Turn up the heat

What sort of twisted logic does our Australian caravan industry apply when more than 90 per cent of the pop-top and full-height caravans sold from around $40,000 upwards come standard with a microwave, a reverse cycle air conditioner, perhaps with one or more solar panels on the roof, but without space heating.

It’s often on the option list, but rarely standard, even on many vans costing $80,000 and more.

It just goes to prove my suspicion that most of the people who design caravans rarely, if ever, live in them. With very few exceptions – and I’ve finished counting them with fingers and toes to spare – they are too busy building and selling their vans to take the time out to experience them! So they have to rely on customers and whingers like me to see the error of their ways.

Here are some facts to consider: It’s usually cold in winter, more so in the southern parts of Australia, during the annual ‘travelling season’ but also when the sun retires at night in the north.

In July this year it got down to -11.4 degrees at Glen Innes in Northern NSW, - 5.9 in Warwick in South east Queensland, -6.6 at Roma in the Central West of the State and Brisbane had its coldest night in 103 years, with just 2.6 degrees.

If you were travelling through Victoria, the ACT or parts of South Australia to get there, you would already have endured many nights at or around freezing point. And if your van didn’t have either gas or diesel central heating, you might have suffered.

OK, I hear you say. Buy a cheap electric fan heater, plug it in, or turn the air-con onto the warm, reverse cycle. But, smarty, what if you are free camping, as an increasing number of travellers do? No power then equals midnight misery and surely you’re not going to fire up a $1500 generator at a roadside stop to run a $30 electric heater!

So what is the logic in not fitting a space heater as standard in every caravan costing, say, over $50,000? It escapes me.

The first thing about space heaters is that they take up very little space. A gas-powered ducted system such as Truma’s Trumatic E 2400, that pumps out 2400W of glorious heat on a freezing night, weighs just 5kg, fits easily under a bed or a wheel-well space, consumes just 0.01amps of 12V current when operating and also has a very low gas consumption.

It can also be specified as a combined gas water and air heating system to save the space of two separate systems, with an output of up to 4000W.

The other main alternative, favoured on many dedicated off-road vans and most motorhomes, are powered by diesel. Those offered by Dometic (Eberspacher), Webasto and Planar are three of the major options.

The advantages of diesel powered heating for remote area travellers is the ability to share the same fuel source as your tow vehicle and because diesel heaters vent to the outside, there are no dust-prone compulsory wall or door vents that are required by law for gas appliances.

Price is the reason most manufacturers cite for their sloth. A top-name or equivalent diesel system costs around $2200 fitted to a new van and up to $2800 to retrofit to an existing older van. Caravan makers we spoke to say Australia is being ripped off enormously by suppliers, with identical systems costing a fraction of that in the USA and the UK.

But if the Aussies got together as a buying group and ‘heavied’ the suppliers, I’m sure the cost would come tumbling down, based on the increased volume.

So my solution to the problem is simple. I’m going to organise a gathering of Australian manufacturers to a BYO van free-camp in Stanthorpe, habitually the coldest place in south-east Queensland.

It will be held in icy mid-July and I’ll invite all the CEOs in their $50-$60,000 unheated vans, but even more importantly, their partners.

I bet space heating will be standard in every van costing $50,000 or more within six months!