[77newell]

I've had the heater guts all apart a couple time. There are a couple weaknesses in my setup; the steel shell has no insulation so the greater the temperature differential between inside and outside the more transfer there will be, and the construction of the heater box and how it is fit into the coach is hugely prone to air leaks. I closed the door and windows and then turned on both the Fantastic fan and the stove vent fan on "high". Using an incense stick I followed the smoke train backwards and found that the penetration where all my hoses from the heater box came through the floor was leaking air, lots of it. From both above and below I crammed soft foam into the gaps until I could no longer detect air leakage. I also added a foam pad to the curb side of the heater box and positioned it to minimize outside air leakage. When I smoke checked the windows I was surprised to find very little leakage. These windows cover a lot of area so adding some insulation will help, I want to find something that lets light in so I don't feel I'm occupying a cave, two layers of bubble wrap perhaps. Another leak I found was coming from the bottom of the fridge, easily sealed. One other spot was the entry door sealing - which until I rebuilt my door was a half in gap in places and now the smoke test shows no leak.

Unless air leakage is virtually eliminated there is unlikely to be any heater that can keep up. When the heat load is reduced to just conduction and convection then we can consider insulation and/or increasing the heat input. I refuse to let the Prevost coaches win this one with better heat, they prove it can be done and we need to figure out how we will do it.