Help! Help! I'm being repressed by the man!!
 

My lease is up for my apartment and my apartment manager just told me that I'm no longer allowed to hang an extension cord from my porch to plug my car in in the winter :(

I said I had a diesel and my apartment manager would ask the property value manager if it was okay.

If they say no, I'm moving.

or get a diesel fired heater :)

they should build you a garage, bastards.

Bogus

Get a green (or white - snow) colored cord so it's camoflaged... :D

change your profile so we know where you live.....if you live in South Florida, you shouldn't need a block heater.

Shoot, if you have a strong engine, strong battery, and a proper valve adjustment, you shouldn't need a block heater in MOST places.

I would have casually suggest the alternative is to leave the engine idiling on really cold nights.

Bury the cord on a full moon.

Hmm... If you're desperate enough, you could you leave the key inside turned to ACC, lock the door with another key, use a cig lighter power inverter, and run the extension cord through the engine bay into the passenger compartment to plug it up at the cig lighter. Then, just get in, unplug the cord, start up, and go. Though, there's risk of draining your battery.

Innovative idea, BUT, if left overnight it would DEFINITELY drain the battery. A 750-1000 watt inverter is the miniumum that would be required to power a decent block heater, and running at full load an inverter that size will draw 7-10 amps. Your battery won't drive that load for too many hours without going dead.

HOWEVER, if you got a heavy-duty timer that will handle a 10 amp load, then you probably could run the inverter powering the block heater for an hour or two right before you have to start it up in the morning and still have plenty of juice to cycle the glow plugs and crank the engine. Of course then your alternator will be working pretty hard to recharge the battery and you'll have ot be sure you drive far enough to get it back up to full charge before its time to run the block heater again to start it up again the next morning...

Wouldn't work.....a block heater would eat a 100A battery in no time, way less than a couple hours. And there'd be 0 power left to start the car.

Oh, and it'd destroy the battery completely after a few cycles. Its not a marine battery!

Yeah, I did the AC amps calculation and came up with 10 amps to power a 1000 watt heater with a 1000 watt inverter that's about 90% efficient. What I forgot to do was the DC half of the equation. To convert 1000 watts at 12v DC up to 1000 watts at 110AC takes about 90 amps DC current (stepping the voltage up on the AC side by a factor of almost 10 requires stepping up the current on the DC side by a factor of 10 as well).
Maybe a second battery - a BIG marine battery - hooked up in parallel with the car's starting battery is the answer. An 80 amp-hour battery will (theoretically) supply 80 amps for 1 hour. If a 1000 watt block heater for 1 hour will do the trick, then it would work. Maybe a 500 watt heater run by a 500 watt inverter for an hour before starting it in the mornings would be a more reasonable plan.

Of course your 55 amp alternator would have to be running at its max output for about an hour and a half - with no other current loads so it all went back into the battery - to fully recharge the marine battery with the 1000 watt setup. With the 500 watt setup it would only take about half as long to recharge, or half as much current from the alternator.

And just think, an 80 amp hour marine battery can be had for ONLY $200-$300...

Rent a condo or house from my uncle, his have garage's. I'll smooth over the diesel MB thing, he likes Mercedes.:D

I *think* he might have 2 condo's open in one of his buildings with garage's for $1,500 a month. Not sure I don't really pay close attention to the rental side.

Stick a power generator out there running all night and wait for the *complaints* to start pouring into the office...:eek:

Maybe they'll just see it your way!?

Interesting idea --- there is also the risk of totally forgeting what the heck you're supposed to do first, after getting in the car...or at least, I would see that as my problem.......:confused: