30.5 BHLT Heat Concerns

[thefixer]

Hello everyone, new member, great forum.

Hopefully in the next few days my wife and I will be selling the current camper in my signature. We are looking for a fifth wheel with bunks to replace it and are considering the BHLT.

A quick search on this forum shows some owners stating that the 2011-2012 models did not have enough heat vents in the main living area and will not keep the room warm in cold weather. This was very disappointing as we were looking at these years and we enjoy camping most late into the season. We are specifically looking at these years because they match the color of our tow vehicle best, they are in our price range, and I don't want to have worry about the colored caps fading on 2013 and later models.

Do any other owners of these models have an opinion on how their heat works? I know that we can use electric heaters but we sometimes stay in parks where there is no electricity and we need the heat to work well. Also if any model eagle owners have an opinion on generally how warm their campers are in the winter time I would appreciate hearing your opinion.

Thanks in advance!

[nylyon]

We end our camping season in the October time frame (maybe 30's at night but 40's to 50's during the day). Occasionally, we need to start the furnace and while it is 100% true the lack of ducts, we're quite warm inside.

A couple years ago, we had a power failure for 2 days in the dead of winter. I decided to go camping and turn on the furnace. It did ok, but I wouldn't want to go camping in the dead of winter in the BHLT. After just 8 hours or so of the furnace running, the battery was low enough to not push the air too hard and it was uncomfortable.

[thefixer]

Thanks for the reply...I assume you just have the stock battery setup? If you had to guess what type of on time do you think your furnace has when it's below freezing? For instance our current camper when below 32 outside I would say the furnace runs maybe 40 percent of the day.

I don't mind low battery performance. In my current camper I changed the stock battery for two large capacity deep cycle batteries. If the batteries perform poorly because of not enough insulation that is a different story.

[nylyon]

We don't use it enough for me to guess the percentage. Yes, we have a single 12v deep cycle battery, most of our camping is full hookup. When we are out when it's colder out, the furnace takes care of the temperature without issue, but again it's never really that cold out.