@RobertGift if nothing else, you’re keeping us entertained!
“Yes, 300-Watts is not very much, but in still air and covered hood and grill, may slowly heat enough”.
If you built a styrofoam box around your Expedition and put the 300 watt bulbs under the hood, you just might keep the car warmer. Years ago, when my brother and I were both underage, we had a source for beer. I bought a cheap styrofoam cooler for $1 at a discount store. We put the beer and some ice in the cooler and stored it in the summertime in the rafters of the garage. The cooler would keep the beer cold for a week, so I guess the styrofoam box around your car should allow it to keep warm with 300 watts. However, I think keeping beer cool in the summertime is a better investment of effort than keeping the car warm in the winter.
The shell of a 150W floodlamp might get hot enough to ignite oil that drips on it, especially if it has some fuel contamination.
Most garages have paint cans, lawn mowers, and other flammables, not to mention residue and fumes from the car and oil on the underside of the car.Understood. Electric lawnmower. No paints or flammables, no oil spots or fumes except those which escape the vehicles, -which I have never smelled.
"If you built a styrofoam box around your Expedition and put the 300 watt bulbs under the hood, you just might keep the car warmer"I'd rather think outside the box. Now I'll have to try my stupid idea justo see how well it works!
Yeah I agree with Volvo and others. This is just plain getting silly. Flood lights are a stupid idea period. You can sit in front of a flood light all night long and isn’t going to heat much. This whole arrangement makes no sense at all to any kind of an organized critical care system. Who is going to let a volunteer drive blood supplies for a critical incident over hill and dale, through sleet and snow, when other emergency services can’t make it? Answer, no one.
Here’s how it works. You have DOT folks that plow and close and open roads. They’re either open or not. You have highway patrol that are part of the emergency system and respond to emergencies. You have local police and you have county sheriffs also who respond to emergency calls. But hospitals rely on helicopters and EMS services that have ambulances with trained drivers. Ambulances go in any weather condition and if they can’t, they contact the Sheriff, or patrol for assistance who contacts the DOT if they need a plow to clear the road for an emergency. In really severe cases they use the National Guard who between the Sheriff have access to snowmobiles used by utilities and so on.
I spent a good many years in the medical field and dealing with emergency response and plans and this whole scenerio is just plain unbelievable.
In basic training we had a kid from somewhere out west who claimed he was a professional driver who was called on to drive through mountain passes and so on where others couldn’t make it. We badgered him enough so he finally confessed it was all total BS and may not have even had a license.
Its been fun though.
First obstacle: Law enforcement logistics and coordination problems.
State patrol troopers: too few, often too far away and/or working accident scenes. (They have assisted with transports when possible!) (They relay from one trooper to another to another.)
County sheriff deputies too far away or working accidents, no 4WD. Will not leave county.
Police will not go out of jurisdictions. (But they can if chasing.)
DOT is working on roads but many still closed.
I am in EMS. Ambulance will not travel out of jurisdiction unless transporting patient on ‘hospital divert’. Ambulance refuses to take a two-member crew and equipment out of service for blood taxi.
Heavy ambulances, even ours with autochains, get stuck in deep snow.
Hospital wants to fly patient to Level 1 trauma center but helicopters cannot fly in such weather conditions and cannot fly blood to the hospital.
So they call EMS volunteers. No logistics/coordination problems.
The volunteers know right where to go, best routes to take, right where to deliver.
The blood or components is efficiently transported in a “light weight” 4WD vehicle.
@Robert Gift, has a good idea. I would impove that idea by using a foil coated blanket- like the keep cold/hot grocery bags
Another alternative, is to run outside every 2 hours and run the engine until you get heat in the car.
The main problem with using something to heat that wasn’t intended to heat (flood lights), is that you’re leaving them unattended for long periods with no thermostatic controls or safeguards. A local flower shop burned down a decade or so ago from the unwise choice of using flood lamps near a display that contained straw. I’m sure they thought the lamps were far enough away or didn’t get that hot too.
