Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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rails in a variety of available boxes. ���The heater is typically installed in the tool compartment or frame rails,��� says John Dennehy, vice president of marketing and communication for Espar Products. It draws a small amount of power from the battery bank ��� about 1 amp per hour ��� and fuel from the existing diesel fuel tank. ���The heater then works very much like a home furnace,��� Dennehy says. ���There is a thermostat housed in the bunk that the driver controls to his desires.��� In the real world Costs aside, idling remains a highly effective way of keeping drivers comfortable overnight, so it���s only natural that some drivers are hesitant to adopt APUs out of fear that they���ll have to forfeit comfort for fuel savings. Robert Hopson, chief executive of���cer of Idle Free, understands those concerns. ���We all want to offer systems that work in any kind of conditions the environment has to offer,��� he says. ���But the reality is that if you get into extreme summer or weather conditions, any system ��� even the truck���s diesel engine and proprietary HVAC system ��� will have constraints.��� Hopson says an all-electric APU system has a cooling capacity differential of between 20 and 22 degrees. ���If it���s 85 or 90 degrees outside, the system will comfortably cool the cab and sleeper down to about 70 degrees and hold the temperature there,��� he says. Hopson says that about 95 percent of the time, an APU system will suf���ce, but if a driver winds up in Arizona in the middle of summer, he should try not to take downtime in the middle of the day when temperatures and solar loads will combine to overwhelm the APU���s cooling capacity. While higher-quality batteries require a larger upfront investment, they will pay for themselves in the long run with fewer premature failures that require replacement, says Patrick Russell, AWP sales manager for Trojan Battery. ���Using lower cycle-life batteries may seem a more cost-effective strategy, but a trucking company will lose thousands of dollars each day a truck is off the road and in the shop to replace failed batteries that operate its APU and hotel power loads,��� Russell says. Tridako���s PowerCube system is an automotive-style HVAC system separate from the truck HVAC system. With the NITE�� No-Idle system, comfort never ends. Fuel savings never end. And most importantly, support and service never end. We���ll be there for you down the road. With the NITE��, you���ll always trust, never worry. It���s time to own the NITE��. Text INFO to 205-289-3554 or visit www.ccjdigital.com/info COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JANUARY 2013 19