[Fin Clearview]

Just wondering if anyone knows where to get the above with a remote alarm to let you know when van temp drops? Or do most just use a standard one (with LCD screen) and just stick a heater in there when it's -c ?

[Spruce]

No - I doubt most of us use one of these.

We just stick a heater in the van every night with the thermostat set at about 5 degress C. If the temps get colder than that then the heater comes on automatically without us having to give it a second thought.

If the temp don't drop that low, say because of cloud cover, then the heater won't come on. Simples.

We didn't heat the third van last winter, so we turned the water off from the tank to the pump, unscrewed and emptied the filter bowl and started the pump. This pushes the water out of it and also drains the pipe to the van's outside hose ports. The hose reel was brought inside. There was only one day when we had a block of ice in the tank and had to spend some time warming the hose to the tap to defrost it. The trip to work with the van's heating on wasn't long enough to warm the pipes enough.

I personally would see no benefit in having an alarm to wake me up to tell me it's cold in the van TBH.

[Dave.]

I've got one of those remote weather stations that measures wind rain humidity and outside temp - year before last I set an alarm that eould sound when the outside temperature dropped to zero. Thinking that inside the van would be a couple of degree above that.

What a pain in the ar$e that was!  An alarm going on and off through out the night.

What I do now is if it is getting near freezing early evening I plug in my tank immersion heater and let that warm the water, and keep the frost off the rest of the van.

Last winter I only had 6 nights where it got that cold to use the immersion heater - benefits of the south west

[[GQC] Tim]

Coldsnap on Android smartphone. Alert when temp drops below 0c and (iirc) 7 day warning. I use it, don't have to worry any more about checking the weather. Phone gives alert, I put in the heater. You can set alerts for any temperature as well, I've set it at 0 for the local town. You might have to set the alert at a higher temperature if your where you live is slighter colder then the town where the sensor reading is given. Hasn't failed me yet.

[rosskesava]

I used to have a thermostat in the tank and set to cut in at 3C and rigged to an infrared lamp in the van. It's not the air temperature that matters, it's the temperature of the water.

Simple, easy and cheap.

You can wire a thermostat to turn on anything electrical you want.

[Fin Clearview]

Oh dear I didn't quite think this one through did i - alarm bad enough going off to wake me up for work let alone for the weather!

Right so a heater with a thermostat is an option, thermostat in water, and poss an immersion heater (can this be djust dropped in from the tank lid or does it have to be fitted?)

Tim - sounds good - shame i couldn't find it for the iPhone though.

[rosskesava]

It's fine to have something to heat up the water although that can work out expensive but if the air in the van gets below freezing, then you're stuffed anyway as the pump and hose freezes.

If the tank is heated enough, then that can give off heat to stop anything else freezing but personally, I preferred to keep the air in the van above freezing point at 3C - 5C.