Why don’t you just get a proper block heater? They aren’t that expensive and will do the job properly and safely. Maybe a remote car starter would be helpful too–you can hit the remote start right after you get the call, then by the time you’re out the door the vehicle will have a little heat. Maybe not a great idea if it’s parked in an enclosed garage. But then if it’s in a garage, why not just safely heat your garage slightly? (not with flood lamps)
"I would impove that idea by using a foil coated blanket- like the keep cold/hot grocery bags Another alternative, is to run outside every 2 hours and run the engine until you get heat in the car.But that ain't GREEN!
A few days ago some guy had his beloved orange Broncos vehicle outside running to warm it.
It wastolen.
Likeveryonelse who had a puffing vehicle stolen, the polluter claimed, “I just went back inside one minute to get something.”
He also deserves a ticket for violating Denver’s “puffer” law, which makes such practice illegal because vehicles get stolen!
Now if I had a hose attached to thexhaust pipe drawing exhaust outside, and a remote starter like that which wimps waste good money to buy and install, I could start thengine when a call comes in.
In the middle of the night I usually must use the bathroom before departing. The engine could be warming a little in that time.
You drive a full-sized V8 SUV, occasionally at triple digit speeds, on overinflated tires no less.
You are contemplating using lights to heat the oil pan, which is about the most inefficent method possible.
And you’re worried about being “green”. That’s hiliarous.
I fail to see the problem. You should be able to drive the car immediately after you start it.
If it worries you, invest in a remote starter. You have to get out, you press the button and while you make it to your garage and open the door, the car is warm.
" foil coated blanket "
Some very independent experimenters have fashioned these into hats.
CSA
I vote with the ‘‘start it and GO’’ panel.
Too many of the other operating systems will never warm up UNTILL you begin driving,
Wheel bearings
Axle lube
transmission fluid
power steering
suspension
tires
Just start it and go.
You ARE saving time by just immediately getting underway. When the weather’s THAT bad you are not going speeding down the icy/snowy road anyway. Your time shaving is the fact that you have clear passage with the emergency lights and siren AND that you are moving ASAP…NOT the overall speed you’re driving in those conditions, but just the fact hat you are able to get a move on , post haste, without delay.
I have a remote starter on my 08 Expedition.
The thing still groans as I leave the driveway ( kinda like ME in the morning ) in zero and below temps. Sounds like cold wheel bearings.The sound goes away very soon and no amount of running the engine is going to change that.
"Too many of the other operating systems will never warm up UNTILL you begin driving, Wheel bearings, Axle lube, transmission fluid, power steering, suspension, tires"Yes, this is why I would cover the hood and grill with a sheet to warm other things by dissipated heat. One flood lamp would radiate up onto the transmission. (Interesting that oblivion had mentioned a remote starter just before I posted.)
No, I do not speed if ice or snow or around other traffic.
But the engine does get very cold.
I start and immediately place in Drive and let idle move the SUV out of the garage and down the street.
While calling law enforcement agencies I am finishing getting dressed as the vehicle travels to our stop sign before getting to a 65 mph highway.
THAT, if anything will help to expand your pre-heat to more than just the engine…
A flood lamp is a common pre-heater for our Cessna airplane crowd too when cold thick oil creates starting problems.
Warmer that freezing but not ‘hot’.
Much less energy consumption than a 1500+w space heater.
When I lived in North Dakota we used block heaters (as Bing suggested) or lower radiator hose heaters. Both work well (I had a hose heater), and both encourage circulation of the warmed coolant through the engine via convection.
Get 9 cats to sleep on the engine.
Why are we “trolling” around with Robert when the obvious solution, mentioned many times is cheap and as effective as you can get…a block or radiator hose heater. This could go on forever when we know Robert just starts pulling people’s chains after the first few posts. @robert. Admit it !
Yeah, I thought he was in Juno or something but Denver? It doesn’t even get that cold there.