Portable Diesel Heaters- your thoughts | Skoolie Forum

Planar makes a portable diesel heater. It's the one in the yellow box, and has a warm air hose that you put inside your living area while the unit stays outside. They seem a lot like the installed Webasto units, as the guts are just like the installed ones, just in a weather proof box. Planar (now Autoterm) actually posted a counterfeit warning as I believe the patent ran out, and someone is making cheap copies. At any rate, it seems very economical to run, and I wondered if anyone has any experience with these units. The comments about the Webasto units are very encouraging. Thanks to you all for sharing your experience. The "portable", or self contained units should function similarly to their drill-holes-and-install counterparts, with one key difference. Well, similarity, really. All diesel heaters installs pull to-burn air intake from, and vent exhaust to, the outside. A majority of these are installed in the cabin of the vehicle/trailer and thus also pull the air to heat from the inside, as well.

With one of these self contained units installed outside the cabin blowing in there is a key difference- you will be drawing air to heat from outside by default instead of from the inside, and thus during the warmup phase you'll be blowing colder air from outside directly into the cabin instead of recirculating warmer air already inside the cabin. This will create positive air pressure in the cabin, making it harder to push more air into the cabin without air already inside first escaping somehow.

Second, if you don't pull air from within the cabin- you have to be very careful about where you exhaust. You do not want the diesel exhaust being sucked into your air intake and blown into your living space- diesel exhaust should be far away from wherever you are drawing in air to heat up.

A workaround to the above problem would be a length of duct on the heated air intake that pulls air from within the cabin so that air recirculates through the heater.

I just plunked down $2K for a 5KW Espar which is more than I spent on a 30,000 BTU York central heating unit a few years ago. I wonder if these cheap heaters have the safety and long term performance.

It's going to be a bit suspicious if ten years from now all the success stories are still being written by people who have used the units for less than a year. I sure hope they're safe long-term since I've already bought mine. I would think there'd be a fundamental serious efficiency problem with having the diesel combustion unit outside your living space. When the unit is inside, all of the heat it generates (excepting what's lost with the exhaust) will ultimately dissipate into your living space, but if the unit is outside then much or most of that heat (whatever is not exchanged with the air being vented into the interior) will be lost. Also, each unit of heat it generates has to take cold external air and heat it before being vented inside; an internal heater gets to start with warm air and heat it further.

I sure hope they're safe long-term since I've already bought mine.

Well, the worst case scenarios in my mind are fire... resulting from the exhaust pipe or other metal components in and around the heat exchanger coming into contact with flammable materials. Good, safe installation is key I think. Second in line would be reliability issues- things like soot build-up, the dinky fuel line being so close to the exhaust pipe, etc. Would advise upgrading the line, filter and ties/clamps for the line. Its easy enough to have replacement parts on hand just by having a spare unit.



Number one worry for me is any exhaust making it inside, I watch like a hawk for smells. On a couple occasions when it was priming (there is no separate priming process for ours, it just tries to start full blast for the first X-minutes) we had some smell- it hasn't seemed to have repeated itself since, maybe it was off-gassing or something, idk. Would be much more worried about our setup if it was gasoline. I have one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MWGH37T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As said above, both combustion air and exhaust are sourced and vented outside (you need to drill a, say, 4" hole), and the air to be heated is drawn from inside.

The thing works well. It does NOT put out 5kW as advertised, and also you can smell that it runs rich if you crank it up to full throttle. But at half to 2/3rds of max power, it works very well, it burns clean and is efficient (diesel wise). Electric not so much.

I had two or three flameouts in a 10 day period, one or two for no apparent reason, and one or two when the tank was running low (not empty).

3kW of heat is a significant amount in many cases, though. We ran it in a Nissan NV van at 20F at half power and it added about 50 degrees F.

I agree that you don't want to take in outside (fresh, cold) air, as that is incredibly inefficient. In our case above, the 2-or-so kW was enough to counter the heat loss of the van at 20F. If you take in 20 degree air and want to heat it to 70, you are going to need tens of kilowatts at any reasonable volume.

Worthy of note is the 12V power consumption. I ran it off a server power supply after draining a standard automotive lead-acid battery overnight. They take more power than advertised.

For our 30 footer, I am considering one large 16kW hydronic heater, or a battery of perhaps 3 (maybe 4) "5kW" heaters with Bobil-style heat exchangers, so I have some redundancy. We are building our bus for 0 degree F weather.

