Since we will be living in the bus year round and traveling to different climates, a sophisticated heating system is a good requirement.
We chose a combination of a small storage furnace (cast iron) with fresh air supply and underfloor heating with 2 heating circuits.
A floor heater would have been the easier option, of course, but we want a heater that we can run on renewable resources, in this case wood, rather than gas or gasoline/diesel. With the underfloor heating, we had a clear extra expense during installation. We had to mill joints in the floor insulation, lay the pipes as tightly as possible in the joints, install a heating circuit distributor, attach a 60 liter boiler as heat storage, and and and…. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
This meant that we not only had more work, but also a significant increase in weight. That’s just how everyone has their priorities.
Besides the sustainability factor, this heating system has the further advantage that it can also heat our shower/domestic water. Through the copper spiral, which winds around the stove pipe, the water flows out of the boiler and is thus heated. Because the boiler is placed higher than the stove, the water flows without a pump. Only by natural convection, the heated water, due to its lower density in the boiler rises upwards, while at the same time the colder water from the boiler sinks down another pipe to the stove pipe.
The heated water is transported from the boiler through the pipes of the underfloor heating system by means of a pump and thus distributes the heat throughout the entire bus via the floor. After passing through the floor, the cooled water returns to the boiler and, due to its greater density, flows directly to the stove pipe to be heated.
There is also the possibility to heat our shower / domestic water. For this purpose, the warm water from the boiler is pumped through the heat exchanger into our electric boiler and heats the 20l of water there.
Our conclusion is: The effort to install a wood stove and underfloor heating in a bus is of course enormous, but for our needs this heating system is ideal. And honestly, what could be nicer than sitting by the stove in the evening and looking into the crackling fire?