Diesel Heaters on Ebay - What's the catch?

[chrisbitz]

It's a very long time since I fitted mine but I recall that there are at least three. Two positives, one a light one for some functions, one a heavy one with a 25 amp fuse for the glow plug current.

This week I have bought a new Propex 2000 unit for the motorsailer. £430 for the unit. The marine kit for it is about £130 but I had an Eberspacher skin fitting that will do the exhaust, I have made a skin fitting for the combustion air so only paid £40 for additional hot air ducting. A full Calor bottle will apparently last 30 hours and we have no problem sourcing bottles, so this seems an economical way to go.

once again vyv_cox comes up with the common sense answer for those of us without 50' gin palaces! £600 seems reasonable with a bit of a strain, compared to the eye-watering £1500-£2000 that everyone else seems to be able to splash out with spare change on a whim!

 

[Pete7]

You can get a marine Airtronic D2 kit for £1297 from Butler Technik, including 2 metres of insulated exhaust and 4.5 metres of duct - http://sales.butlertechnik.com/eber...ll-kit/eberspacher-heater-d2-12v-marine-e6438

We fitted one of their Webasto 2000ST units two years ago now. The additional bits needed were longer air ducting, exhaust skin fitting, large mounting bracket. Took 3 days including laminating a piece of plywood to the inside of the cockpit locker to mount the unit on. Bits were sourced via e bay over a couple of months and the whole lot probably came to £900. Only regret was not doing it years ago. A bog standard marine kit isn't going to have the right number of joining pieces and ducting lengths. Butler Technik even managed to cobble together a male to male 90 deg bend in 60mm ducting for me. I would be happy to buy a vehicle kit from them again.

Pete

 

[Tranona]

But the Propex is a very different product from the Eber, and despite its lower cost has not made much impression on the market. Every product has its price and associated benefits and the "market seems to say that the Eber/Webasto/Mikuni product type does the job. Ridiculous to say people spend the money "on a whim" - they pay it because they believe it is worth it! If they thought they could get the same for half the price they would surely do it - but they don't, which suggests the half price product is not suitable for their needs.

You have the choice, so make your own decision, but don't criticise others if their decision is different from yours.

 

[Steve_N]

As the thread title is 'Diesel Heaters on Ebay - What's the catch?' I may as well recount my Ebay+Eberspacher experience, although I'm not suggesting it's at all relevant to any of the links in previous posts. Interesting perhaps nevertheless.

I won a new D5WZ Hydronic unit for very little money (£250ish) from a guy who had a dozen or so to sell, plus water pumps, ancilliaries etc.
It duly arrived, but minus its serial no. plate, which I naively thought might mean it was a factory 2nd. or returned unit. Oh well.

After I'd installed it I got an email from Bedfordshire Constabulary asking if I'd bought an Eber off Ebay recently and could they have the serial no. Of course I had no serial no. to give them but offerred all the help I could.

Turns out it was one of batch of 20 stolen from General Motors in Luton(?) and the Ebay seller had been arrested.
Luckily for me I was told that GM did not want the unit back and I could keep it and it's producing nice hot water to this day..

 

[pvb]

Stolen goods on eBay? Whatever next??

 

[chrisbitz]

But the Propex is a very different product from the Eber, and despite its lower cost has not made much impression on the market. Every product has its price and associated benefits and the "market seems to say that the Eber/Webasto/Mikuni product type does the job. Ridiculous to say people spend the money "on a whim" - they pay it because they believe it is worth it! If they thought they could get the same for half the price they would surely do it - but they don't, which suggests the half price product is not suitable for their needs.

You have the choice, so make your own decision, but don't criticise others if their decision is different from yours.

With respect, how is the propex a "very different" product to the eber? They're both external fuel heaters with external exhausts. They look similar, sound similar, and have a fairly similar mechanism. They give out similar heat outputs too. Except one is 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of the other!

Regarding your criticism point i dont think i was criticising anyone. At worst, I was making fun of people that make suggestions on a price related topic, without any consideration to financial constraints. They may pay £2-3k to have an eber fitted professionally, and maybe it's worth it... IF you have that kind of disposable money. For some people "being worth it" is not an issue. Its a case of either pay £600 for a heater, or do without. And in that case, a £600 marine heater, self-fitted is absolulutely worth it!

 

[contessaman]

yeah. pinched stuff not good. Im of the opinion that you roughly get what you pay for and if the price seems too good to be true, well - it probably is! It brings me back around to my earlier post. Proper prices from a proper dealer. Or a nice cheap grubby one from a vehicle dismantlers. mine came with its serial number, the VIN of the BT van it was removed from and a receipt too.

