Pardon the Interruption

Brief today. The company I work for has a few annual training expectations. Among them are things like how to be secure, or how to conduct business or whatever. In an extreme case of irony, on the day of the impeachment vote in the US Senate, I had to take the annual business ethics training. Within this training, we must recognize the standards and sign that we agree to them, and will abide by them. There are 2 particular items that I thought were particularly interesting:

Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption
(the company) is committed to operating in an ethical manner and in compliance with all applicable anti-bribery laws and anti-corruption regulations. (the company)'s Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption policy reinforces our intention and obligation to act honestly and ethically in all our business dealings.

In simple terms, bribery is the offering, giving or receiving anything of value with the intention of inducing a person to act or to reward a person for having acted, while corruption is the abuse of someone's power or position for personal gain.

Bribery and corruption are not only against our company values, they are illegal and can expose both our employees and our company to fines, penalties, and reputational damage.

Whistleblower Provision
Reporting a suspicious or potentially illegal activity can be scary. You may wonder:
• What if I report an activity and I'm wrong? Will I get in trouble?

• What if I report an activity about my coworker and she gets into trouble? What will happen to me?

• What if my boss or employer goes after me for implicating them in criminal activity?

Luckily, there are laws in place to protect people — known as whistleblowers — who make a good faith report of suspected or detected misconduct that breaks federal or state rules, laws or regulations. While the actual laws differ by industry and country, they typically prohibit retaliation against the whistleblower.

In addition, we have specific provisions in our Code of Conduct that protect you should you report anything in good faith that you feel violates the law or our policies.


This all seems especially ironic today. On the day that I am being made aware of these rules, asked to sign that I understand and will follow them under penalty of loss-of-employment.... the Senate and the President are effectively side-stepping these same expectations.

What a wonderful world. Back to the bus next time-

Parking Heater (Part 2)

Today's post continues my process of introducing an experimental parking heater into the microbus. My main driver for this was our 4Peaks Music Festival experiences. Even though it is around the Summer Solstice, every year, the overnight temperature gets down into the mid-30F's (that's like 2*C for our non-US friends). That had caused us to us the Little Buddy heater a lot, heating up the tented-zone outside the bus while hanging out and then again inside the bus before going to bed. I figured if we had something dedicated to the bus, the little propane heater could just focus on keeping the hang-out zone tolerable. Aaand... the bus could be pre-warmed either while we were away at the stages or while we were sleeping.

Planning

blurry picture of test fit

It all starts with determining where you want to install it. I chose the old fridge cabinet because it had a false floor as well as a metal grate I could send the warmed air through. The air supply-side would just pull from under the cabinets and the bed; these are the coldest zones, so that should work great. The fuel and exhaust needed to get through the wood floor of the cabinet, the steel floor of the bus and the belly pan unique to the early 70's bus. I figured that I could source the combustion air from between the floor and the belly pan since there were multiple holes that would allow air to freely flow.

I will "T" off the diesel line from the main tank, and not use the kit-included second tank just for the heater. I figure I can introduce the "T" after the large clear filter so I won't need the tiny one shipped with the kit that does not look as hardy.

Preparation
Before I could start installing, I needed to remove the false-floor. I would have liked to reuse that floor, but the way it was installed made that impossible. So, with a 1" paddle bit on my drill, I bore multiple holes into the floor until I could smash it into pieces. Once the chunks were out, I cleaned up all the edges, removed the little bits of fasteners (staples and short wood screws) and shop-vac'd the thing out. Once it was gone, I could really evaluate my options. There were only so many ways the heater could go in, so I ended up with it just inside the outer wall and an inch or so in front of the rear wall (see blurry picture). This created the most room for the air intake while creating the least dramatic curve to the outlet hose. The picture doesn't really show it, but there are 1/2" gaps along the rear edge and a modest sized hole along the outer edge near the front. So, air will be able to enter without fighting a vacuum condition.

The outlet hose will still need to bend about 270* before entering a heat register that I will need to custom construct. For a mental picture, imagine a floor register in your house. It changes a 4" (or greater) diameter air hose into a rectangular shape. I could bore a 3" hole in the front of the cabinet, but I wanted this to be total stealth, and, honestly, this way was more fun. Most US housing is done with venting that is larger than 3" in diameter, so this would be a total fabrication.

