Good Value Boat heaters

There are some photos on the rally F B page of it installed. Need to put bulkhead in and tidy cable runs etc. But I have established that I need to take my fleecy off when it's running..... Do fit a silencer to it though, Southern Lasers do one and it's top notch, British and good value. Bin the silencer that came with it. That is not sealed so will slowly poison you! I
 
Hot Property said:
There are some photos on the rally F B page of it installed. Need to put bulkhead in and tidy cable runs etc. But I have established that I need to take my fleecy off when it's running..... Do fit a silencer to it though, Southern Lasers do one and it's top notch, British and good value. Bin the silencer that came with it. That is not sealed so will slowly poison you! I
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Thanks Nick I will look at your pics. Yes I have a nice new sealed silencer
 
I decided to set the second one I bought up in my workshop. I put the supplied exhaust outside through the wall. These are very easy to set up and get going.


Also it is amazing how tolerant they are to bubbles in the fuel.


Here is a short clip of it running to see how quiet it is and also a clip of the exhaust to hear the same.


I am now running it for an hour to see how warn the workshop gets and how much fuel I use in an hour. I have ordered a 12 volt power supply for the final installation in the workshop


Sad what I get up to on a Saturday





Dennis
 
So I ran the heater for an hour in the workshop set to 23 degrees C. It did not switch off once in the hour and the workshop was noticeably warmer.

As for fuel burn. I took the following before and after pics of the tank and by measuring the height to the top of the fuel I got

Height at start 347 mm height after 1 hour 330 mm so 17/347 = 0.0489 x 10 ltrs assuming the tank was full to the 10 ltr level which it was not quite... So about 0.45 - 0.5 ltrs an hour flat out as others have said.


I pay about 65 p per ltr for heating oil so about 37.5p per hour for 5KW.... Equivalent electric would be about 70 - 80 p

Before
IMG-4410-15230.jpg

After 1 hour
IMG-4413-15231.jpg
 
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Bigplumbs said:
I decided to set the second one I bought up in my workshop. I put the supplied exhaust outside through the wall. These are very easy to set up and get going.


Also it is amazing how tolerant they are to bubbles in the fuel.


Here is a short clip of it running to see how quiet it is and also a clip of the exhaust to hear the same.


I am now running it for an hour to see how warn the workshop gets and how much fuel I use in an hour. I have ordered a 12 volt power supply for the final installation in the workshop


Sad what I get up to on a Saturday





Dennis
Click to expand...
Dennis

I have spent the day fitting another heater to a friends camper van, replacing an Eber D4 which did not work.

He has the same controller as yours, which doesn't work quite the same as mine which although similar certainly functions differently.

This one is not so intuitive and when it (eventually) goes to Off the display stay lit up. To turn it completely off we pulled the fuse on the +VE connection.

The supplied instructions are appallingly bad -

do you have a idiots guide to your controller ?
 
No instructions but there are several videos on You Tube. When you hit off on the remote of hold the power button on the display the heater shuts down but it takes a while as it has to didipate the heat built up.

The screen never goes off unless you disconnect the power supply completely

Dennis
 
A mate has a workshop he is currently using a lot as he is completely gutting and re-furbing a boat. He installed one of the cheap diesel heaters to heat the workshop and he was telling me last night that it has run sixty to seventy hours, maybe more, and he thinks it is brilliant. Definitely an option should our Ebby ever pack up.
 
My Webasto Airtop 5500 crapped out on Friday so fitted my spare Chinese heater.
I can confirm it fits the mounting plate and the exhaust is the same.
Changed the fuel pumps over and I used a 90mm-75mm reducer for the ducting and spliced into the power feed for the Webasto, meaning I can leave all the fittings in place enabling the units to be easily swapped.
It fired up straight away and copes pretty well with a 46 foot boat.
 
With the best part of 30,000 views and 280 comments on this subject, is it fair to say that the fears of the chinese copies bursting into flames is unfounded?

Interesting comment regarding insurance cover for those that have taken the plunge in the February 2019 copy of Motorboat Owner. http://www.motorboatowner.co.uk/index.php

You'll have to sign up for their digital magazine as copyright on the article! No connection with the company by the way...

Trevor, did you find any hard evidence of reported fires in your quest?
 
Hot Property said:
With the best part of 30,000 views and 280 comments on this subject, is it fair to say that the fears of the chinese copies bursting into flames is unfounded?

Interesting comment regarding insurance cover for those that have taken the plunge in the February 2019 copy of Motorboat Owner. http://www.motorboatowner.co.uk/index.php

You'll have to sign up for their digital magazine as copyright on the article! No connection with the company by the way...

Trevor, did you find any hard evidence of reported fires in your quest?
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Apparently the report of a fire came from someone bench testing who was blocking the main vent air inlet, but this is a hearsay report. Otherwise no reports of any unit catching fire on the Facebook group with many hundreds of active comments over longer than a year (most of these are using them for vans and campers, et al).

I want to try an overheat trip test, but cannot find at what temperature the heater should cut out. I did let the internal temp rise to 210oC before I bottled it, but I think the limit is 225oC.

I fitted another to a friend's camper yesterday and that performed as my own. However, it does have a subtly different controller inasmuch as the keys are on opposite sides of the controller, button press sequences are different, and it does not turn off the display when the unit is turned off (after cool back period).
 
