Diesel heater

[bosco659]

I’ve heard lots of chatter about diesel heaters. Anyone have any personal experience with these? I’m thinking since it exhausts outside, there wouldn’t be a build up of condensation? Maybe supplemental heat for the garage? Here’s a vid of one model.. I believe 99% are made in China.

 

[bosco659]

Just found this. Remote control and free shipping. 8KW or claimed 16,666 btu. Might be worth a try. In the picture of the assembled unit they have mislabelled the muffler and air filter. Lol. The Q&A are interesting.

It runs 20 hours on 5L of fuel - about $.44/hr. Iirc my electric heater was running at lower cost per hour but output was only around 13,700 btu and worked hard to heat the garage when it was really cold out. Perhaps this will be a good way to supplement heating my garage this winter (currently heated with electricity). Exhaust pipe temp 150F and apparently dry heat. Looks like the price in the link may be tax in too.

https://www.vevor.ca/diesel-heater-...t-boat-motorhome-truck-trailer-p_010495550284

 

[DogBunny]

It's an interesting idea, but I see a few drawbacks if used in the home:
It's 12V, so you can't plug it in to your house electricity.
It's diesel. One more fluid to have to keep around, unless you already have something else that runs on diesel.
How noisy is it?
The traditional garage heater is the forced air propane type. Harbor Freight has one for $99 that is rated at 30-60K BTU. Definitely noisy.

 

[bosco659]

It's an interesting idea, but I see a few drawbacks if used in the home:
It's 12V, so you can't plug it in to your house electricity.
It's diesel. One more fluid to have to keep around, unless you already have something else that runs on diesel.
How noisy is it?
The traditional garage heater is the forced air propane type. Harbor Freight has one for $99 that is rated at 30-60K BTU. Definitely noisy.

Yes the 12V is a pita, but I have a 110v power supply I can plug into the wall to power the device. Yes it will be another fuel to keep on hand. Noise levels don’t appear to be very high. I watched one YouTube video where the guy was taking actual measurements of the noise. I’ll try to find it an post some numbers. Of all the vids I watched, noise didn’t appear to be a drawback.

I don’t think it has a thermostat and this is a drawback. There are different, selectable, output levels, but to manage temps you need to turn it on and off yourself. The output levels appear to be different fan speeds. Faster speeds = more heat (and sound too). For me, I’m thinking about using it to “boost” heat in the garage, then letting the electric heater maintain temperature. My electric heater can bring temps up to 10-20C, but works very long and hard to get it there. Supplementary heat needs to be fossil fuel driven because I’m out of power in the garage (only have 30A @ 220V - my current heater eats 20A of this).

The garage heater you mentioned is like a construction or salamander heater. I’ve owned a couple, one diesel and one propane fired. They put out a tremendous amount of heat but are quite noisy and the unwanted byproducts of combustion (water and carbon monoxide) are introduced to the space you are heating. When I used to run mine in the garage, anything metal and cold would be covered with a heavy layer of condensation within an hour of operation. That was a deal buster for me. This diesel heater exhausts combustion byproducts outdoors so all the moisture and CO it produces is kept from the inside of the space you are heating.

I believe it is a Chinese knockoff of a Webasto heater. I’ve known about and have seen many Webasto’s running in the past. They are great heaters but carry a price tag into the $2,000+ range. That’s where I lost interest.

I may take the plunge and be the guinea pig for the group to test it. I’ll wait a few days to see if others have any experience with this.

edit: this guy has a cool trailer conversion. The vid is about the noise from the fuel pump. I suppose it would be annoying if you’re trying to sleep in that space. @Jim , is this something you could use in your van project?

 

[bosco659]

This style, without the case could be used in your trailer or van…. Lotsa YouTube vids on this.

 

[bosco659]

Appears to be limited interest in this, but no negative reports either so I ordered this a few minutes ago. Free shipping and it’s supposed to arrive this weekend. Once I get it and put it into service I’ll do a quick report. For the money it was worth trying. Bought this model since it was in its own carrying case and it’s wider than the first model I posted, so it should be more stable. $5.00 off coupon too. Note this is Cdn $. Stay tuned.

 

[toglhot]

These diesel heaters are very popular with the caravanning community here in Oz, they all all swear by them.

 

[gggGary]

Oooh guinea pig!
I've looked at those several times.
My garage while well insulated still has a "leaky" overhead door and is on the exposed north side of the heated envelope.
For me, if I ever get ambitious, a natural gas heater would make more sense.
The sprinter van had an Espar diesel heater. Used the engine's cooling system/cabin heat. It was great as a wake up and warm the van heater, but as Allison found out, run it all night in sub zero temps and it drained the big 12 volt battery. Fortunately a kind soul gave her a jumpstart, which ain't much fun to do at -5F!

