Building a camper rig for our F150. Looking for places to get heaters etc from?

[Autism Family Travels]

I am going to start building a pop up camper for our F150. We are using a Canadian built cap with pop up tent and we are going to be using the Road loft systems for internal seating and storage. I am looking for a water heater and a camper heater to install on the cap permanently. I have no idea where to find these items. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[highboy4x4]

For me, the answer is about how much space can you allocate for each device? For the water heater, obviously it will be a propane instant heater. I would recommend that your research include if you can get spare parts. I have found that most, if not all share internal parts with minor differences. I have a GasLand propane heater, bought off Amazon for about $130. I messed up and sent 12vdc to the board instead of the 3vdc like the D cell batteries and fried the control board. I found the only place to get parts was from the more expensive brands. So I bought the board fairly cheap and it worked. :-) Before I bought that board, I did complain to GasLand about the lack of spare parts availability and they sent me a new heater! Bonus... As far as space is concerned, I think the issue is that it is fairly large. full specs here:

Amazon.com

Camper heater: Again I researched this pretty extensively and found out that I pressed the overkill button. I bought a 8kw diesel heater and it is way too much for my truck cap. Hindsight, I would have bought a 2kw. I went with a Vevor only because of cost!! It has worked every time I asked it to!! I did plumb it into the trucks tank and vented it outside with an extension to put the fumes above the cap. Yes it has a home made spark arrestor for those states that require one! It has worked out very nice. An added benefit is that one night we got caught in the rain and our flannels were soaked, I used the heater on max and it dried out the shirts incredibly quick....Overlanding clothes dryer!! Who knew?? :-) Side note: Yeah I cut my bed to plumb it outside but it will never be a normal truck again so I don't care. I used a high heat silicone pad and caulk used for engines to seal and exhaust header fiberglass tape to wrap the exhaust pipes. I can tough it with my hand. I know that others would not cut their beds but I'm not normal! This means that you will most likely place the heater outside and pipe in the hose! Check out a "tire step" to rest your heater on and pipe the hose into the cap. This is probably the safest option but I have fire insurance!! :-)

Everything expressed here is an opinion and what works for me!! Be creative, take you time and be ready to change/switch your project ideas as you will find a better solution after your first trip!! Ask me how I know!!! Looking forward to seeing your ideas come to life!

 

[grubworm]

yeah...ditto on Gasland water heater. I also have a Camplux one and they look identical inside. Both work extremely well and I like the Gasland one better because it has a switch on the bottom to cut off the battery power whereas the Camplux doesn't have the switch and I think the batteries will run down even when not in use, so I just drop the battery door so the connection is broken. There is a reed switch that senses water flow and that signals the D batteries to make the spark to ignite the burner. Pretty simple and robust design. When I cut back on the flow of water, it will heat up enough to scald, so it is a pretty powerful heater.

and also ditto on Vevor diesel heaters. I bought my Vevor heater 3-4 years ago and really like it. All it needs is 12v, so I run it off a separate 35ah battery and that way I can set it outside and use a hose to duct the heat in and leave the unit and its exhaust outside. I have used it with the unit inside, and ducted the exhaust outside and that worked just fine. No smelly fumes or any problems other than the sound of the fuel pump ticking away. Sounds like a mini diaphragm pump, so it can lull you to sleep or annoy the hell out of you...depends on how you sleep. I have the 8kw as @highboy4x4 mentioned, and I used it inside a 16 ft non insulated cargo trailer in below freezing weather and it got hot in there pretty quick and I dialed it back to the lowest setting and it was more than plenty. For a camper top...definitely go smaller than that.