My display stays on all the while unless I disconnect the power supply. It keeps the clock correct. It might have a setting to switch of the display but no instructions so I will have a search
 
Our 2KW Planar russian beast was used in real anger over weekend,on for over 24 hours.No problems with the supplied silencer.
Coldest night we have stayed aboard during this winter.Heated boat nicely (not tropical).
Three more chinese heaters have recently entered service at club, 2 being installed over weekend.All seemed to have cost around £130.00.
All replacements for ancient and troublesome Ebers.Only minor problem was of converting warm air O/P of heater to existing trunking, on one rather mature boat this appeared to be 50mm ?
Of probably about a dozen or so heaters bought so far, only one was a WeberSpatcher.
Mainly owner installed.
 
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oldgit said:
Our 2KW Planar russian beast was used in real anger over weekend,on for over 24 hours.No problems with the supplied silencer.
Coldest night we have stayed aboard during this winter.Heated boat nicely (not tropical).
Three more chinese heaters have recently entered service at club, 2 being installed over weekend.All seemed to have cost around £130.00.
All replacements for ancient and troublesome Ebers.Only minor problem was of converting warm air O/P of heater to existing trunking, on one rather mature boat this appeared to be 50mm ?
Of probably about a dozen or so heaters bought so far, only one was a WeberSpatcher.
Mainly owner installed.
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I am still amazed at what you get for £130. All the accessories as well as the heater.

Beware the jubilee clips are poor and sometimes the fuel filter leaks but replacements are very reasonable to buy.

These could easily put the other two out of business...… but maybe they have had it too good too long
 
Bigplumbs said:
I am still amazed at what you get for £130. All the accessories as well as the heater.

Beware the jubilee clips are poor and sometimes the fuel filter leaks but replacements are very reasonable to buy.

These could easily put the other two out of business...… but maybe they have had it too good too long
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I don't have a lot of sympathy for them really....... https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-...r-parking-heater-cartel-idUSB5N0WL00T20150617

Not a lot of people know that!
 
Hot Property said:
I don't have a lot of sympathy for them really....... https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-...r-parking-heater-cartel-idUSB5N0WL00T20150617

Not a lot of people know that!
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Thanks Nick that is incredible. So all can see I have copied and pasted the information below

EU imposes 68 mln euro fine for parking heater cartel


BRUSSELS, June 17 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it had imposed a fine of 68 million euros ($76.6 million) on Germany’s Eberspaecher Group after finding it and another automotive parts company had fixed prices of heating systems in cars and trucks.
The Commission said Eberspaecher and Webasto had coordinated prices of fuel-operated parking heaters for parked vehicles and auxiliary heaters for 10 years from 2001.
“For over 10 years, the only two suppliers of parking heaters in Europe colluded to avoid competing with each other. This cosy arrangement adversely affected a major part of the European automotive industry and ultimately those who buy cars and trucks,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.


The Commission said that when the companies received requests for price quotations from car or truck manufacturers, they discussed various price elements, agreed which of the two would submit the winning lower bid, and exchanged other commercially sensitive information.
“The two companies also colluded when selling to dealers in Germany and Austria, for example by harmonising their annual price lists and the discounts they would give to these dealers,” it continued.
Webasto avoided a potential fine of 222 million euros because it revealed the existence of the cartel. Eberspaecher benefited from reductions due to its cooperation with the investigation and its agreement to settle with the Commission.
 
Boat2016 said:
Not sure what all the R & D costs were to those that first produced diesel heaters but I would say it was significantly more than it was for the Chinese factory that just copied one, not sure how they get away with.
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I think the information about the Cartel explains how the main 2 got away with it but I don't think that was what you originally meant :)
 
Bigplumbs said:
Thanks Nick that is incredible. So all can see I have copied and pasted the information below

EU imposes 68 mln euro fine for parking heater cartel


BRUSSELS, June 17 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it had imposed a fine of 68 million euros ($76.6 million) on Germany’s Eberspaecher Group after finding it and another automotive parts company had fixed prices of heating systems in cars and trucks.
The Commission said Eberspaecher and Webasto had coordinated prices of fuel-operated parking heaters for parked vehicles and auxiliary heaters for 10 years from 2001.
“For over 10 years, the only two suppliers of parking heaters in Europe colluded to avoid competing with each other. This cosy arrangement adversely affected a major part of the European automotive industry and ultimately those who buy cars and trucks,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.


The Commission said that when the companies received requests for price quotations from car or truck manufacturers, they discussed various price elements, agreed which of the two would submit the winning lower bid, and exchanged other commercially sensitive information.
“The two companies also colluded when selling to dealers in Germany and Austria, for example by harmonising their annual price lists and the discounts they would give to these dealers,” it continued.
Webasto avoided a potential fine of 222 million euros because it revealed the existence of the cartel. Eberspaecher benefited from reductions due to its cooperation with the investigation and its agreement to settle with the Commission.
Click to expand...

Priceless :D But of course not unsurprising nor that uncommon. The fact that we all sucked up to it and believe with conviction that more expensive always means better is the bitter pill.
 
Time to buy me a cheep cheep Chinese heater. Thank you for your input, after all the mud slinging and trolling I think we have found a winner. :encouragement:
 
I keep hearing the non sealed silencer mentioned and can't help thinking 15 mins with a tig welder would have the original fully sealed around the seam, my eber silencer is a non sealed type but it is in fairly open airflow but I might just do a weld up if I have to take it off for any reason.
I was quite anti on these chinaspachers to start with but am changing my mind on them now.
 
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