Advice on using the Block Heater on a Gr Caravan 2003 , 3.3 engine

A Block Heater, typically used in cars that experience Arctic-like temperatures in Canada, is a simple heating device and relatively inexpensive compared to other solutions. It is installed in a car's engine frost plug. A lot of vehicles, now, come with them factory installed, though living on British Columbia's west coast one wouldn't need one. Their winters are quite mild.

The block heater warms its surrounding area of the engine block. It is meant to keep the cylinders warm enough to make it easier for combustion to take place. That is dependant on the outside temperature and the condition the car is in. The car when running would naturally take time to heat up to get warm air blowing for defrosting windows. As the temperature drops down to temperatures like ?40C, that's ?40F for those that still use that scale, it would take longer to get the engine to reach the car's ignition temperature.

Whenever the heater is plugged into a 120vac outlet, it's operating. The cost to power a block heater for 6 hours here in Edmonton, Alberta, according to information on Epcor's web site, is $7.02. According to a comparison chart on Hydro Quebec web site, electricity is not as expensive as Edmonton. For years I used a timer for my outside 120vac receptacle. I had it come several hours before I needed to start my car.

I also used a battery blanket. When the temperature is colder a car's battery looses strength. The battery blanket has served me well as the age of the battery increased.

Canadian Tire is where one can get all these products and more.

You must have really expensive electricity! If it costs $7.02 to run the heater for 6 hours, that would be $210/month if you ran it 6 hours each night. That is almost twice what my electric bill for my house runs. Are you sure that isn't the cost/month to run the heater 6 hours a night?

I haven't seen one of the factory installed block heaters. Does it replace just one of the freeze plugs or several? Seems like if just one, the uniformity of heating would be a problem. Maybe there is enough convection current in the coolant to distribute the heat throughout the block. The airplane heaters I'm familiar with either attached to the oil pan to heat the oil or had rings that attached to each cylinder (these are air cooled engines with individual cylinders, not a monoblock).

Seems like keeping the oil warm would be more important than keeping the coolant warm, but either has to be better than neither.

Matt

I checked the epcor site and found quite different information. This link estimates the cost per month to be only $14 for 10 hours per day of block heater usage, and that is for a 650 watt heater. I found a reference on the Chrysler site to their heater and it says it is 400 watts, so its cost should be around $9/month if used 10 hours a day.

Matt

Epcor uses a simple web calculator for estimating normal monthly use of each appliance or fixture. So yes operating a block heater for a

6-hour period per day per month comes out to $7.02 based on their calculator. So the crutch of the matter is the longer the block heater is operating the more one pays. The amount would be based on your local electrical rates. I would assume Epcor calculations come from one block heater working. Using more than one block heater allows for more heating, again dependant where it?s placed in the engine block.

If the electrical costs become more than one can tolerate, then I agree with you, follow Epcor?s recommendations as found on their information web page - Block Heater Savings. I?ve been doing most for decades.

I also agree with you that ?you must have really expensive electricity!?. What we paid for in two and half months for electricity just a few years ago we now pay in a month. But that?s a different story than the operation of a block heater.

Which makes sense. Place of manufacture doesn't determine the equipment, the market that it will be sold does. Same as our old Neon was made in Mexico and had a factory block heater.

No need to guess about the cost of operation. If you know the number watts the heater uses (for example 400 Watts), divide that by 1000 to convert Watts (W) to kiloWatts (kW). (400 W = 0.4 kW) Next multiply this figure times the number of hours the heater is operated and you have kWhr. Take a look at your electric bill to find out your price per kWhr. (You might have to add several different numbers for transsmission, distribution, generation, state energy programs etc. if these numbers are broken down individiually on the bill to get the total rate.) Then multiply the rate times your kW/hr value you got above, and you have the cost of the electricity the block heater users. (When measuring the block heater Watts, be sure to include the battery heater, if so equipped. The Chrysler "cold weather group" includes battery heaters.

If they are thermostatically controlled then they won't be on for the full 6 hrs (or whatever) so the number may be an overestimate

My point about the expensive electricity is that your first post didn't say that the cost was a monthly rate. It said that running an engine block heater for 6 hours cost $7. That would be a ridiculous price for electricity.

Matt

On the topic of Chrysler block heaters, has anyone here installed one? The more I think about it, the more I think it would be nice to have one for my outside car, now that I can't fit them all in the garage. I did a search for installation instructions, but found nothing for Chrysler. I did find instructions for Subaru heaters, and they use a screw in "freeze" plug so removing it and replacing it with the heater is a piece of cake. I think most American cars still use pressed in freeze/core plugs and I've never removed one of them or tried to press a heater back into place. Is this a very big deal? Do you need a special driver to drive the heater into the hole vacated by the plug? I assume some sort of sealant is required as well.

Matt

True enough, although in my experience, the Chrysler factory models stay on continuously. There is a device on the market that will measure electricity use (W and Whr) up to 15 amps for about $50 bucks