door on accident, drop the wood, and now it smothered it and went out. Now it's filling my house with smoke and I'm cussing at it.
Sometimes I wonder if all my clothes reek, and maybe I should store them in those plastic suit bags or something.
Ventilation is difficult in the winter since you can't open the windows, but sometimes I'll open the door and fan it, if I filled it up with smoke in here. In the summer, I'll probably add in a large ventilation fan.
I keep a little red iron cup on top of my wood stove, filled with water, to act as a humidifier and I love that little thing. When the water boils it's kind-of loud (makes an interesting high pitched sizzle sound sometimes), and also alerts me to the fire dying off when the sound goes away. Best buy ever!
For now, I'm coasting by using these little electric heaters, chopping wood, and cooking as much as I can. I didn't think it was possible to ride out the full winter in the truck, but it's been okay so far. I wish the diesel heater worked better, but it's alright.
If there's anything you want to ask me specifically, just let me know in the comments or send me an email using the contact form the the right side of the home page. I know this website needs a lot of work, but I'm trying to work on it here and there.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a great adventure!
Sincerely,
Kelli
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