The Wave 3 heater comes with both a paper instruction manual, and also a printed label stuck to the unit itself. Both have guidance about ventilation requirements. Some of it is ambiguous depending on how you read it. Some of it is phrased in language like "It is good practice to..."
At first I was scared by the ambiguity. I thought -- well, I definitely don't want to die -- can they just tell me exactly what to do, with no ambiguity, so that I don't die?!?!
For me, part of my journey in learning to live with the ambiguity in the printed instructions, was to do some math and try to develop some intuition about how much oxygen they actually consume. This isn't about whether I need to follow their instructions or not. Of course I need to do my best to interpret and follow their instructions. But at least for me, it got easier once I had some rough, back-of-the-envelope idea of just how much oxygen it consumes, in terms I can relate to. Namely, humans. I can totally relate to what it's like to have too many people in a room, it gets stuffy, we need to open a window. It's not abstract for me, it's a situation I've been in before and have some level of intuition about.
Disclaimer: I'm not a chemist or a biologist, don't rely on anything in this post. This is purely a record of the calculations I did for my own comfort, in terms of building up some gut sense of how the heater behaves in my van.
Molecular mass of propane is 44.1 g/mol. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane -- One pound (454 grams) of propane is thus about 10 moles.
Propane is C3H8, and oxygen gas is O2, so one mole of propane needs 3 moles of oxygen gas (to make CO2) and 2 moles of oxygen gas (to make H2O). That means one pound of propane needs 50 moles of O2, total.
The Wave 3 burns a pound of propane in 8 hours (on high) or in 15 hours (on low). Source: https://vanlivingforum.com/threads/camco-olympian-wave-3-heater.34112/page-3#post-448120
So if you burn a pound of propane in 8 hours (Wave 3 on high) you are consuming 6.25 moles of O2 per hour. If you burn that same pound of propane in 15 hours (Wave 3 on low) you are consuming 3.33 moles of O2 per hour.
Molecular mass of O2 is 32 g/mol. Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-molar-mass-of-O2-Is-it-15-9994-or-double-that
That means the Wave 3 on high consumes 200 grams of O2 per hour, and the Wave 3 on low consumes 107 grams of O2 per hour.
Humans breathe 840 grams of oxygen per day. Source: https://www.cnet.com/science/breathe-deep-how-the-iss-keeps-astronauts-alive/ -- That is 35 grams per hour.
So my back-of-the-envelope numbers say: the Wave 3 on high consumes oxygen equivalent to 5.7 people. And on low, it consumes oxygen equivalent to 3.1 people.
At first I was scared by the ambiguity. I thought -- well, I definitely don't want to die -- can they just tell me exactly what to do, with no ambiguity, so that I don't die?!?!
For me, part of my journey in learning to live with the ambiguity in the printed instructions, was to do some math and try to develop some intuition about how much oxygen they actually consume. This isn't about whether I need to follow their instructions or not. Of course I need to do my best to interpret and follow their instructions. But at least for me, it got easier once I had some rough, back-of-the-envelope idea of just how much oxygen it consumes, in terms I can relate to. Namely, humans. I can totally relate to what it's like to have too many people in a room, it gets stuffy, we need to open a window. It's not abstract for me, it's a situation I've been in before and have some level of intuition about.
Disclaimer: I'm not a chemist or a biologist, don't rely on anything in this post. This is purely a record of the calculations I did for my own comfort, in terms of building up some gut sense of how the heater behaves in my van.
Molecular mass of propane is 44.1 g/mol. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane -- One pound (454 grams) of propane is thus about 10 moles.
Propane is C3H8, and oxygen gas is O2, so one mole of propane needs 3 moles of oxygen gas (to make CO2) and 2 moles of oxygen gas (to make H2O). That means one pound of propane needs 50 moles of O2, total.
The Wave 3 burns a pound of propane in 8 hours (on high) or in 15 hours (on low). Source: https://vanlivingforum.com/threads/camco-olympian-wave-3-heater.34112/page-3#post-448120
So if you burn a pound of propane in 8 hours (Wave 3 on high) you are consuming 6.25 moles of O2 per hour. If you burn that same pound of propane in 15 hours (Wave 3 on low) you are consuming 3.33 moles of O2 per hour.
Molecular mass of O2 is 32 g/mol. Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-molar-mass-of-O2-Is-it-15-9994-or-double-that
That means the Wave 3 on high consumes 200 grams of O2 per hour, and the Wave 3 on low consumes 107 grams of O2 per hour.
Humans breathe 840 grams of oxygen per day. Source: https://www.cnet.com/science/breathe-deep-how-the-iss-keeps-astronauts-alive/ -- That is 35 grams per hour.
So my back-of-the-envelope numbers say: the Wave 3 on high consumes oxygen equivalent to 5.7 people. And on low, it consumes oxygen equivalent to 3.1 people.
