How Does the WEBASTO Heating System Work?

When it comes to proper heating, we go above and beyond what you’ll find at other camper rentals. We only use the world-leading Webasto heating systems for our campers, but there is more to it than that.

How the WEBASTO heating system works:

We place a small motor/fuel pump underneath the camper. That motor is connected to the main fuel tank and the secondary batteries we put in the rear cabin. The motor is turned on using a switch we place inside the cabin. The switch has multiple power settings so that you can adjust the airflow coming from the blower itself. The heater/blower itself is located inside the cabin and is powered by the motor underneath the camper and the batteries inside the cabin. The blower is usually located underneath the bed or under the front seats in the camper.

Heating system limiting factors:

We want you to be able to keep the heating system on, whenever you want, and for a reasonable amount of time. Other rentals will tell you to turn the heating system off for the night, but we don’t like that option, mainly since we focus on making our campers winter-friendly. The reason other rentals will recommend turning the heating system off before turning it in (and waking up freezing) is that they can’t provide enough battery power to the system. Many have only one battery, and often they will not use the larger, more powerful batteries required (AGM). Others will try and compensate, using solar cells on the roof to recharge the battery. That doesn’t work well, we’ve tried it multiple times. It charges way too slow. So, we increased the size of all batteries and placed two of them in the rear. This costs more, but it works like a charm. A proper 8-10 hours of full heating functionality is the minimum, in our opinion, when it comes to camper travel in Iceland. 

Other factors:

• Insulation. We’ve also found that by insulating the van using wool and the with a carpet layer on all surfaces in the cabin, not leaving out metal bars here and there, we’ve been able to preserve the heat to a much greater extent, allowing you to turn down the power of the blower/heater which does produce noise comparable to the level/power you set it at. Less noise is always good.
• Duvets. They should be thick, and you should be able to have plenty of them. Our duvets are thicker than what goes around, and you can add free extra duvets to your booking in step two of the booking process.
• Heater. 2000W heaters are the standard we see around us. But a big van, such as the Easy Big, even though it can be heated up with such a system, does require more if you want it to heat up in a reasonable time. So, we’ve upgraded the larger cabins to 5000W heaters to make things even more comfortable.
• Alternator. Finally, you need to order the vans with a more powerful alternator. The alternator is what turns kinetic energy into electricity, charging your batteries. Once you add the two extra batteries, you need to have an alternator that can both handle the increased draw but also charges them quickly enough for a full charge before you stop your driving for the day.