The propex stuff is cheaper and seems popular with caravans etc. I did look into it but when I did some maths unless you are buying the huge 6 foot gas cylinders it works out quite a lot more expensive to run than an eber on 60/40 duty diesel. we dont live near the sea so spend quite a bit of time at the boat when we get there.
Depending on ones circumstances though, there is a counter argument for gas. I was thinking, in the summer I'd probably only use the heater a bit on a chilly evening at start or end of season and for the odd warm up when cold at sea - so the cost per hour not so important - running of the same little gas bottle as the cooker. Then for the winter, chances are we are at the boat to do some work or use it as a caravan and less likely to be sailing, so perhaps one could rig up a much larger (and hence better value) bottle in the cockpit or even on the pontoon?

All said and done the eber is cracking and worth every penny. I wouldn't spend 2 grand on one becuase by boat is probably only worth £15-20k. But if I had a decent boat worth significantly more wedge I wouldnt think twice about splashing out several grand on an excellent heating system. In this climate if you want to keep family interested rather than slum it, its money well spent!

 

[David2452]

With respect, how is the propex a "very different" product to the eber? They're both external fuel heaters with external exhausts. They look similar, sound similar, and have a fairly similar mechanism. They give out similar heat outputs too. Except one is 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of the other!

Regarding your criticism point i dont think i was criticising anyone. At worst, I was making fun of people that make suggestions on a price related topic, without any consideration to financial constraints. They may pay £2-3k to have an eber fitted professionally, and maybe it's worth it... IF you have that kind of disposable money. For some people "being worth it" is not an issue. Its a case of either pay £600 for a heater, or do without. And in that case, a £600 marine heater, self-fitted is absolulutely worth it!

The major difference between Weberskuni and Propex / Alde et al is the convenience factor and low initial cost, single source of plenty of fuel is better IMHO, whilst I appreciate that most boats also have LPG aboard, the quantity carried is usually relatively small and you would be regularly changing over bottles if using the heater a lot and we all know when gas runs out (like when other stuff runs out) It is at an inconvenient moment. The other issue is the inkjet printer and cartridge analogy, inkjet printers are cheap to buy but expensive to run and that's why people buy more expensive laser printers. You pay more and have convenience and lower running costs. Unless one has a cheap and plentiful LPG supply I reckon the cost differential over a few hundred hours is negligible and from then on you are in the money with a diesel. Gas heaters are just another solution when appropriate to customer expectations as diesel heaters are a solution when they are appropriate . I have been asked to swap gas heaters out for diesel by heavy use customers fed up with the running costs but never the other way around.

 

[chrisbitz]

Thanks for all the advice guys... I've just bought a Propex 2000 for £575. I thought it best to dive in and struggle and spend the money now, rather than the likely - Umm and ahh about it for months, and end up buying one in march, right at the end of the winter!

Now I've got to figure out the fitting....

 

[Tranona]

With respect, how is the propex a "very different" product to the eber? They're both external fuel heaters with external exhausts. They look similar, sound similar, and have a fairly similar mechanism. They give out similar heat outputs too. Except one is 1/3 to 1/2 of the price of the other!

Because it runs on gas and uses lots of it, so you have to find storage for a very large gas cylinder if you are going to use it for any length of time. Hot air heaters are popular and justify their price by being economical and running on fuel from an existing tank.

Simply a question of getting what you pay for. The cheaper product offers less benefits. If you don't value the benefits of the more expensive product, don't buy it. If the cheaper one was as good for the purpose, why would the manufacturer sell it for half the price?

You are right, if you only have £600 and want a heater then buy it - just don't expect to get as good a job as if you had paid twice the price. Clearly for most people they would rather do without than buy the cheap product, or pay for something that does satisfy them.

 

[chrisbitz]

Because it runs on gas and uses lots of it, so you have to find storage for a very large gas cylinder if you are going to use it for any length of time.

Absolutely.

A 7KG gas bottle lasts for 30 hours. So assuming 5 hours per evening (is that realistic since the thermostat turns it on and off?) a bottle will last around 6 nights. That doesn't sound crazy uneconomical to me, and my boat has 2 7kg bottles. Is a 7KG bottle what you'd call very large, or were you suggesting one of those really tall ones? Surely nobody would have one of those on their boat?

£900 saving in purchase price buys a LOT of 7KG gas bottles @ £20, spread over a long period too.