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Old 01-06-2016, 11:12 PM   #90 (permalink)
pletby
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Posts: 296

My Civic - '00 Honda Civic DX
Team Honda
90 day: 46 mpg (US)
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Ok, so the circulating tank heater is working awesome. The car is ready to roll on the coldest of days with warm air through the vents right away. I'm happy about that, but I've run into a stumbling block. The problem is total current draw from the car is now higher than the circuit can handle. Egads!

My solution was to unplug the interior warmer. Problem solved!

No.

Not so fast. My Wife drives the car to work now while I'm on the mend. She liked it nice and toasty when she got into the car. If there was any ice to scrape it was soft and easy to remove. Now it's cold in the cabin, and the ice is almost as hard as rock on a cold day. I've seen her scraping for ten minutes on a few frigid days.

Not cool Robert Frost!

So I've gone and unplugged the 1000W circulating tank heater for now. Plugged stock block heater back in (wimpy little thing) and plugged the interior warmer back into the on board timer.

To sum up off the top of my head I have a block heater on a timer at the front of the car, interior warmer on a timer in the trunk, a 7amp genius battery charger on all the time and a 80 watt battery blanket on all the time. I THINK it's 80 watts. Interior warmer on for 1/2 hr before morning start time, block heater on for 2 hrs before start.

If I could run 240V out to the garage and split it into two 120V lines I could run all the appliances in the car, with room for a toaster too! Ha ha. Not sure how I would go about it though. I've worked on a hog barn's electrical system and have a healthy respect for incompetently installed 240V wiring. Must read up.
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