Well, the worst case scenarios in my mind are fire... resulting from the exhaust pipe or other metal components in and around the heat exchanger coming into contact with flammable materials. Good, safe installation is key I think.

The exhaust routing is up to you, and indeed, it gets pretty hot, but not extremely so. But after having done it myself, I can testify it CAN be done safely if you have an ounce of common sense and a risk averse attitude. You can buy 6 foot extension pipes to route the exhaust it elsewhere. I had my carbon monoxide alarm right next to it and it never gave a blip. In much of the developed world, diesel sold during the winter months contains anti-wax forming agents for climates that need it.

But if you buy diesel in summer and store it until a polar vortex rolls in, you may have issues. Your bus won’t be going anywhere either if that’s what you have in your tank.

You can a bottle of anti-waxing (or anti-gelling) agent, or, add 10% of regular gas to your diesel, that lowers the wax point by a good couple dozen degrees.

That being said, I would use the opportunity to warm up the fuel ever so slightly if I wanted to go to temperature extremes. I dont have a portable.. I have a coolant heater.. I bought what I thought was a mid grade (between the cheapest chinese and the expensive webasto).. it is a VVKB.. it has been the worst POS ever.. I have replaced damn near every part on it to keep it going this past winter.. it didnt want to fire in below zero C weather.. thats right at about 15-20f the thing would just become a mosquito fogger when there certtainly arent any mosquitos...



finally the company sent me a new one which I left in its box.. I ordered a chinese 16kw coolant heater from D&E enterprises and so far it has been much better. . however we havent yet had anything cold than 20f since i got it.. but our spring has been cold (it is supposed to be 73 today and its FORTY FIVE!!!! ugh!! ) I do use it still quite a bit..



my other bus has a real webasto coolant heater.. ive had it a couple years and it hasnt given me any trouble at all.. it just works.. ..


in the coolant heater world, the thing I notice is that the real espar / webasto units throttle.. they have a modulating amount of heat output.. the chinese units dont, the chinese units heat the coolant to the temperatire then cycle out. . then kick back in full blast when the temp drops 10-15 degrees C then shut off.. the water pumps stay running .. so you dont get the even-heating that the webasto does..



from what I understand the chinese warm-air heaters do modulate.. just not the coolant models..



I use coolant heater because the DEV bus has no glowplugs and if I park someplace overnight with no electric plug and its below about 10f she will start a bit rough.. so the coolant heater lets me preheat the engine..

More great info. AND significantly less expensive. Do you have a picture of the completed unit?

This is the Planar unit

its a knock off of that but works just the same and a hella alot cheaper i have one that is 3k in my trailer and one that is 5k in my bus i love both of them , i put the link in my other post the exhaust and fresh air go to the out side of the bus the unit stays inside the bus, i have the 3k now for 4 year and never had any problems with it :marshmallow: I do not have any portable units like you are discussing here. I don’t know if I want to take the risk of supplying someone else with my hard earned heater. I bought the Chinese air heaters for my bus one for the rear and one for the front. I never turn them off when running on low. I kick them up on high for a couple of minutes before shutdown. I also run half a tank of red Kerosene every season. 3 years now and no problems. I keep CO monitors in the coach front and rear and crack a window while sleeping to prevent dirt naps.

Just watched a video where a cheap (under $200 Chinese Copy) is compared to an Espar Diesel heater.

Sino Air Conditioner supply professional and honest service.

The Espar is about $ US compared to the Chinese copy about $130 US

I have 3 Chinese diesel heaters. I have had only one problem with one of them and that was a poorly made fuel tank, not the heater itself. I never have any odors of any kind whatsoever from any of them except maybe on initial startup and it’s rare and very slight if at all.

They have been 100% reliable and kept me comfortable on some cold winter nights. I found that my 5Kw unit is too much for my small van even on low. So I also have a 2Kw unit that seems about perfect even though I still keep a window open slightly on nights down to 10F because it puts out plenty of heat even on low. I do have custom made window insulation covers and that helps as well.

My (opinion) is that if you have trouble with your Chinese diesel heater you either got a bad one and should have returned it early on, or you just don’t quite know how to use it. I also have buddy heaters and they are good for their purpose but I much prefer the diesel heater in the van for a number of reasons.

If the Chinese had not made affordable copies, I would likely have never owned a diesel heater.
The only thing that could make them better for me is if they were made in America for not too much more.

Greetings!

