Heat

An early decision we made was to toss out the old furnace that had been occupying a large part of the kitchen cabinet space. This gave us much more storage, but also eliminated an expense, at least temporarily. While we are in Florida there's no need for a furnace.

But in April Vintage Thunder will be on the road, coming up the east coast to attend some rallies and eventually ending up in Plattsburgh NY for its paint job. Along the way we will encounter nights in the 30s and 40s.

So I bought a catalytic heater yesterday from DuckTec (www.ducktec.com), an Olympian 6000. This will mount to the exterior wall just between the kitchen cabinets and the dinette, and aim toward the door. With a catalytic heater, the orientation is important because a lot of the heat is radiant. Whatever it points at will get warm.

Without ducted heat, as the furnace had, the rear of the trailer will be chillier than the front on very cold nights. If it's really unacceptable, I'll figure a way to mount a second catalytic in the bedroom. But generally I've found that the air circulates pretty well inside an Airstream, so most of the time I expect this to work fine. We'll mount in during the big work session, which has been postponed to March 26-27.

The picture below is from the Florida State Rally, showing the crew: Eleanor (hiding behind her hair), me, Brett G, Emma, and Carol B (Photo Editor).