In warmer months, a heater in your van can make the difference between shivering under a layer of covers in your van and a comfortable night’s sleep. During the winter, it can literally be a matter of life and death.
In the simplest of terms, heaters are any device that convert fuel into heat. There are multiple types of heaters commonly used by the vanlife community, each with their own pros and cons. In this article I’ll be listing those pros and cons to help you make an informed decision that meets your needs and budget.
Before proceeding, people note that all heaters have the potential to be dangerous if not used properly. Always read any safety warnings that come with your heater, and keep a battery-powered carbon monoxide in your van at all times. It could literally save your life.
RUN YOUR VAN’S ENGINE AND HEATER ALL NIGHT LONG
Pros: You have everything you need.
Cons: Kind of expensive. Also, you could die.
Every vehicle comes with a heater built into the dash. Chances are you’ve used it and know how to operate it. In theory, a person caught out in the cold could let their vehicle’s engine run all night and use their car’s heater to stay warm.
Most vehicles use approximately 1/2 gallon of gasoline per hour while idling. You can figure out your cost based on the current price of gasoline and how many hours a night you sleep.
Engines create pollution, and some cities (and states) have made it illegal to run your engine overnight. Also, sleeping in a running car isn’t the safest decision from a mechanical standpoint. It puts additional (albeit minimal) wear and tear on your car’s engine. There’s a chance, however slight, that something could go wrong — an engine fire could start, an emergency brake cable could snap, the car could be knocked into gear — and being asleep when that happens wouldn’t be ideal.
Everyone who watches true crime shows (or the evening news) knows that people, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, end their lives by sitting inside cars while the engine is running. This is because motor vehicles emit carbon monoxide through their mufflers, and carbon monoxide is not compatible with human life. If you plan to sit inside your vehicle for an extended period of time with the engine running, please do a bit of research. Keep your windows closed, make sure to park in an open outdoor space, make sure your exhaust pipe is not blocked, and most importantly, keep a carbon monoxide detector in your vehicle at all times.
ELECTRIC HEATERS (110v) ($20-$100)
Pros: Simple to install and operate.
Cons: Requires an exorbitant amount of electricity.
Electricity is pretty nifty. Most people spend their entire lives plugging appliances, gadgets and devices into the wall outlets of their “sticks and bricks” homes and not giving much thought as to where the electricity comes or how much of it those devices use. Living in a van or vehicle is different; when the only electricity you have access to is stored in batteries you carry around with you, electricity becomes a very valuable and finite resource.
The first style of heater many beginning vanlifers consider are electric heaters. This is because most people are familiar with how electric heaters work, they are simple to use, and people feel safe around them. Electric heaters don’t produce toxic fumes, and they are simple to install — plug them in, turn them on, and enjoy the heat. Electric heaters seem like the least complicated type of heater to own and operate when compared to other solutions.
The biggest problem with electric heaters is that they require a lot of electricity. Electric heaters work by running electricity through a resistor, converting it to heat. The electric space heater in my bedroom, which we occasionally use during cold winter nights, uses 1,800 watts per hour — not terrible in a home, but an awful lot of electricity in a van. A Jackery 1000, which stores up to 1,000 watt hours, could only power this heater for about half an hour.
Unfortunately, even the smallest electrical heaters use a lot of electricity. Those small, personal/desktop heaters that sell for around $20 use 500 watts per hour, which means they will completely drain a Jackery 1000 in two hours. For the majority of van owners, running an electric heater for an entire night is simply out of the question.
There are a few exceptions which would facilitate the use of an electric heater. One would be for those who routinely plug their vans into external power outlets such as the ones found at campsites (i.e. “shore power”). A gas generator is also capable of powering an electric heater. Hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius are also capable of running an electric heater off of their vehicle’s batteries. Even if the batteries are drained overnight, the engine will still start as long as you have gasoline in the tank, and the batteries will be recharged. Unfortunately, there are very few hybrid or EV vans on the road today.
As for the rest of us with battery-based systems, powering an electric heater for any length of time is simply not a viable option. To run a typical 1,500 watt electric heater for 8 hours, a person would need not only an inverter that could handle that much power, but a large bank (think a dozen) of car batteries. I’ve never seen a van that was able to operate an electric space heater for eight hours. Most of them can’t do it for one.
ELECTRIC HEATERS (12v) ($30)
Pros: Easy to install.
Cons: Only good for heating one finger at a time.
Harbor Freight and other discount retailers sell 12v heaters for around $30 that plug into your vehicle’s accessory or cigarette lighter adapter. I received one of these as a gift a few years ago. It did a decent job of defrosting my windshield and put out just enough enough heat to warm one hand at a time if placed less than an inch away from the unit’s blower. Even if you ran one of these devices for an entire week I don’t think it would raise the temperature inside your van a single degree. The good news is, your windows would remain defrosted.
Multiple Youtubers have purchased and tested these heaters, hoping that they would offer some refuge from the bitter winter cold. Most of those videos end with the reviewer vowing to return the item.
