The Complete Guide To Caravan Heating

Heating stops being an afterthought the moment your lap hits cold country. A summer run up the coast lulls you into thinking a doona is enough, then you roll into the high country, the southern winter, or a desert night that drops below zero after a 35 degree day, and suddenly the right heater is the difference between sleeping well and not sleeping at all.

This is the “start here” hub for the heating half of the picture. It covers every way to warm a caravan, how each option actually works, and which one suits how you travel. It sits under the main Heating & Cooling pillar, so if you also need to beat the heat, start there and come back here for the cold.

Diesel Heating

For full-time free campers, diesel is the default, and for good reason. A diesel air heater burns a tiny amount of fuel in a sealed chamber and blows warm, bone-dry air into the van while venting every bit of exhaust outside. Nothing from the burn touches your living space, so it is safe to run overnight, and because it adds no moisture, it fights condensation instead of causing it. It sips 12V power, runs off your existing diesel supply or a small dedicated tank, and a cheap unit will happily warm a van for a couple of cents an hour.

The trade-offs are the fan hum and the fuel-pump tick, both of which you learn to live with and can quieten. Living with one well is mostly about good habits: give it a hot run on high every few weeks to burn off carbon, understand the startup sequence, and keep the intake and exhaust clear. Whether you are buying your first unit, working out how yours runs, fitting one yourself, or chasing down a fault, the guides below cover the lot.

Gas Heating

Gas is the quiet achiever on powered and semi-powered sites. A fixed flued gas heater burns LPG in a sealed chamber and vents its exhaust outside, so like diesel it is safe to run overnight, warms fast, and draws very little 12V power. Truma is effectively the only certified fixed brand in Australia and it must be installed by a licensed gas fitter, so for most people gas heating is a “keep the factory unit or spec it into the build” decision rather than a retrofit. If your van came with one, it is worth understanding how to run it properly, because they are genuinely good heaters.

The critical thing every owner must understand is the difference between flued and unflued. A fixed flued heater sends its combustion gases outside and is safe indoors. An unflued portable radiant or catalytic heater does not, and that changes everything.

Electric and 12V Heating

Electric heating splits cleanly along the powered versus off-grid line. On a powered site a 240V panel or fan heater is the simplest, safest option going: no combustion, no carbon monoxide, no fuel to carry, just plug it in. The catch is that it draws hard, so it will flatten a battery bank in an hour or two and is realistically a caravan-park appliance, not a free-camping one.

Off grid, the smart move is to stop heating the whole van and start heating the person. A 12V electric blanket pulling around 50 watts does more for comfort per watt than any air heater and runs off the house battery all night without troubling it. Add a heated camp chair for around the fire and 12V heated socks or a vest for the cold mornings, and you stay warm on a fraction of the power. Run these direct off 12V rather than through an inverter, or you throw away the efficiency that makes them worth having.

Hydronic and Central Heating

This is the premium end, and it is worth understanding even if you never buy it, because more high-end and European-style vans arrive with it every year. Hydronic heating, the best-known being Alde, heats a water-and-glycol mix in a central boiler and circulates it through radiator panels or convectors around the van, often warming the floor and the hot water at the same time. Diesel hydronic systems do the same off the diesel tank. The result is gentle, even, silent warmth with no fan noise and no hot or cold spots, and because the boiler can run on gas, 240V, diesel, or a combination, it flexes to wherever you are camped.

The downside is cost and complexity: hydronic is a factory or professional-build decision rather than a retrofit, because of the plumbing involved. If you are speccing a high-end van or weighing up one that already has it, understanding how the system works and what it costs to run is the difference between paying for something you will love and paying for something you will never fully use.

Making the Decision

With four broad options on the table, the useful question is not which is best but which is best for you. It comes down to how you travel. If you free camp for weeks at a time, diesel almost always wins on running cost and off-grid independence. If you live on powered sites, gas or a simple electric heater may be all you need. If you are chasing near-silent, whole-van comfort and the budget allows, hydronic is in a class of its own. And for a lot of big lappers, the honest answer is a combination: a diesel heater for the van and a stack of 12V gear to heat the person on the coldest nights.

The guides below put the head-to-head choices side by side so you can match a system to how you actually camp, rather than to how the brochure says you will.

Work through the sections above and you will know exactly which heating setup fits your lap, how to run it well, and how to stay warm on the coldest night the road can throw at you.