Alu-Cab is a South African company, and while their products obviously work really well across the world, in the Nordic climate a heating option must be added to retain comfort throughout the year. I’ve already got a custom built heater in box, and here is how I solved the camper heater intake issue.

The heater in a box project was one I did a while back.  It consists of a Vevor diesel heater, some pipes and wires build into a plastic case bought off Jula. It has been working flawlessly, and although I’ve seen som brilliant solutions on how to build the heater into the camper itself as a fixed installation, I have decided to keep it in the box – at least for now. That way I can leave it at home om warm days and travels during summer, while bringing it with me whenever needed. This solutions calls for a clever way of building a heater intake to get warm air into the camper.

My solution is build around a very cheap option. I bought a piece of sewage pipe with an inspection lid from a local dealer for around 70 kroner.

I removed the back panel on the left side of the camper, drilled a how in it and fixed the pipe to it using a few screws and some water resistand glue. With the lid on it kind of blends in with the camper.

This is how it looks from the inside of the camper. Note that this is from inside of the storage area beneath my galley. I split the warm air from the intake to two outlets.

From within the camper living area, I added these adjustable vents so that I can control the direction of the air.

Here you see the intake from the outside of the camper and the two outlets on the inside. By keeping the distance between the intake and the outlet short, I believe heating will become more efficient.

I already had the panel to control the heater installed in the camper at a convenient position.

Eventually I also added a quicker option to connect the electrical wires by simply using a electrical trailer connection plug fixed to the camper and a cable stored in the heater. This way it only takes me a few minutes to get the heater going after I get to camp.

The diesel heater in a box connected to the camper.