Boring

fuel pump install

The heater unit delivers with a metal sheet that rests on the floor between the heater and whatever surface it is bolted to. I loosely taped the metal sheet to the heater and when I had set the heater where I wanted it, I pushed the metal sheet off, and I had a template for where the holes needed to go. I marked them with a pen, found the center-point of the holes and drilled a pilot hole in the wood cabinet floor at that center-point. I grabbed a hole-cutter for a 1-1/4" hole and drilled out the holes for the intake and exhaust. With a hand saw, I connected them together, making one single oval. I test fit the heater to make sure it dropped into the hole as intended.

With the same bit, I cut holes in the floor of the bus directly beneath the two I had just cut. The front hole went through beautifully. The rear hole, however, was partially blocked by a support running side to side. I'm a little concerned for how the air intake will need to adjust for that. With the holes in the floor, I could see one of the drain holes below and a little in front of the front hole I had just cut. So, I went underneath and bore a hole, using that drain as the center-point. I will route the exhaust out there.

Fuel
After a couple attempts, I arrived at routing the fuel from the front right corner of the engine compartment back along the stock fuel line path, then over the suspension support, along the emergency brake tube, past the nose of the transmission and then over to the passenger side along a cross support. To the rear side of this support nearest the passenger side frame rail, I attached the heater's fuel pump (see picture). The plastic fuel line would pass over the top of the frame rail and enter the space between the belly pan and the floor between the frame rail and the floor. Once I had the fuel line laid out and zip-tied in place, I installed the line to the pump with short sections of 4mm fuel line. I will caulk around where the fuel line passes into the belly pan space so vibrations do not slowly create a weakness in the line.

I figure I am maybe 1/3 done on this, so there's plenty left to do. I have the electrical, finishing the fuel, fabricating, installing and routing to a heat register, the air intake and exhaust. Then, I will test the heater, measuring the noise level and experiment with suppression ideas. I figure it'll be 2 more posts before it's all done at this rate.

As always, thanks for following along and more next time-

Parking Heater (Part 1)

Okay, yeah. So I said I was going to be gone for a bit and then the very next week I go and start a marathon posting? WTF?! Well, this project isn't done yet, so some things I mention may get redone later in the series. Let's see...

So, What Am I Doing Now?
Having a heater in your camper while you're camping is nothing new. In fact, having one in your VW microbus is nothing new. For many years, versions of the campers had a gasoline eberspacher heater that drew from the main tank. If maintained well, I've heard these work very nicely. I have a healthy respect / fear of gasoline and gas fires, so I never got one, but have looked at the diesel ones for big rig trucks pretty much since the day I started the TDI conversion. They were running in the $1000US range, which was simply too rich for me. Since then, the design has been reverse-engineered by knock-off companies, and you can get one for around $150US. If that seems too good to be true, I'm sure you're right. I took the limited-money-risk plunge to find out.

Diesel Heater

nicked from eBay

A diesel heater is basically a kerosene heater. Fuel is sourced either from an independent source, or you "T" into your fuel system. That fuel line has it's own little pump that feeds the heater. The heater, in turn, ignites the fuel with a small glow plug, drawing combustion air and pushing exhaust outside of your vehicle. The air it is heating is usually sourced inside the vehicle. The unit is controlled with either a simple knob or an LED panel for a thermostat.

In this case, the combustion air intake and exhaust are 1-inch diameter pipes. The heat comes and goes through a 3-inch diameter pipes. I ordered one off eBay for $140US that looks a lot like the one pictured here.

What's in the Box
It arrived quickly, and it is packaged relatively well. The kit included things like zip-ties and clamps, implying that everything you needed was all in the box. If you were going to use the supplied 10L fuel-tank, maybe everything was there. Sort of. There was fuel tubing, a small fuel filter, the fuel pump, the wiring harness, LED screen, the heat unit itself, of course, a paper-ish tube for the intake (plus a crappy plastic air filter) and a corrugated stainless-steel tube for the exhaust. It even included a small (maybe 3.5 inches by 5 inches by 1 inch thick) rectangular "muffler". I quote it because I could look through it unimpeded. Last, the kit includes a poorly-translated instruction booklet.

