Suedehead:
Couple of beers down the local boozer,chip shop and on with the bedsocks
Had one of those portable heaters that ran on some kind of meths for a while,warm as [zb] but suprised i didnt die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Lucky manā¦have you ever seen the silent night wag and dragsā¦? sleeper pod on roof , a place i worked for we did beds and bedroom stuffā¦this guy from silent night used to come upto our place twice a week sometimes overnight outside the warehouse we alllways gave him a knockā¦this particular morning knocked no answer this went on for about an hour tried his door locked ā¦thought ah well he must have gone for his breakfastā¦2 hours later still no show rang his company they rang his cab phone didnt answerā¦rang the policeā¦they broke in his cab ā¦ poor soul was dead in his bed he had a small gas cooker which he left on perhaps to keep warm it killed him monoxide poiseningā¦no night heater bollox to them get it fixed or get b+b.
That lad had left it on by mistake, his nightheater was working.
I was a driverās mate in a ford cargo with a sleeper pod when i left school. The night heater was under my seat so i was roasting whilst the lad upstairs froze because he wouldnt leave the flap open incase he dropped through it!
Until one night up near Whitehaven, the bloody thing packed up and i didnt need curtains as you couldnt see through the ice on the glass. Bbbrrrrrrrrr.
just get a sleeping bag for bout Ā£20 on ebay mins rated at -10ā¦ only use nite heater when alarm 1st goes off but i still have flashbacks from when i used nite heater for 30mins and it flattened the batterys on a old motor
I had a few old motors at the start of my driving career, A & B series ERFās, Atkinson Borderer, and the odd Leyland or two, the frost usually did end up on the inside as well. I have often gone to bed ( blow up lilo across the engine cover and seats)fully dressed and in the thickest sleeping bag that could be bought at the time,Oh, and a couple of candles on the dashboard to keep the frost off the inside of the screen!
Three or four nights out a week in conditions like this were the normal routine, if digs could be found then I would use them sleeping in dorms above cafes like Bobs on the A45 with twenty blokes snoring away all night and the massed sound and smoke filtering in from outside from ranks of Gardners ticking over outside on cold mornings.
Fast forward a few years and night heaters became more common, but often fitted without a thought as to where the heat would go! My old boss had a gas heater installed in one of the B series I had. This after I nearly died of hypothermia on Sandbach South one winters night. It ran off a gas bottle parked in a mount on the back of the cab. The matrix was high up on the middle panel of the rear of the cab and would warm the roof up lovely I was often too scared to use it in case the bloody cab caught fire when asleep.
Then a Webasto night heater was fitted, but the outlet for the warm air was right down in the passenger footwell and most of the heat went straight out of the poorly fitting door seals so the cab was still freezing cold. It wasnt till I got given a Magirus Duetz that I had a decent night heater for the first time! Even the F88 I drove never had one, but I didnt really get very cold in that either way. As you say, happy days!
We were laying on top of a 6 cylinder night heater! Getting back into the cab after a few down the local could be a bit Uncle Willie so the key got turned, just to check everything was okay you understand Once in the bag and settled you soon warmed up and dropped off, alcohol helped slightly here, and an hour before getting up the engine was tested again and besides it was clearing the screen while you had the extra hour. Of course later on it was dodgy firing up the motor after a few bevvies as one or two blokes had been breathalized but I think by then Iād moved onto motors with a nightheater, it was a bummer when they went dicky though cos weād gone soft by then! Happy Nights!
Thinking about this, we have all become a little complacent about heat, I regularly see the temps drop in to the minus 30s in winter, yet a decent heater and extra seals (that I did myself) around the doors and I drive in a T Shirt and jeans, barefoot too. In the bunk I have a double quilt type thing (called a comforter here) which is quite thin, but with a heater itās more than enoughā¦until the heater stops working due to a breakdown, Iāve got my broken at the minute night heater, which works fine if the temperature is above zero (-12c here atm) and the big 15ltr night heater, but if that has a problem too, Iām [zb]ed. Now Iām aware of this, so I have back up supplies, an extra comforter, some fleece blankets, thermal undies, hat, extra socks etc, itās very important to be prepared for the worse, not just because of the risk of hypothermia, but even in less extreme conditions, laying awake all night freezing your ā ā ā ā off is not a pleasant experience and it doesnāt have to be below freezing for that to occur
Wheel Nut mentioned his Transcon with a night heater, well if ever a lorry needed a night heater it was the Transcon, I had one that didnāt have a night heater and was doing Italy at the time, it gets cold down there in the winter, so with all the draughts in the cab and the lack of heat coming through the vents at the best of times it wasnāt a warm and toasty environment, I used to wear big moon boots when driving so my feet never froze. I had a sleeping bag from an Army surplus shop, a quilt and have slept in long johns and a sweatshirt wearing a balaclava to stop my face from getting too cold, I hated that piece of junk with a passion
A headache is a common complaint from a night heater, simple cure for that, have a bowl of water in the cab somewhere near the outlet for the heater and it will add a bit of humidity and no more headaches, if you want to enhance that you can put some Karvol or Olbas Oil in the bowl, this is really good when you have a cold
Get yourself a good quality sleeping bag, and a 13 tog quilt from Tesco, since I had both covering me, Iāve been warm as toast, I also find drawing your curtains across middle of cab helps, seems to keep cold out moreā¦
newmercman:
A headache is a common complaint from a night heater, simple cure for that, have a bowl of water in the cab somewhere near the outlet for the heater and it will add a bit of humidity and no more headaches, if you want to enhance that you can put some Karvol or Olbas Oil in the bowl, this is really good when you have a cold
If youāre really smart you pop the kettle (assuming itās of the metal for use on a stove type) in front of it full of water. Then in the morning your first cuppa is ready with just a quick blast on the stove
Suedehead:
Couple of beers down the local boozer,chip shop and on with the bedsocks
Had one of those portable heaters that ran on some kind of meths for a while,warm as [zb] but suprised i didnt die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Lucky manā¦have you ever seen the silent night wag and dragsā¦? sleeper pod on roof , a place i worked for we did beds and bedroom stuffā¦this guy from silent night used to come upto our place twice a week sometimes overnight outside the warehouse we alllways gave him a knockā¦this particular morning knocked no answer this went on for about an hour tried his door locked ā¦thought ah well he must have gone for his breakfastā¦2 hours later still no show rang his company they rang his cab phone didnt answerā¦rang the policeā¦they broke in his cab ā¦ poor soul was dead in his bed he had a small gas cooker which he left on perhaps to keep warm it killed him monoxide poiseningā¦no night heater bollox to them get it fixed or get b+b.