PROPANE HEATERS ($75)
Pros: Portable, simple, and effective.
Cons: Daily expense to run. Caution must be taken.
Portable propane heaters have long been popular with campers, and believe it or not, they are actually safe to operate inside a vehicle.
The most popular brand of propane heater is the Mr. Buddy. The Mr. Buddy is designed to use disposable 16oz (one pound) propane cylinders. Walmart sells these non-refillable containers for about $5, give or take. These containers are disposable and not designed to be refilled. Buddy heaters some with two temperature settings; on the lower setting they will run for 6 hours on a single tank, and 3 hours on the higher setting. The Mr. Buddy heater can hold two tanks, so with two installed you can double those run times. The good news is, even on the lower setting, a heater of this size will heat most vans to an uncomfortably warm temperature in about fifteen minutes. Mr. Buddy also sells adapters that allow you to connect a traditional 20 gallon propane tank to the heater. While this is a much less expensive way to operate the heater, safety precautions must be taken when installing a propane tank inside a vehicle, and many mechanics (and insurance companies) highly frown upon this practice. That being said, watch enough vanlife vieos and you’ll see it’s more common than you might think.
If you’ve ever lit the pilot light on a gas water heater or fireplace, you will have no problem operating a Mr. Buddy heater. After turning on the propane, the device is lit using an electronic ignitor before turning the temperature dial to low or high. The units also come with a tip-over safety detector that will turn the unit off should it fall over while in use.
The Mr. Buddy heater is a good but not perfect solution. The heat it puts out is hot and directional. It also adds a lot of moisture to the air; because of this, many vanlifers will keep their windows cracked to allow any moisture build-up to escape. Many owners also complain that these heaters actually put out too much heat for a van, meaning you will be adjusting the temperature all night long. Those seem like livable alternatives to shivering in a freezing vehicle overnight.
Multiple Youtubers have tested and proven that a Mr. Buddy heater, when working properly, does not emit carbon monoxide. That being said, leaving a window cracked is never a bad idea, and having a battery-operated carbon monoxide detector, just in case, is always a smart move.
CHINESE DIESEL HEATERS ($150)
Pros: Affordable, comfortable heat.
Cons: Installation required. Questionable build quality.
Companies like Eberspacher and Webasto sell heaters for RVs and vans that run on diesel fuel and sell for between $1,200 and $1,500. Multiple Chinese companies have copied the design of those heaters and sell them for approximately 1/10th the price. Regardless of the specific brand, these are colloquially referred to as Chinese diesel heaters, knock-off Chinese diesel heaters, or Chinese knock-off diesel heaters. You can find them for sale on Amazon for around $150 from dozens of companies whose names are impossible to pronounce and constantly change.
Chinese diesel heaters require both electricity and diesel fuel to operate. These heaters have temperature settings from 1-5. On the lowest setting, they use approximately 10 watts of power and on the highest setting, they use approximately 45 watts of power. As for fuel, one Youtuber ran his heater on the highest setting for 24 hours and used 4 gallons (15 liters) of diesel. On the lowest setting, they use approximately .05 gallons of diesel per hour. If your vehicle does not run on diesel, or even if it does, you’ll need to add a separate fuel tank to hold the diesel. These tanks can be installed either inside or outside of your van’s cabin.
Chinese diesel heaters are not perfect. One common complaint is that the piston inside the heater that fires every 1-3 seconds makes a definite knocking sound. Some owners have minimized this sound by moving the pump outside the van and/or installing it inside a box layered with sound-deadening material. The other common complaint is that the heaters themselves are not reliable and sometimes only last a couple of years. Parts are often difficult to source, requiring owners to replace them.
Despite their shortcomings, Chinese diesel heaters are a very popular solution. They’re cheap to operate, simple to use, and safe. They are probably the closest solution to the heaters most of us have in our homes.
WOOD BURNING STOVE
Pros: Looks and probably smells great.
Cons: Too many to list.
Yes, some people actually install wood burning stoves/furnaces in their vans. I’ve seen several of them them on Instagram and they look super sexy.
Imagine how inconvenient it would be to acquire firewood for your vehicle’s primary heating source every couple of days, all winter long. Imagine waking up every few hours to poke at logs in your van’s fireplace. The good news is when you’re not worrying about dying from carbon monoxide you can worry about burning your van down. Also, you can forget stealth camping with a chimney sticking out of the top of your van.
Look — far be it from me to try and talk anyone out of installing a wood burning stove in their van. You do you. But unless you grew up in a log cabin and are used to obtaining and cutting firewood and burning wood as your primary source of heat, you should really think long and hard about this option.
OTHER OPTIONS
Butane. Kerosene. Alcohol. If it burns, someone sells a heater for it. Before using one of these solutions, or any solution really, be sure to do your research. Find out how much free space they require to operate and if they are designed to operate indoors. And, even if you don’t think you need one, get a carbon monoxide detector for your van.