It's gotten a little colder now, about 6 degrees F.
The wind is a booger. Flags are stiff, probably 20 or 30 MPH sustained. Don't know that the wind chill is, but it's not pleasant (if I were to get out in it, that is).
When it gets really cold like this, single digits down to about -10 below zero, the Espar will go through as much as .09 to .10 gallons per hour, or about 1 gallon every 10 to 11 hours. Most of the winter when it's above 20 up to 40 degrees, it goes through 1 gallon every 15-18 hours.
Two things at work here. One is, the van is very well insulated, so it's gonna be easy to heat up and keep heated, which requires minimal fuel. The other thing is (and it's in direct opposition to the first one), I'm nekkid and I like it warm in here and I generally sleep on top of the covers rather than under them, so that's gonna require more fuel than someone who likes to lounge in the van while wearing pants and a sweater, maybe shoes.
When you idle to keep warm, and if you keep the idling to just 8 hours a day, at $3.50 a gallon and burning fuel at 1 gallon an hour, it'll cost $28 a day to keep warm, $840 a month. Team drivers will idle less than that, solo drivers considerably more, usually, over the course of a week on the average.
I average about $6 a day in fuel costs with the Espar, or about $180 a month.
That's a difference of $660 a month. An Espar heater will cost between $1500 and $2000 depending on the model you get. It's a beautiful thing to see something that costs two grand pay for itself in 2-4 months, and then continue to pay you to the tune of $600 a month all winter long, every winter.
