Furnace vs wall mount?

[10,000 Casts]

I have a 6.5x14. I'm deciding between an 18,000 btu direct vent and an 18,000 Forced air furnace.

What are some of the pros and cons of each?

Thanks

[JSK76]

Wall mount needs no power and is mostly silent.

Most of the heat goes up and doesn't heat the floor as well as a furnace without adding fans

Furnace has a blower helps heat floor and keep the floor dry.

Louder

Need battery or generator

[dougger222]

76 brings up good pros and cons for both type of furnaces.

My old wheeled house has a direct vent Empire, old camper a forced heat Suburban, and current wheeled house a forced heat unit.

To be honest like the direct vent the best. Of course the forced heat makes heat quicker but plan on getting a generator with the forced heat unit. Most guys I see with the big houses are running generators anyways so guess it don't really make much of a difference.

[Hawg]

Direct vents dry up the floor very nicely but they are very loud and require power to operate. I prefer a direct vent and a ceiling fan or a small fan near the ceiling. My direct vent has an electric fan and it can be a little noisy also but I connect it to a $5 rheostat to just barely keep the air moving and it works great. I would strongly recommend the direct vent.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

I am a fan of forced air. Everything stays nice and dry and you always have a warm floor. You do need to consider your battery and/or generator situation. With the 18,000 BTU models, you'll have a 2.8amp draw for Suburban, or 3.4amp for Atwood. If the furnace runs for 20 minutes every hour, you'll use 22.4amps (Suburban) every 24 hours. One deep cycle will last you the weekend, but I would recommend having a second battery to run lights, radio, etc, and also to function as a backup battery in case of an emergency.

You can definitely hear when the furnaces are running. I insulated my cabinet, and pretty much the only noise you can hear is the moving air (quieter than computer fans). I also used (2) 6 volt batteries to get 220amps, but I have a much higher amp draw furnace (around 7-8 amps). I can easily go 3 days running everything in my house off those two batteries.

This duct insulation cut the furnace noise nearly in half.

The wall mounts are nice since they are silent, and need no battery. You'll need to run a ceiling fan of some sort, since the heat tends to layer pretty badly. I chose not to use one since they would take up over a 4' section of wall (30k btu), and I already have a generator.