wow this is such a great thread about the bigfoot. I’ve been going back and forth between northernlite vs bigfoot. Initially I didn’t like the idea of the bigfoot having access panels on the bottom. But now am thinking it’s not a bad idea, especially since I would be doing heavy modifications. I’d most likely gut the furnace in place for either an alde hydronic heating unit or a truma combi. Btw do any of you big footers have pictures with the underbody access panels removed? water capacity is a concern for us since we have our 2 daughters with us.
Bigfoot winter cold mods ....update diesel heater installation
- Thread starter mijab_au
- Start date
Hi All,
Taking a lay day in JH and thought I would update this thread a bit since there are a lot more truck campers cruising in the winter these days. Late 2019 we traveled to Iceland and rented a VW van with a Webasto heater and while we did not enjoys the van too much the heater did impress. So last year with COVID time on our hands my wife and I were talking about the stock propane heater in our Bigfoot and all its downsides, loud, heavy electrical draw, thirst for propane, temperature swings, etc. got me thinking. I did a walk around tour of the Bigfoot thinking where could I put one of the little 5kw Webasto style heaters without to much cutting etc. If you remember in my very first post I had removed the exterior shower and plugged the hole behind the shower door with a 2" thick foam plug. Behind the shower door and adjacent to the power cord door was the large hollow space under the sink/seat in the bathroom. This seemed to be the perfect spot so after removing the power cord and making removable so it could be stored either in the basement or the truck cab there was more than adequate space. To try this whole thing out I opted for one of the 5kw knockoffs on Amazon which included a tank, thinking I would swap in a Webasto if it all worked out. I will let the pictures do most of the talking here but as a brief overview I mounted the tank to the ladder with some brackets I made along with a repurposed cutting board as a mounting plate. Mounted the heating unit behind the exterior shower door by drilling a couple of overlapping 2 1/2 or 3" holes in the shelf area. T'd into one of the existing heater ducts (this was the only mod to the existing heating system which is still fully functional). The fuel pump went into the dump valve cubby (it has a ticking which I need to deal with by re-mounting it with a softer mount). The performance has been nothing short of fantastic, letting it run 24/7 at the lowest setting is using about 1/3 gal. 24 hrs. or about 4 days on the little 1 1/2 gal tank. If we would keep this camper I would tie it into the truck diesel fuel tank. We have been keeping comfortable by opening the roof vents etc. a side benefit is that the once ice cold bathroom is now toasty warm for the ski boots to dry nicely on the shelf and we can keep the roof vent cracked, additionally the grey and black water tanks are no longer at risk of freezing. There is no heater vent into the bathroom but the heating unit underneath the shelf does a great job of keeping warm. We have always wet camped in the winter with 0 problems so far but we are heading to Big Sky tomorrow where it was -21F this morning so we will see. I apologize for the bad pictures, I'm not very good at taking them.
This is an amatuer instalation and was not engineered so please do not take these as recommendations this is just a user report, please do your own research and make your own decisions.
Taking a lay day in JH and thought I would update this thread a bit since there are a lot more truck campers cruising in the winter these days. Late 2019 we traveled to Iceland and rented a VW van with a Webasto heater and while we did not enjoys the van too much the heater did impress. So last year with COVID time on our hands my wife and I were talking about the stock propane heater in our Bigfoot and all its downsides, loud, heavy electrical draw, thirst for propane, temperature swings, etc. got me thinking. I did a walk around tour of the Bigfoot thinking where could I put one of the little 5kw Webasto style heaters without to much cutting etc. If you remember in my very first post I had removed the exterior shower and plugged the hole behind the shower door with a 2" thick foam plug. Behind the shower door and adjacent to the power cord door was the large hollow space under the sink/seat in the bathroom. This seemed to be the perfect spot so after removing the power cord and making removable so it could be stored either in the basement or the truck cab there was more than adequate space. To try this whole thing out I opted for one of the 5kw knockoffs on Amazon which included a tank, thinking I would swap in a Webasto if it all worked out. I will let the pictures do most of the talking here but as a brief overview I mounted the tank to the ladder with some brackets I made along with a repurposed cutting board as a mounting plate. Mounted the heating unit behind the exterior shower door by drilling a couple of overlapping 2 1/2 or 3" holes in the shelf area. T'd into one of the existing heater ducts (this was the only mod to the existing heating system which is still fully functional). The fuel pump went into the dump valve cubby (it has a ticking which I need to deal with by re-mounting it with a softer mount). The performance has been nothing short of fantastic, letting it run 24/7 at the lowest setting is using about 1/3 gal. 24 hrs. or about 4 days on the little 1 1/2 gal tank. If we would keep this camper I would tie it into the truck diesel fuel tank. We have been keeping comfortable by opening the roof vents etc. a side benefit is that the once ice cold bathroom is now toasty warm for the ski boots to dry nicely on the shelf and we can keep the roof vent cracked, additionally the grey and black water tanks are no longer at risk of freezing. There is no heater vent into the bathroom but the heating unit underneath the shelf does a great job of keeping warm. We have always wet camped in the winter with 0 problems so far but we are heading to Big Sky tomorrow where it was -21F this morning so we will see. I apologize for the bad pictures, I'm not very good at taking them.
This is an amatuer instalation and was not engineered so please do not take these as recommendations this is just a user report, please do your own research and make your own decisions.