What's NOT in the Box
So, what wasn't there? The kit does not include flexible fuel line to connect the various fuel bits together. The fuel tubing is stiff and will not fit around the inlet nor outlet of the fuel pump, for example. A short stretch of rubber/viton fuel line (I had some 4mm VW stuff from one of the fuel line replacements I did) fits around both the fuel tube and the fuel pump and the included fuel line clamps from the kit fit perfectly.

The kit does not include a "T" for you to tie into your existing fuel system though the instructions mention it. I recognize that all fuel systems are different, so any "T" they included could have been wrong. I found one for $7US delivered.

The kit does not include any kind exhaust temperature abatement. This could be hazardous since the heater unit is supposed to be installed inside the vehicle with the combustion air/exhaust venting outside. The exhaust is like your car exhaust in that it's going to get super hot. Wrapping that thing with something fire-safe is very important. I found some for about $17US.

Equipment Considerations
I mentioned the crappy air filter. It is a plastic cylinder that fits on the end of the paper air inlet tube. On one end, there are small holes, like on a salt-shaker. The paper tube fits in the other end. In between, there are long slots cut into the plastic. I couldn't tell if there was a medium inside, but I could look through the little holes and see through to the air-tube inlet. Yeah.. that's garbage, so I bought a washable air filter like this for $8US. We camp in high desert, so dust is something we need to contain. Little no-see-um flies could get through the one they supplied. Easy decision.

I also mentioned the "muffler". We don't camp in the wilderness where the noise of an appliance starting up would escape all notice. We camp in state parks and festival parking lots. We have neighbors. Those neighbors rightfully expect quiet hours to be observed, so if the heater unexpectedly starts up at 4AM, it needs to be virtually silent. That small hollow metal rectangle probably won't cut it. In fact, it might actually act like an amplifier. So, I bought this muffler for $23US designed for a motorbike. I will experiment with the different mufflers and may even experiment with muffler packing to see how quiet I can get the heater, testing with a decibel app on my phone.

Locating

refer fridge cabinet. note
false floor in lower left corner

The bus doesn't have a whole lot of extra space, at least not when compared to a full-size RV. I thought about putting the heater on the auxiliary battery tray in the engine compartment. This would expose it to the weather, and force me to put a 3 inch hole somewhere to get the heated air inside. I considered running it into the original stock plumbing but the instructions not-so-clearly say not to do that. So, I looked at locating in the kick-cabinet under the rock-n-roll bed. This had some issues as well. The power was readily available, since the deep cycle battery and fuse panel live there. I could bore holes through the floor for the fuel, combustion air and exhaust, and could source heat-air from right there. The challenge was finding a good location that wouldn't create weird routing for the heated-air hose, nor crazy routing of the exhaust under the bus. And, the whole operation, when combined with the deep-cycle battery, took up a lot of the space in that cabinet. When we camp, that cabinet holds handy things like the hatchet and propane, so I decided to look elsewhere.

Almost 9 years ago, I removed the refrigerator unit out of the cabinet, turning the cabinet into more storage (See from Fridge to Storage). We have used this cabinet to hold our emergency first aid kit, blankets, towels, paper products, etc. It is super useful. It also has a false bottom, from back when the old refer unit used to sit in there. That false-bottom is a little under 3 inches off the cabinet floor, which sits directly on the metal floor of the bus. I decided that I could raise the false floor a couple of inches, and set the heater between the false floor and the genuine floor. This plan would consume maybe 2 vertical inches of currently used space in that cabinet. If I remove the old insulation off the cabinet lid, I'd get some of that space back. One last hurdle: this portion of the floor has a belly pan beneath it. So, any hole I produce will need another hole in the belly pan. Ain't nuttin' easy.

Costs So Far
The running total for this experiment is
$140 - Diesel Heater
    $7 - Fuel Line "T"
  $17 - Exhaust Wrap/Sleeve
    $8 - Washable Air Filter
  $23 - Motorbike Muffler
$195 - Total

As usual, this post has already gotten long and I haven't actually started yet. Thanks for following along, and more next time-