Diesel Heaters

Little Dorrit

Little Dorrit

Well-Known Member
Joined
27 Jan 2010
Messages
1,295
Location
South Coast
Visit site
My Wallas has finally given up, so I am looking for a replacement. I am not asking for installation advice but simply recommendations. I have seen second hand Eberspacher heaters for roughly double the price of new Chinese and Eastern European imitations so just wanted to ask for some opinions on what to buy. My budget is about £600 including parts.
 
I am waiting a new £95 Chinese model from ebay.
There are about a thousand near-identical listings on there.
In the end, I went for one without a remote control, as I don't want a remote control receiver powered 24/7.
As well as the 95 quid 'kit' I have ordered:
New exhaust , not including transom terminal fitting: £15
elbow bend for exhaust :£12
Lagging for exhaust £11
CO alarm £16
Half decent fuel filter £4
Fire extinguisher £25


Already had mounting bracket, ducting, transom exhaust port, ....

I might sort out some sort of temperature alarm in the locker where it will live.

I will need, in the long run, to partition the locker to keep 'stuff' away from the heater and exhaust.

I will report more when it arrives and I've fired it up.
 
A friend of mine has just fitted a £130 Chinese heater and he told me the final cost was about £500 as he needed to replace most of the fittings (exhaust air ducting etc which were useless) it made me wonder what was inside the bit he couldn't look into! Perhaps the old adage you get what you pay for applies?
 
I installed a Chinese heater from scratch.
£90 for the heater
£40 for the skin fitting
£20 for a length of genuine Eberspacher exhaust hose.
£20 for aluminium ducting
I lagged the exhaust too, but already owned the material for that.

You can add a (marine/gas tight) silencer, more ducting with branches, duct lagging, exhaust condensate drain, etc etc, which will quickly escalate the total cost. These upgrades are expensive no matter what heater you choose.
 
As with Kelpie's synopsis,
but I added a metal fuel strainer and a fuel tank dip kit to add another £15 to the budget ( I already had some suitable fuel hose so didn't use what came with the heater).
That was three years ago and it's worked perfectly.
 
Kelpie said:
I installed a Chinese heater from scratch.
£90 for the heater
£40 for the skin fitting
£20 for a length of genuine Eberspacher exhaust hose.
£20 for aluminium ducting
I lagged the exhaust too, but already owned the material for that.

You can add a (marine/gas tight) silencer, more ducting with branches, duct lagging, exhaust condensate drain, etc etc, which will quickly escalate the total cost. These upgrades are expensive no matter what heater you choose.
Click to expand...
From what I have read on these forums I would say that it's absolutely imperative to use a marine, gastight silencer, if you don't want to risk CO poisoning. See Post#10 in this recent thread ; Chinese heater.
 
I bought a Tricliks heater for the campervan off Ebay. All good quality fittings included for £130, but on a boat you would need a sealed silencer. The stock item is designed to go underneath the vehicle, and has a drain hole underneath to drain condensate. Everything else fits and works fine. 6 months on I found the heater fan was running with no way of switching off. I emailed Triclicks who sent by return a complete set of spare circuit boards and sensors all of which was very simple to fit. I also installed a switch in the supply, with a relay operated sensor to ensure it couldnt be switched off before it had completed it's cooling cycle. Total cost about £180.
 
The silencer is optional. I've not had one on either of my installations. But if you do have one, yes it needs to be marine. Southern Lasers on eBay do them for under £40.
 
No silencer on mine, did buy new exhaust pipe as supplied one is pretty pants and not long enough, reused lagging from old exhaust pipe.
Used exisiting fuel pipes/pump clips/wiring/stand pipe, and the old heater mounting bracket as it was stainless and much thicker than the new one.
Bought new ducting as supplied stuff was way to short, and a T piece to branch off into lower existingsection of the boat.
I reckon I spent roughly 100 gbp on parts plus 85 gbp for the heater itself, which was pretty much the price of the parts needed to fix my old Webasto.

Do some research as they now have blown air heaters that can blow warm air AND heat hot water, they also now do ones with all metal outer casings, so they are evolving all the time.

The main thing seems to be the controller, you want this type, as you can adjust the power of the heater by changing the speed of the fuel pump, not all controllers can do this.
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2021-11-10 at 13.19.04.png
    Screen Shot 2021-11-10 at 13.19.04.png
    997 KB · Views: 22
Well the new exhaust hose has turned up, it's one of those on ebay which is mostly spiral but with parallel ends if you see what I mean.
It's complete rubbish.
It's not very flexible and it's halfway flattened in 3 places where it's been packed to post it.
Comes with two of the worst worm drive clips I've ever seen.
It does appear to be non-magnetic stainless steel.
 
lynallbel said:
No silencer on mine, did buy new exhaust pipe as supplied one is pretty pants and not long enough, reused lagging from old exhaust pipe.
Used exisiting fuel pipes/pump clips/wiring/stand pipe, and the old heater mounting bracket as it was stainless and much thicker than the new one.
Bought new ducting as supplied stuff was way to short, and a T piece to branch off into lower existingsection of the boat.
I reckon I spent roughly 100 gbp on parts plus 85 gbp for the heater itself, which was pretty much the price of the parts needed to fix my old Webasto.

Do some research as they now have blown air heaters that can blow warm air AND heat hot water, they also now do ones with all metal outer casings, so they are evolving all the time.

The main thing seems to be the controller, you want this type, as you can adjust the power of the heater by changing the speed of the fuel pump, not all controllers can do this.
Click to expand...
To Lynallbel and Kelpie; the concensus on here seems to be, that if you use these heaters in marinas, your neighbours will thank you for having a silencer. a neighbour in my marina had an unsilenced one, and on a quiet evening it was audible for a considerable distance.
 
Spirit (of Glenans) said:
To Lynallbel and Kelpie; the concensus on here seems to be, that if you use these heaters in marinas, your neighbours will thank you for having a silencer. a neighbour in my marina had an unsilenced one, and on a quiet evening it was audible for a considerable distance.
Click to expand...
Yes it all depends on individual usage- I use a fan heater when I'm in a marina.
 
Neighbour in 'my' marina has one with no silencer as such, but 3ft of corrugated hose probably silences about as much as some of the small so-called silencers?
I got the feeling that more noise came out of the blown air intake than the exhaust.
I'd be more worried by the fumes and blistering heat from his installation, if rafted up perhaps.

If my installation turns out noisy, I will fit a silencer.
 
Lavaner Pro gets a lot of love on the CDH groups on facebook.

Link

I've got one, not quite finished the install but very happy with the quality of the components (only downside is I needed a longer exhaust but they're sold with vans in mind). I did buy the usual addons, skin fitting, silencer, condensation drain and lagging for the hot air pipe and exhaust.
 
The cheap Chinese ones are noisy and as above, neighbours will not thank you if you run without. However cheap silencers are just a box while decent ones have sound damping material in them, but cost very little more. Difficulty is that its not easy to tell the difference buying on line.
 
I have one with no silencer and it is very quiet. An adjacent boat has a marine silencer fitted and there is no difference in noise level emitted in both my and my neighbour`s opinion.
 
My post was prompted by the fact that second hang Eberspacher heaters are available for about £150 and the parts are readily available so I guess my question should have been new Chinese or SH German?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top