 

[bosco659]

I will be ordering this power supply so I don’t have to run on a battery and will put this fitting on my garage door for the exhaust. I have old one piece steel doors so this fitting will be easy to install. Then I’ll wrap it with Rock wool to protect the surrounding foam panel. In the summertime, with the heater removed, the fitting can stay on there, not getting in the way.

 

[bosco659]

It arrived this morning. Unboxing pics attached. Came complete with a 34 page, super poorly translated owners manual. I think I may read this before firing the unit up. The unit itself was well packed as it was suspended in foam. All the other bits were just thrown into the bottom of the box and parts like the 3” air discharge hose got squashed. With a bit of massaging, the hose is usable.

 

[bosco659]

No thanks to the poorly translated instruction manual, I managed to get the heater running today. I mounted it on an aluminum step I had laying around. I figured it would offer good protection from the hot exhaust pipe. 2x4’s were needed to raise the unit to provide clearance for the exhaust. I had to prime the system and managed to do so by trial and error. The pump is noisy if you listen for it. A constant ticking / clicking noise that varies frequency with the power output level selected. This unit has 10 power settings but no thermostat. I think the way it works is the pump and fan just run faster as you increase the power settings. The fan itself isn’t that noisy and will be fine in the garage.

This little unit really puts out the heat. Air speed at the discharge opening is good and you can add ductwork to that port. At max output, the air is so hot you can’t hold your hand in front of the opening for long. At the lowest setting the air speed is reduced an air temperatures are much, much lower. I’m thinking this is a winner for me. I now need to make a hold in the door for the exhaust pipe. The special fitting arrived today. Once I get my garage rearranged for the winter I’ll complete the install. For the summer, I just need to remove the exhaust pipe from the door and put the unit on a shelf.

 

[Jim]

Nice!!
Wouldn't be hard to wire in a house thermostat. I assume you're getting a 12 power supply for it?
Run the output of that to a relay, controlled by the thermostat and bob's your uncle.

 

[bosco659]

@Jim , do you mean control the power supply to the heater control with a thermostat? I believe when power is disconnected to the heater, the controller turns off. When power is restored, you must manually turn the heater back on. Not 100% sure, I’ll check it out tomorrow. Thx.

 

[bosco659]

Just watched a video on the controller functions for the heater (you can learn so much about the product from a person who speaks English, lol). It appears the heater does have a “thermostat” but will heat to the set temperature then drop down to the lowest output setting. That means the heater is always running but switches between high and low. This might be ok for the garage but may overheat a small space. Also watched a bit of a YouTube video where a guy shows how to hook a household thermostat to the heater. The problem is, to turn the heater back on, you must press and hold the “on/off” switch until the machine starts back up. He had a solution for this with a fancy relay that would apply power for a set period of time to get the heater started. This began to look too complicated for my little brain, so I thought I should try out the built in controller first.

My intention is to use the heater only while I’m in the garage do I could turn it on and off with the remote as needed. Once I fully experience its capabilities I will evaluate the need for improved temp control.

When I get a few minutes, I’ll post some pages from tge manual and see it anyone can understand it. I think it’s written in a nee language: Chinglish.

 

[bosco659]

Some pages from the manual. After watching the video, some of this makes sense but before that seemed to be a lot of jibberish. Then again it might just be me. If something doesn’t make immediate sense to me, I gave a tendency to put it on ignore. Maybe that’s what happened here?

Oh and further to my earlier post, when you turn the controller off, the fan continues to run for quite a while to cool the heat exchanger off. I don’t know if the previously mentioned dude addressed this as well with his home thermostat hookup.

 

[toglhot]

I want one. I currently use an old keto heater.

 

[gggGary]

How'z the exhaust smell?

 

[bosco659]

How'z the exhaust smell?

The exhaust smell isn’t what I expected. I’ve smelled lots of diesel fired equipment and the odour from this us quite different. Not a strong smell and once the unit has reached full operating temperature the smell is faint. Definitely needs to be exhausted outdoors though.

 

[bosco659]

I want one. I currently use an old keto heater.

So far I think it’s great. Can’t beat the price. Once I have it completely installed with the through the wall fitting and power supply, I’ll be into if for just a bit over $200.00 Cdn.

 

[jetmechmarty]

I have a solar heater for my garage. It cost me nothing. My garage door is made of metal and faces directly south. I’m just below the 35th parallel, so my garage is heated nicely in the winter months and the sun doesn’t strike it in summer. Unfortunately, it does fail to operate on cloudy days.