Fan Heater

JTR · Post by **JTR** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:09 pm

Hi,

Is it possible to run a fan heater (a standard domestic plug in one) in the van from the liesure battery without a hookup - or would this drain the battery in no time at all?

Cheers,
JTR

neil/di · Post by **neil/di** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:28 pm

Very quickley,some one will give you the full techy bits on why,but I looked at running a low wattage oil filled radiator off a liesure batterey, and was told it would go flat very quickley
Neil

francophile1947 · Post by **francophile1947** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:14 pm

If you have a powerful enough invertor, you could flatten an 85ah battery in an hour using a 1Kw fan heater.
You can calculate the consumption using the formula "wattage divided by voltage equals amperage". Thus 1000 divided by 12 is 83.3 amps.
Hope this helps.

alphabetter · Post by **alphabetter** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:15 pm

francophile1947 wrote:If you have a powerful enough invertor, you could flatten an 85ah battery in an hour using a 1Kw fan heater.
You can calculate the consumption using the formula "wattage divided by voltage equals amperage". Thus 1000 divided by 12 is 83.3 amps.
Hope this helps.

Correct. You would also need a cable to the battery which can cope with a sustained load of 83.3 amps. This would be very thick!

The short answer is - high output electric heaters don't work usefully off batteries.

dandywarhol · Post by **dandywarhol** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:57 pm

Double correct!.....I use modified car jump leads to take the power to the 1200W invertor.

moonshine · Post by **moonshine** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:24 pm

Don't even think of running anything with a heating element in it for more than a few minutes off a battery.

If you are running it through an inverter (which itself also draws current), that's even worse!

The only way to run any electrical device designed to produce heat, is from a mains hook-up.