Cheap Chinese Diesel Heaters the Return !

I've been running a Triclicks 5kw Chinese heater for just under a year now. The entire reason being my old Eberspacher (D5LC) was suffering neglect from the previous owner and getting it running was going to prove expensive and time consuming, so as a 'temporary' measure I invested about 85 quid in a Triclicks 5KW. Firstly, I have retained all the Eber hosing and exhaust etc. People are right that the Chinese exhaust tube / silencer etc really are not good enough at all for boat so those bits are junked for the Eber originals. The air ducting needed a couple of adaptors to fit the different sized air inlet / outlet and that's about it.

Negatives - On a boat the size of mine, the 5kw isn't big enough / powerful enough to feed all the outlets as before. Though also 5KW, the Eber 5 is much physically bigger and no doubt more powerful in the fan department etc. - The build quality is a bit 50/50. Mine is blue paint finished and I'm sure it'll need a bit of care. That said it's buried in the engine room so only I will ever see it. - The controller does everything that's needed but it looks like an 80's electronic toy so it depends on your aesthetic point of view.

Positives - I spent 85 quid and an afternoon or so of work and it's worked faultlessly for nearly a year. When your boat is in NI you need heat in winter and it got me out of jail with heat on the quick with no fuss. A friends boat with posh expensive heaters, have had the engineer out at least 3 times in that time trying to keep theirs running so I really can't complain.

Will I keep it? Probably not. I'll likely end up with the largest Autoterm / Planar heater, as I want to heat the whole boat and not just a couple of cabins but if China could kick out a much physically larger heater, I would snap that up in a heartbeat..
 
People near me have ordered 5kw but received 8 kw-labelled units. True performance unknown, though.

If you have any (a lot) spare time dig into Chinese marketing standards. If you can find any. Seemingly they will say just anything to get you money.

Decades ago my dad did business with Taiwan and sent a supplier a nice UK manufactured jacket to get their proposal for a similar item. In return he got a 1:1 copy, including any copright and other rights claims - 100% identical, as a free sample.
 
Fire99 said:
..... my old Eberspacher (D5LC) was suffering neglect from the previous owner
Click to expand...
How do you neglect a diesel heater ?
I think the best thing you can do with a diesel heater is use the heater on full power for at least an hour or not at all.
The worst thing you can do is run the heater on low power for hours .
 
Bigplumbs said:
Good idea
Click to expand...
Make sure you have at least 2 CO detectors, as the far Eastern heaters have cheap steel heat exchangers inside and when they corrode through, the exhaust gas mixes with the hot air outlet. Mine started to rust after only one year below decks, a classic case of you get what you pay for.
 
TNLI said:
Make sure you have at least 2 CO detectors, as the far Eastern heaters have cheap steel heat exchangers inside and when they corrode through, the exhaust gas mixes with the hot air outlet. Mine started to rust after only one year below decks, a classic case of you get what you pay for.
Click to expand...
Why do you keep saying this ? They don't have any steel as they are cast aluminium. Show a pic of a steel one .
 
Rappey said:
Why do you keep saying this ? They don't have any steel as they are cast aluminium. Show a pic of a steel one .
Click to expand...
The cheap Chinese ones are steel. I paid about 100 quid for the one I used in the yard. There might be alloy ones, although alloy can corrode faster than painted steel, so what you want is a stainless one, and they seem to start around the 700 quid mark according to the fittings and output.
This was the one I purchased, it says metal and plastic but it's just cheap steel. 5000W Air diesel Heater LCD Remote 2KW-5KW 12V For Lorry MotorHomes Clearance 6941689877245 | eBay
There are similar versions with more plastic, but none of them are stainless or approved for use whilst sleeping, although it did warn about the danger in the instructions.
If you find one with an alloy cover, do some real research to check what the actual heat exchanger is made of. If it's steel or aluminium it will eventually corrode.
 
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Rappey said:
Why do you keep saying this ? They don't have any steel as they are cast aluminium. Show a pic of a steel one .
Click to expand...
How can you say that they don’t have steel? This is my issue with them - you could be buying it from absolutely anywhere and no idea if it’s the same as the other one on eBay or made in a factory 2000 miles away but designed to look the same externally.
 
TNLI said:
Make sure you have at least 2 CO detectors, as the far Eastern heaters have cheap steel heat exchangers inside and when they corrode through, the exhaust gas mixes with the hot air outlet. Mine started to rust after only one year below decks, a classic case of you get what you pay for.
Click to expand...
I take it you mean the burner tube, all I can say is I've used mine for several years, five days a week in the workshop and I strip it every summer and there is no sign of any problem.
The heat exchanger is the alloy body of the unit, the bit with the fins on.
I've never known of them having steel bodies.
 
