cullen wrote:okay i asked be cause i keep seeing people pulling the second heater in back. and then i got to thinking about keeping cool on the playa if i wanted to sleep in tll 2 one day.
Good points.
I'm guessing you are referring to other bus owners on the skoolie.net forum, and I cannot answer for them. Some of them install wood stoves, so there is obviously a wide spectrum of needs and preferences out there.
As for myself, I removed the rear heater as a convenient way to proceed, because these heaters hang under a seat, and the seats in the back were "getting off the bus". And of course, in my particular case, I was turning the rear half of Millicent into a cargo area. Also, a small heater mounted on the floor next to the driver's seat was removed to make room for the new swiveling seat. That left only the heater in the dashboard.
This proved to be inadequate while traveling up and down the West Coast in October. My friends have given strict orders to re-install the heater from the rear into the current passenger area. Luckily, I still have it. So let that be a lesson to me!
As for A/C in BRC during the day, some people do indeed swear by it in order to get decent sleep. I suppose this can be likened to my sleeping in an 18-wheeler - there were times when I made the decision that I was going to have the A/C on to sleep, no matter how much I prided myself on minimizing idling time.
Other than that, I cannot address the phenomenon of daytime sleeping. Lots of burners do it, for the obvious reason. My own sleep pattern tends to follow the sun -- and I really enjoy mornings in BRC.
I think it was mentioned before that a good way to arrange daytime sleep in a bus would be to build a relatively small bedroom and equip that with a small A/C. I'm pretty sure that's what I would do. You can get a small "window" A/C at Sears or some such store for as little as 100 bucks. I'd have to find the numbers, but I know an EU3000 can power that. One friend of mine uses such a window A/C in a tiny compact-pickup camper-shell -- I think he REALLY likes it cool when he sleeps!
But as mentioned before, I have never found my bus too horribly hot during the day in BRC. And to me, passive features are the way to go -- shade, reflective paint, air circulation....
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