The biggest problem I see with most of these heaters is that they require power. For many years, I’ve been using unvented heaters that require only fuel & no power. Then I add a heat powered woodstove fan to have power free fan forced heat, without any modifications to my rig.

My theory is that since we need constant ventilation anyway, we don’t need to cut a hole to have a heater. Since we can have dry heat without it being vented, I prefer that.

I spent the winter in Northern Minnesota, and while I have been using wick type kerosene heaters, sometimes using diesel, this last winter kerosene was hard to find & expensive, and the diesel wasn’t burning well in my heaters/cookers. Maybe some different formula on the diesel, not sure…

So I went to the dollar store and bought everything to make a vintage style 36 wick kerosene/diesel/cooking oil heater/cooker. Total cost was $5 or $6. Just needed a cookie tin, a string mop for a lifetime supply of wicks, a piece of craft foam, aluminum foil, and a cake cooling rack for a cooking grill. It might have taken me 20 minutes to assemble it. I bought a gallon of cooking oil at Walmart for $4.50, cheaper than either kerosene or diesel in the area, and filled it up and lit about 10 of the 36 available wicks. I then placed my woodstove fan on top, and had great fan forced, electricity free heat for under $10, that kept me toasty warm & dry eveen at temperatures as low as -40°F. That gallon of cooking oil would provide all my heating & cooking needs for a whole month. I have since built 3 more for myself, so I could have up to 4 cooking burners. The heat is adjusted according to how many wicks are lit.

Fast, easy, cheap, simple, & reliable. We had used store bought versions of these when I was a kid in the late 40’s & early 50’s. Very impressive, & fuel efficient. I also built some for friends whose RV heaters weren’t keeping up with frigid temperatures, and they love them as much as I do. They’re small, 8"x8"x3" tall, but they really pack a punch, and they provide dry odorless heat. If you add a heat powered woodstove fan, they are really fantastic. They’re totally silent & require no external power source.

I’m not posting this to discourage anybody from making their own choices, but as a helpful tip in case you ever find yourself in need. It never hurts to know how to make a cheap reliable heater from easily available parts when you need one.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller

Greetings!

I don’t have pictures, or even a camera, but perhaps I can describe it well enough so you can get a picture in your mind.

Mine is an 8"x8" square cookie tin that is about 3" high, but these could be built in round ones too. The key is that you want the wicks placed at least 1" from the outside edge, and at least 1" from each other.

Craft foam floats, and it is the wick holder, cut just slightly smaller than the inside of the container. We wrap it in a double layer of aluminum foil to protect it from the flames. Then we cut x’s through the aluminum foil & craft foam spaced as above. We cut out wicks from a dollar store string mop, leaving them as long as possible. Then we feed a wick through each one of those x’s, with 1/8"-1/4 " sticking up. Any longer and they will smoke like crazy until they burn down.

Fill the cookie tin with water first to check for leaks. If it leaks, we’ll need to line it with plastic. I just cut a piece out of a plastic garbage bag and place it inside and wrap it around the top and down past where the lid will go on.

Okay, now we can put a couple of inches of cooking oil in it instead of water, and put the wicks in it. It will need to rest for a bit so the wicks can soak up the cooking oil. Then it is ready for use. You regulate the heat output according to how many wicks you light. It might smoke a little at first if the wicks are too long, but they should self shorten themselves as they burn.

Then I use a cake cooling grill on top to hold either a pan, or my woodstove fan. When not in use, I just put the lid on it and stick it in a drawer, I have 4 and all 4 will fit in a single drawer, 2 high and 2 deep with room left over.

These allow me everything from a fast boil & tons of heat, all the way down to single candle power to keep food warm. Even though I have 36 wicks in mine, I don’t think I’ve ever lit more than 10 or 12, even keeping me warm and toasty at -40°F with the heat powered woodstove fan to circulate the heat. All with no shore power or batteries required. They are also very fuel efficient. A single gallon of cooking oil would last me a little over a month. That’s $4.50 a month for all my heating, cooking, & hot water needs in the frozen Northern Minnesota winter. A win/win in my book.

I only use one for a heater, the other 3 are so I can have up to 4 cooking burners.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller

Greetings!

Awww… blush… Thanks for the kind words.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Portable Diesel Air Heater.

Nothing’s right for everybody, and it’s okay to not always agree. That’s how we learn, and knowledge is power. What seems right or wrong for us today, could change in the future, and you just never know.

