Gas-less heating, hot-water, cooking options

Mr Meenah

Mr Meenah

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MH
'10 lwb Sprinter, project
I'm still researching options for a Sprinter conversion here as I didn't want gas in the van ideally. I think Webasto do a heating/ hot-water unit run off diesel are there others?
Q2 - my cooking options are, I take it, induction-hob, foreman grill and kettle for coffees etc. How practical is this and what sort of battery-bank/ inverter ( heavy-duty I suppose ) would I be looking at?
 
Why no gas? I think the fact you would really struggle to find a new m/h without gas says something
 
I think Eberspacher also do a diesel water heater.
You can get diesel hobs. It may be better to look in boating forums as some boater go for gas-free solutions. Gas in a vehicle is much less of a problem.
I wouldn't heat from batteries because I don't think they like it (up 'em) and would be doomed to premature failure. Only consider electricity for heat when on EHU.
 
The Wino said:
Why no gas? I think the fact you would really struggle to find a new m/h without gas says something
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I'm struggling to get my wife past the notion of having propane canisters under the bed at ghe back of a Sprinter.
 
Mr Meenah said:
I'm struggling to get my wife past the notion of having propane canisters under the bed at ghe back of a Sprinter.
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How about a refillable tank fitted underneath on the chassis?
 
The DVLA regs are quite sad and rather inconsistent in my view.

The DVLA don't need a toilet or heating but they want you to be able to cook hot food.
They also imply they want either a 2 burner gas or a microwave, as if somehow one gas ring or salad and sandwiches are not food and being frozen stiff or needing the loo never happens.

That's why most go for gas. Cadac do some nice stuff BTW. Consider converting half the sliding door footwell to a small gas locker as the gas dropout is easy there and it is often directly below the kitchen unit. Cadac do a converter that lets you use that space with 2 tiny gas cylinders and a regulator.

Heating water again is problematic which is one reason I ordered a new ready-made camper, Truma or Alde are great but quite expensive, the alternate are non-balanced systems that need careful ventilation.
Some use dubious electric heaters floating in the water tank, perhaps an RCD makes them safe but I don't know. At the NEC show a company showed a £300 lagged electric boiler for hot water as I recall.

I did think of diverting some of the diesel blown air system through a radiator to heat up the water for the taps, that might be your best option but in the hot summer may be less desirable.
 
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Mr Meenah said:
It's an idea but is this something I can instsll myself and do you mean an LPG tank?
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Yes, an lpg tank. Not sure about fitting, you could talk to Autogas 2000, they were happy to supply me with a self fitting Alugas kit and do lpg vehicle conversions.
 
Cooking doesn't use very much gas: heating does.
Also once you have DVLA approval, who cares?

:D
 
I had the Eberspacher duel top water heater and space heater in my Relay camper conversion. It worked extremely well. I also had a diesel hob in one of mt boats, as I did not want gas on board, it had a ceramic top that worked well and was easy to clean. The best thing I found regarding diesel heating over gas was that diesel is available everywhere and you do not need to worry about different gas fittings when abroad for different bottles. Unfortunately diesel hardware is much more expensive to buy that gas, but it does pay off long term, especially if you have a separate tank fitted for the heating and cooking, and run on cherry.
 
Mr Meenah said:
I'm struggling to get my wife past the notion of having propane canisters under the bed at ghe back of a Sprinter.
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We all have them somewhere very close to the living quarters. They (especially refillables or a tank) are an incredibly efficient and fuss-free means of heating, cooling, and cooking. Suggest to your good lady that she's more at risk from your driving than a gas installation :D. Actually that's probably statistically true.
 
As mentioned, gas is very low pressure and any leak will fall out of the drop-out hole and away.
Putting on a 200bar diving air bottle is what takes courage ;)

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Mr Meenah said:
I'm struggling to get my wife past the notion of having propane canisters under the bed at ghe back of a Sprinter.
Click to expand...

So look on the good side:
there could be benefits in going to gas.
:)
 
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might be your only option mate:D
 
Why not place the gas storage somewhere else rather than under the bed? You could put it under the kitchen unit with access from the sliding door, so long as it is sealed from the interior with drop vents it would be safe.

@Nasher has a diesel hob.
 
Heating takes lots of energy. Batteries aren't actually very energy dense. I did some (probably wrong) maths and worked out that you can boil about 5 litres of water with a 100Ah battery before you'd risk damaging it.

Gas and diesel are much more energy dense (if only they were rechargeable/renewable).

We've got an underslung gas tank for our campervan. It freed up quite a lot of space that was used for a gas locker under the bed. We just fill it up at places that sell LPG. Not been a problem in UK or Spain.

What are you doing for the fridge? Gas fridges sip the fumes from the tank. Electric fridges are much better than they used to be, but still use quite a bit of juice.
 
Guigsy said:
What are you doing for the fridge? Gas fridges sip the fumes from the tank. Electric fridges are much better than they used to be, but still use quite a bit of juice.
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I have a large cool-box that I was going to use for the moment.

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Webasto diesel heating can be fitted.
If you have lithium batteries i believe you can run an induction hob.
Have seen these factory fitted on panel van.
Problem with diesel cooking is, if you get a leak inside the van, it will get everywhere.
One of the panel van converters does a gas free van. I think it was murvi.
 

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