I recently Installed new propane lines and a Camco Olympic Wave Heater in the Avion C-10 truck camper. For this work I used 3/8” copper refrigeration tubing with flare connectors. With a little practice I found that making the flares using a hand-held flare tool was pretty easy. It’s an interesting process compared to running the PEX water lines, I tried to use as few connections as possible and used a very simple spring style tubing bender to keep the copper from collapsing when going around corners. It’s takes some tubing wrangling and pre-planning to get the propane line to go where you want, but it’s very satisfying when a segment is done. I used soapy water to test for leaks and found that only one connection needed to be tightened a bit more. I also included two gas shut-off valves one for the left side line and one for the right, these are both accessible from the outside of the camper just inside the fridge rear access door. Our Avion C-10 was built with a propane cabinet that is sized to hold one common 20lb propane tank, and I also installed a new dual-stage propane regulator which I mounted to the wall in the cabinet. I'm glad that it uses a standard tank because when we are on a longer road trips we could easily make use of Blue Rhino or other tank exchanges if needed instead of looking for a place to refill. After looking at a few different options for heaters we decided to use an Olympic Wave 3 propane heater. The Wave 3 is a small catalectic heater similar to the popular Mr. Buddy heaters but made for use in an RV, for us it seems like a good choice to extend the camping season into the fall which is our favorite time of the year to camp here in the northeastern US. Inspired by another Avion C-10 owner I mounted the Wave 3 to the inside of a cabinet door where it stores when not in use. The cabinet I’m using for this is the one that is mostly taken up by the hot water heater, the Wave 3 fits perfectly into the shallow space that is left over. To use the Wave we simply open the cabinet door and will secure it in the open position with a hook. When the door is open it is out-of-the-way being flat against the bathroom wall and the heater faces the dinette and sleeping area. We also made a cover for the heater to keep dust out of the elements when not in use during most of our camping season, from what I've read a cover can help then maintain their performance. Having the propane system and heater up and running has been great over the last couple of months as I’ve been able to use it to keep the Avion warm while continuing to work on the camper during the winter months.
