I heated my 25'
motor home last winter and am absolutely sold on this stove - liked mine so much I started selling them. I was not even chilly on the coldest windiest days and my
motor home is drafty - lots of places heat can escape but I kind of like it that way. Just an extra precaution against monoxide dangers in small sealed spaces (recommend buying a
detector).
The stove was not made to be installed in campers. I decided to try it in my
motor home for the heck of it and with many precautions taken, was more than satisfied with the result. Still, I cannot recommend using it in your camp trailer - if something went wrong and you were hurt I would be horrified. I am only telling my story of how I did it. Again, I am not recommending you try this. I did it with several precautions. But, cannot recommend you do it.
Notice the flue goes straight up through a removed ceiling vent and attached securely to metal crosspiece in the vent frame which is all metal. I did not want the pipe to come any closer to the
combustible surfaces than necessary and, as you can see in the pictures below, I used fiberglass packing around the pipe through the modified vent area. I also took an old steel table with a 1 inch lip around it, cut a 2 1/2' hole in it, laid it on the roof and ran the pipe through it to keep the weather from coming in... surprisingly only a few times did any rain sneak in.
Notice the stove position is fairly close to the couch on one corner. After testing the stove and stoking it up to a moderately hot temperature, I decided that a heat shield should be put in place to keep the couch, or blankets on the couch when I had company, from becoming too hot. I found an old metal folding chair worked perfectly to deflect the heat more than adequately. My company was more than comfortable with the heat shield in place.
Note: In place of using an old steel table top (which not everyone has at their disposal) I believe a scrapped refrigerator's doors would do the job for the floor pan and roof pan.
Notice on the floor I took another old metal table with a 1 inch lip and laid it upside down and placed the stove on it. This worked well and kept any hot embers from finding their way into the carpet. Notice a nearby fire extinguisher and a 5 gallon jug of water next to stove and several 1 gallon jugs nearby just in case something went wrong. I also kept heavy leather gloves nearby and a large steel bucket for hot coals or embers to be disposed of.
NOTICE: This is not a recommendation or an instruction on how you can install a stove in your camper. I am only describing what I did and why.I suppose if you were going to go through wall you could fabricate your own double wall pipe with a length of larger diameter pipe, fiberglass, and a friend with a welder. I liked the straight up approach better. Made cleaning the flue much easier for me. Just had to climb on roof and ram a long straight branch in and out a few times - I was burning a lot of unseasoned wood and unclean stuff so my pipes needed to be rammed about once a month.
Final Note: The first couple of weeks I spent a lot of time looking for potential problems and
tweaking my installation and stove operating methods. This stove is a real performer! Fires up easy and warms up very fast! With a little bit of experimenting a 7 to 8 hour burn is possible. It is not an air-tight stove but drafts great with little or no smokiness unless the flue is clogging up.
Stay warm and please be safe about it!