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Nauti Fox said:
I take it you mean the burner tube, all I can say is I've used mine for several years, five days a week in the workshop and I strip it every summer and there is no sign of any problem.
The heat exchanger is the alloy body of the unit, the bit with the fins on.
I've never known of them having steel bodies.
Click to expand...
A workshop is not a boat in a salty harbour. The corrosion rate is 800 times higher in dry deresert air than salty humid air for steel. If the burner is made of cast alloy it just depends on how cheap the type of alumiunium used is, although that is also true of different types of steel. Expensive grades od aluminium are only subject to electrolysis or fatigue issues, but the cheap stuff corrodes as fast as most steel in salty air. Stainless steel is real good unless it's recycled stuff. Like high grade steel stainless needs to be made from Iron ore, not recylcled steel.
The OP unit is an alloy one, but the rest are described as metal and plastic, so they don't say.

It's unlikely that anyone sleeps on a regular basis in a workshop setting, so it's a safe place to use a cheap diesel heater.

Beware “lethal exhausts” unsuitable for boats - Practical Boat Owner (pbo.co.uk)

Hot-as or cheap-ass? Don’t get burned by a Chinese diesel heater - RV Daily - Issue 043
 
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TNLI said:
A workshop is not a boat in a salty harbour. The corrosion rate is 800 times higher in dry deresert air than salty humid air for steel. If the burner is made of cast alloy it just depends on how cheap the type of alumiunium used is, although that is also true of different types of steel. Expensive grades od aluminium are only subject to electrolysis or fatigue issues, but the cheap stuff corrodes as fast as most steel in salty air. Stainless steel is real good unless it's recycled stuff. Like high grade steel stainless needs to be made from Iron ore, not recylcled steel.
The OP unit is an alloy one, but the rest are described as metal and plastic, so they don't say.

It's unlikely that anyone sleeps on a regular basis in a workshop setting, so it's a safe place to use a cheap diesel heater.

Beware “lethal exhausts” unsuitable for boats - Practical Boat Owner (pbo.co.uk)

Hot-as or cheap-ass? Don’t get burned by a Chinese diesel heater - RV Daily - Issue 043
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Actually, I have one on the boat as well, it's done less hours than the workshop one but still gets stripped in the summer, has no corrosion and the only replacement part has been a glow plug, we are also liveaboards, so the use is higher than most.
As I've said, I strip them every year and have found no evidence of corrosion or had any problems with it, I use an "Afterburner" controller with the one on the boat which runs it in the same manner as Webasto and Eberspacher, ie not running at max and then idle, it holds the temperature at whatever you set it.
I bought three of them, keeping one as a spare as I'd heard all the horror stories, it hasn't been used.
The boat is kept in a tidal river.
Out of interest, can you link to a steel bodied diesel heater, as I've never come across one and would be interested in seeing it.
 
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TNLI said:
The cheap Chinese ones are steel. I paid about 100 quid for the one I used in the yard. There might be alloy ones, although alloy can corrode faster than painted steel, so what you want is a stainless one, and they seem to start around the 700 quid mark according to the fittings and output.
This was the one I purchased, it says metal and plastic but it's just cheap steel. 5000W Air diesel Heater LCD Remote 2KW-5KW 12V For Lorry MotorHomes Clearance 6941689877245 | eBay
There are similar versions with more plastic, but none of them are stainless or approved for use whilst sleeping, although it did warn about the danger in the instructions.
If you find one with an alloy cover, do some real research to check what the actual heat exchanger is made of. If it's steel or aluminium it will eventually corrode.
Click to expand...

You got it all wrong mate. Thousands of people have these and thousands of people are happy with them including me
 
OK so here is some fuel for the fire.

Being a convert to the Chinaspacher and now I have a new boat, do I simply bin the Eber D4 it came with now and fit a reliable heater instead ?
 
Ok here is an odd one to me, and would like if somebody can explain it to me, i am speaking to a BSS examiner about tis at the and e is not explaining, but then they are like dodgy MOT inspectors anyway.

I want to fit te heater unit in the main cabin in its own sealed locker, have a 20l tank and all fittings will be decent ones, not te naff they come with. Which can be used on an interim time whilst the BSS is updated on these units.

These units are sealed, the same as the Propex HS200, and the Propex can be in the cabin in an unsealed locker/cabinet.

Both the LPG and Diesel heaters draw cold air in and blow out warm heated are into the main cabin. Both units draw in and exhaust combustion gasses into and out the boat.

But the diesel heaters are not allowed into the main cabin at all, even in a sealed locker.


What am i missing but for the BSS a bit crap with things.

C Faffer :)
 
Owning a Chinese heater, let's be honest, the exhaust pipework and silencer are crap. Definitely ditch the included piping and buy decent stuff.
I read TNLI's article. Some points are fair but the author has a serious dose of confirmation bias going on.
Answering some of his points is this. A lot of of the issues with Chinese heater installs is the fact that because they are often a 1/10th of the price of the big name brands, they are bought in far higher volume and by people who probably wouldn't be buying a heater if they were limited to those TEN times the price. These heaters are the price of (or less than) a tank of petrol for your car and can be bought online without any hassles. That means pretty much anyone can 'have a go' with one. So on one hand that's great so diesel heaters aren't limited to some kind of 'heater elite' but on the flip side that does lend to people who may not know one end of a spanner to the other, having a go and paying the price..

If you use your brain and a bit of caution, they are certainly worth a stab.. Near 1 year in, I'm happy I spent a tank of petrol on buying one.
 
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