Knowing extra options for if or when they’re needed never hurts. Yesterday I stumbled upon a lady in a ditch, and as luck would have it, my tow strap never got returned the last time I loaned it out, and all I had was a 100 foot length of dollar store rope. Not nearly strong enough for the task needed…

So I tripled the rope over, and did a chain stitch type thing to make a ~10 foot tow rope which would hopefully be much stronger, and it worked! I read that tip like 20 years ago, and 20 years later it saved the day. I think knowledge & choices are often under appreciated.

Pictures would be GREAT! That’s one category I’ve never been good at. Digital cameras, smart phones, and touch screens don’t seem to like me. I’m like a ghost to them for some reason. I can tap em till the cows come home, and they just ignore me. Voice recognition doesn’t seem to work well for me either. At least the keyboard on my laptop & keypad on my flip work hehe.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller

Greetings & Welcome!

This is kind of where I’m at, except even simpler. The vintage style heater/cooker I used last winter in the frigid frozen North, is dirt cheap to build, uses no electricity, and has basically nothing that can go wrong with it. It’s basically a liquid candle heater/cooker with many wicks, that can use cooking oil, diesel, or kerosene.

You adjust the temperature according to how many wicks you light, and a dollar store string mop will give you a lifetime supply of wicks. Nice reliable dry heat, that’s portable and requires no vehicle modifications.

With the addition of a heat powered woodstove fan, you can have electricity free fan forced heat, or cooling powered by only a single wick lit. With a spray bottle to mist yourself & the fan, you can also stay cool even in the hottest weather.

While my laptop & need power to charge them, both are basically luxuries, but if I can heat, cook, have lights, etc. that are all electricity free, even if just for backups, I feel well prepared.

As a kid, we tent camped in all weather conditions, comfortably. Blazing hot to well below zero, we were comfortable without any electricity at all. While I’m not opposed to more modern conveniences, being prepared for when the power goes out, brings me a lot of comfort & peace of mind.

Cheers!

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller

Some may be hard pressed for money and cannot afford a $900 heater. I’d just like to add that one should not fear them just because they cost considerably less. Most everything you own today is made in China. I have 3 of different sizes of Chinese diesel heaters and for different purposes. For me it’s the golden ticket to being comfortable in the cold. There are millions of the Chinese diesel heaters in use it seems from all the forums that talk about them.
I have not read of a single case of CO poisoning from them to date. To each his own. Do your own research and you decide what’s right for you.

Take reasonable precautions of course. For example have multiple CO detectors. That should be the case regardless of what you use for heat I would say.
With over two years of use on them now and hundreds of hours they have been 100% reliable and it costs me about 30 cents a night to stay cozy warm and dry (oops…that was before gas prices went crazy, now it’s almost 60 cents a night…

I’m not a fan of open flames in a vehicle living space unless it’s a woodstove designed for it… It’s just me. Especially when there’s any kind of hot or flammable liquid associated with it. It also removes oxygen from the air and so you must leave windows open. If I had no other choice I’m sure I’d rather have that than freeze.

Van_Dweller this is not to in any way diminish your choice. If it works for you then it must be the right choice for you and will likely work for others as well. Different strokes for different folks the saying goes.

Tedski,
They are different sizes, different configurations for different situations. And as a backup.
Not to mention they were all shipped free. I think I have $340 total in all 3 of them combined.
I love my diesel heaters. With the simple push of a button my Van is 70F degrees in 15F weather in minutes. No mess no fuss.

Just my 2 cents. YMMV and of course, diesel heaters are not for everyone.

Happy Trails !

Greetings!

Real life doesn’t feel a need to comply with anybody else’s rules, needs, or expectations. Life is fluid and constantly changing. Yesterday’s reality, might be obsolete today, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still work.

Every day we look at things and say “That’s Impossible!” or ask ourselves “How is that possible?”, yet it happened. It didn’t care about the odds, the probability, physics, or anything else, yet it happened. Such is real life. No argument or explanation can claim it didn’t happen, when it obviously did.

Candle heating & cooking dates way back, and is still in daily use in many parts of the world. Millions of people have proven the technique works and they depend upon it.

A vehicle typically holds in heat quite well, even with the windows cracked. It might take a little extra heat to compensate for the open windows, but it’s still easily doable.

Many nomads do things much more dangerous than these heaters/cookers every day, but safety should always be practiced.

Cheers!

For more information, please visit One-Stop Air Equipment and Spare Parts.

"Be the reason someone smiles today!" ~ Van_Dweller