A few years ago a couple of young lads went out to do some boy racing in there car in the snow
They got stuck in it that night and decided to leave the engine running all night to keep warm
the snow and blizards came and the snow piled up at the back of there car sending the exhust smoke into the back of the car
They where found one dead and the other one went into a comber and came round later with perminent brain damage
You could use your camper gas kit as a night storage heater type
but a large brick over the flame before you go to bed so the gas heats the brick up
then when you go to sleep switch the gas off and the brick will give heat out over the night
If youāre really smart you pop the kettle (assuming itās of the metal for use on a stove type) in front of it full of water. Then in the morning your first cuppa is ready with just a quick blast on the stove
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And if your really really smart and stuck for the night in the sticks ,put your water canister in the passenger seat footwell and in the morning you have got warm water for a wash
Iām sure thereās someone who posts on here who nearly come a cropper with carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas cooker in the truck. Think the cartridge leaked ended up in hospital if I remember right.
perkibre:
Get yourself a good quality sleeping bag, and a 13 tog quilt from Tesco, since I had both covering me, Iāve been warm as toast, I also find drawing your curtains across middle of cab helps, seems to keep cold out moreā¦
I always pull the bunk curtains helps keep heat in and more protection from chunks of light coming through gaps in curtains.
Night heaters and even sleeper cabs were a luxury used by a minority of drivers when I started. It was just the done thing to utilise a day cab, and suffer the cold because you knew nothing else, I think that Magirus Deutz was the first standard fitted night heater around 78. I used 2 sleeping bags inside each other, and later a ex Royal Marines outdoor hooded sleeping bag. As for a bunk it was either a board across the engine levelled up with cushions on the seats, or more ambitious efforts such as the passenger seat taken out and replaced with a hinged fold-bunk. A mate of mine had a hammock set up, another a stretcher type bed with a pole on either side attached to brackets on the cab pillars, the problem was negotiating getting in, as his nose was 6ins off the cab roof, and if he had a couple of pints getting up for a ā ā ā ā was a bit awkward also, his mate went with him one week and had to suffer sleeping across the seats trapped underneath him ,suffering the after effects of a couple of pints and a curry
I donāt think drivers today would do it, and rightly so I suppose, it makes me smile when they come on here complaining about such as the thickness of a mattress in certain motors, or curtains being too thin, but itās good to know that at least some of the job has got better, another point worth mentioning is that in 1979 I was on about Ā£80 a week and the night out money was Ā£8, that is 10% of the wage, the Ā£20 I am on now works out at nowhere near that.
back in the 90s i was stuck at iceland in swindon , 9pm and the temperature dropped to minus 9 , keys in the office and the night heater was dead . that didnāt bode well for a nights sleep . i was so fed up that i rang the boss at home and enquired if it was very cold back home . when he said it was i politely asked if he was ok and was his central heating working . i then explained my situation and informed him that the engine would be running on fast tick over for 11 hours when i parked up . he never mentioned our conversation again , but a new night heater was fitted the following day .
Once in the bag and settled you soon warmed up and dropped off, alcohol helped slightly here, and an hour before getting up the engine was tested again and besides it was clearing the screen while you had the extra hour. Of course later on it was dodgy firing up the motor after a few bevvies as one or two blokes had been breathalized but I think by then Iād moved onto motors with a nightheater, it was a bummer when they went dicky though cos weād gone soft by then! Happy Nights!
(-12c here atm) and the big 15ltr night heater, but if that has a problem too, Iām [zb]ed. Now Iām aware of this, so I have back up supplies, an extra comforter, some fleece blankets, thermal undies, hat, extra socks etc, itās very important to be prepared for the worse, not just because of the risk of hypothermia, but even in less extreme conditions, laying awake all night freezing your ā ā ā ā off is not a pleasant experience and it doesnāt have to be below freezing for that to occur 
