TriPac APU & Sleeper Heat?

I've got a Freightliner with a Thermoking TriPac. I understand and use the air conditioning with no complaints. The heat either barely works or I'm not using it correctly. Here's wjat I do:

1 press & hold the on/off knob
2 rotate A/C, Fan, Heat knob to heat
3 rotate temp knob fully clockwise into red zone
4 wait

The APU kicks on, air starts coming from vents. Many minutes later the air is barely at room temp, if that. I haven't had real cold yet so I havent taken time to read through the manual. The heat on the dash works great. I never have to wonder "is that warm? Is it working?"

I have an Espar (sp?) heater control. It heats up quickly. Should I just use the APU for A/C & Espar for heat. I can live with that.

 

Yes, mine heats quick. At home, I set my thermostat at 68 in warm weather & 62 in cold weather when zi sleep. In the truck I set it at 60-62 or I will get too warm. I was just checking since it's my first truck with APU.

 

Thanks for taking time to reply. I didn't know if I had a problem or not. Up front while driving I get plenty of A/C and heat from the same unit. In the sleeper I was asking if it should work the same way, or "is it normal to use the Tripac control panel for A/C and the Espar control panel for heat?" The consensus says Espar for heat and Tripac for A/C, which is what I was doing.

I wasn't sure if running the Tripac long enough would cause it to eventually start providing normal heat to the sleeper. You won't believe this, but some training programs don't spend any time going over such details. It's like all they think important is moving the freight and never think about living in the truck.

 

When I run my Espar heater, the APU will come on and it will run practically all night. If the heater is off and I'm not using the A/C the APU will start up, presumably to charge the batteries, and run for a long time or until I shut it off. I have a 40qt electric cooler running all of the time. So I assume the unintended APU startup is to recharge truck batteries.