Diesel heater

[Canoestern]

I would like to fit a diesel heater in our Frances 26. I can’t afford a Webasto or Eberspacher, so would like to hear any advice on choosing and fitting a Chinese model. Any recommendations or warnings about particular models will be very much appreciated!

 

[oldgit]

Just fitted a generic 2K Chinaspacher to a small Peche Promenade
Search hard and you might still be able to buy the complete heater kit from around £100..
Throw away and replace all the nasty nasty cheap jubilee clips, buy a decent silencer plus length of stainless exhaust hose if you (or your neighbours) want a quiet life plus a hull exhaust fitting.
You will almost certainly need to buy a metre or two of extra warm air ducting.
All the bits cost about £150.00.
The big challenges........ finding somewhere to hide all the stuff in a small boat,remember you will want to get at it again at some point.
Then taking your heart in your hand.....drill the fuel tank and that big hole in the hull.
Ours started up first time even though the battery voltage was pretty low.
The man in the boat opposite had the local offical Eberbasto agent in the day before, his Eber conked out. Bill was £480.00 inc labour.
Ours came with remote tank but to much fuss to secure it and probably to much fuss and whiff to keep it topped up.

 

[david_bagshaw]

I would like to fit a diesel heater in our Frances 26. I can’t afford a Webasto or Eberspacher, so would like to hear any advice on choosing and fitting a Chinese model. Any recommendations or warnings about particular models will be very much appreciated!

go to these guys, planar...

I bought one of their 8 Kw heaters nearly 4 years ago, excellent bit of kit, and fully supported in the uk.

happy customer, no connection etc

 

[ChromeDome]

The man in the boat opposite had the local offical Eberbasto agent in the day before, his Eber conked out. Bill was £480.00 inc labour.

Price sounds like repair of the old, not a new heater installed?

 

[ChromeDome]

Any evidence of actual performance from the Chinese haeters? Seems they deliver same unit as 5 and 8 kw..

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We are very happy with our chinaspacher heater. It came from Vevor, 5kw, under £100. I connected ours to the previous heater exhaust. But failing that, new exhausts of a satisfactory standard can be bought, possibly from Planar.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Any evidence of actual performance from the Chinese haeters? Seems they deliver same unit as 5 and 8 kw..

Ours is 5kw on the spec, 30ft boat, toasty warm. T shirt and shorts for me, OH has been known to take her gilet off. The thermostat is set to 22, the heater runs perhaps half the time, with the washboards out but the cockpit tent closed.

 

[ylop]

Throw away and replace all the nasty nasty cheap jubilee clips, buy a decent silencer plus length of stainless exhaust hose if you (or your neighbours) want a quiet life plus a hull exhaust fitting.

Throw away the van exhaust / silencer regardless of your views on noise! The van version is not air tight and intended to be mounted outside the vehicle - it will leak fumes (potentially CO) into your boat.
Depending how handy you are you may need to buy (or fashion) a bracket. You may need different fittings for connecting to the main fuel tank. You'll likely spend significantly more on the extras than on the heater.

 

[ylop]

Oh and you'll get the bits that you need from MV heating - they seem quite willing to supply accessories for your chinaspachers - although they do their own complete packages and if I was buying from scratch again I might just go there for simplicity. Not quite as cheap but you have someone to call if you need help!

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Throw away the van exhaust / silencer regardless of your views on noise! The van version is not air tight and intended to be mounted outside the vehicle - it will leak fumes (potentially CO) into your boat.
Depending how handy you are you may need to buy (or fashion) a bracket. You may need different fittings for connecting to the main fuel tank. You'll likely spend significantly more on the extras than on the heater.

Very much so. An exhaust is about £120, I made my own bracket. As I don’t use diesel other than this, I swapped the tank that came with it for one I could fit into the space available, the supplied tank was about 40cm square, and flat. I checked the dimensions of the heater, didn’t think about the tank?

 

[ChromeDome]

Ours is 5kw on the spec, 30ft boat, toasty warm. T shirt and shorts for me, OH has been known to take her gilet off. The thermostat is set to 22, the heater runs perhaps half the time, with the washboards out but the cockpit tent closed.

Sorry, wasn't clear.

Is there actually any performance difference between branded 5 kw and 8 kw heaters or is just a way to say they operate in two steps (hi/lo like the )?

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Sorry, wasn't clear.

Is there actually any performance difference between branded 5 kw and 8 kw heaters or is just a way to say they operate in two steps (hi/lo like the )?

I don’t know. I can tell you how ours performs, that‘s all. I would say ours would be fine up to about 35ft. You might want more air duct, and outlets on another boat. On a Frances 26, the ducting they give you is most likely adequate.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Here is a link to some threads about these heaters on this forum:
Search results for query: chinaspacher

 

[calviclassic]

I inherited one in a motorhome. Wouldn’t have bought one. However I’m quite impressed after a couple of uses. Mine has a simple rotary temp control which seems more reliable than the lcd panels. I also refitted mine with a safer stainless mounting plate with collar and upgraded all of the peripherals inc the poor inlet pipe.

 

[peteK]

Sorry, wasn't clear.

Is there actually any performance difference between branded 5 kw and 8 kw heaters or is just a way to say they operate in two steps (hi/lo like the )?

The 8kw Chinese heater is just a 5kw with a 8kw label on it.

 

[ylop]

On a Frances 26, the ducting they give you is most likely adequate.

That might be the sort of thing that helps you pick between them. Mine came with about 30cm of ducting.

 

[LittleSister]

Extensive posts/pages on this very subject only a few weeks old here -
Diesel Heaters

 

[lustyd]

fitting a Chinese model

There's a great Chinese model made by Eberspacher. I think you meant cheap, not Chinese

 

[Graham_Wright]

The instructions (why don't the Chinese employ English speakers for translation?) declare their heaters are pretty indifferent to attitude. I have tried mine every which way without problems.
For me it fits better vertical.

 

[ylop]

The instructions (why don't the Chinese employ English speakers for translation?) declare their heaters are pretty indifferent to attitude. I have tried mine every which way without problems.
For me it fits better vertical.

Interesting - I'm sure mine said had to be horizontal with exhaust and air intake pointing downwards. Almost the only installation instructions. Several pages of barely intelligible instructions on the LCD display.