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HAVING BLOCK HEATER ON FOR HRS

4K views 26 replies 19 participants last post by  DneprDave 
#1 ·
Wondering if having the truck plugged in for more than 7hrs would damage anything like the heater unit it-self?
 
#4 ·
won't hurt anything but your wallet when your elec. bill come in. Put it on a heavy duty light timer. 2-3 hours before start up is all you'll need.
 
#6 ·
we keep our wreckers plugged in 24hrs a day when they arent on the road .. we dont usually have time ot sit and let them rattle for 10 mins before we drive out to a call ...

my personal truck is plugged in from 10 or 11pm to 8am every cold day in the winter too..
 
#9 ·
oh crap! I forgot I tore my end off...

but yeah we leave all our plow trucks, including mine pluged in basically 24 hours a day, like Chris said dont have much time to let them rattle.
 
#10 ·
how hot does our heater get? I plug mine in at night and its almost operating temperature it seems, when i wake up in AM. With heater and temp sensor bein on opposite sides of the block, and with it bein 1000 watts, id imagine it gets perty darn hot huh?

i heard somewhere that they can burn your oil off and that using a coolant heater is better?
 
#12 ·
Tip: If you expect some frost/ icy weather, set the HVAC control to defost position before shutting down your truck. Now when your truck is plugged in, some of the heat from the coolant will radiate itself to the windshield. It's not much heat but anything can help.

Billy T.
gnxtc2@aol.com
 
#25 ·
I believe they are all built with a heater. Some just do not come with the cord.
What Year:dunno:
On 6.0L heater is just above starter. Cords are usually tucked behind bumper
 
#14 ·
I have left mine pluged in for days wont hurt anything uless you arent using a heavy duty drop cord, then be prepared to be putting a fire out on the front of your truck when you wake up.I melted 1 cord before figuring that lesson out.
 
#15 ·
i plug my truck directly into a power strip and then plug that in to a heavy duty extension cord.

also another tip, use the shortest cord possible, dont use a 100' cord for 25' and leave the other 75' coiled up. that starts fires too. use a short fat cord!
 
#19 ·
The past two nights iv had the truck plugged in for approx. 10hrs with a 12gauge 25' cord...no fires? think it makes much difference?
 
#21 ·
I think that for a purely resistive load as a heater is, 12 guage or even 14 guage would be fine. If you used 16 guage outside in cool weather ...it would be fine also....except you would probably loose about 10 percent of the heating ability of the heater and IF a 14 gauge cord were to short at the far end however...it possibly would not allow enough current to trip the breaker (in the event of a short)...
especially if its a 20 amp breaker.
The end where its shorted would probably catch fire.
 
#20 ·
to those who use this, what does your coolant temp guage do when you first start the truck? does the t-stat open pretty quickly or are you still subject to long warmups? i guess in trying to figure out if mines working properly...
 
#22 ·
after 3 hours your temp guage should read just slightly above cold if longer than that i have seen mine almost in operating temp when i started it.you do not need to warm it up long after that just a couple of min.just remember your tranny,transfercase and front and rear axles do not have heaters so that stuff is still cold so take it easy for a couple of miles.
 
#23 ·
thanks, ill mess with that all tonight. im hopeing to switch over to veg sooner...
 
#26 ·
I leave mine plugged in from when I park it at my house till I leave my house for the first time the next day. This maybe 8 hours could be 12 hours heck it can even be a day or two. Hasn't hurt nothing yet.
 
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