[VAC] Re: Radiant flooring

["Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer" <geraldj@xxxxxxxx>]

With no manifold and with runs looped back and forth, how do you DRAIN
the system? do you propose to tilt the trailer for each loop? I proposed
a manifold so that all the runs could be straight and the trailer would
only need to be tilted ONCE for draining.

Total energy needs shouldn't be any greater than for a hot air furnace,
e.g. efficiency should be good, perhaps better for the radiant heating
because it doesn't contribute a lot of warm air to leak out. It would be
handiest to run on propane for boon docking and on electricity where
available.

The small Atwood water heaters for trailers have too small heat recovery
(as evidenced by the 475 watt heating element) to be useful in this
application.

I didn't do an exhaustive search, but the only in-line gas water heaters
I found were way too large for a decently insulated airstream, on the
order of 50,000 to 100,000 BTU, which would demand more fuel than the 30
pound tanks would vaporize on a cold day.

Please turn off your HTML formatting, it doesn't improve reading at this
end.

Gerald J.