More Chinese diesel heater questions

[Dellquay13]

. Fact 1: I cannot afford an Eber/Web/Planar heater
. Fact 2: I have installed high quality exhaust hose and clamps, stainless mounting plate, better fuel line etc, binning the junk ancillaries.
. Fact 3: I only need a 2kw heater on a small boat, better to run a small heater on medium than a bigger heater on minimum.

I have installed a 2kw Chinese heater. It is either going in the bin or hopefully back to the eBay store because it overheats and stops with the error code E-05, even when set up in the garden without any ducting or other air flow restrictions. I believe it is a rogue heater, as many other people use them without any issues.

It is the same size case as the usual 5kw/8kw units out there, about 37cm long with 75mm ducting.
However, most of the 2kw heaters are smaller, about 32cm long with smaller 60mm ducting.

My questions are, do these smaller 2kw heaters still use 24mm exhaust hose? Are the fixing point centres and combustion in/out vents the same as the larger ones, will they fit on my expensive mounting bracket?

Here are pictures of the cheap mounting plate supplied and ports on the 37cm heater. The fixing studs are 55mm x 44mm, and the inlet/outlet centres are 55mm apart.

I have my hard hat on, waiting for the flak…

 

[bergie]

It sounds like you have a defective unit. Have you contacted the vendor about a warranty replacement? We got our Vevor heater replaced for free when it failed after a year (something about the fan sensors). The new unit arrived in just a few days, and was a 20min job to swap.

 

[Dellquay13]

It sounds like you have a defective unit. Have you contacted the vendor about a warranty replacement? We got our Vevor heater replaced for free when it failed after a year (something about the fan sensors). The new unit arrived in just a few days, and was a 20min job to swap.

I am waiting on a reply from the vendor. I will accept a replacement if offered.
If I don’t get satisfactory results there, I’ll search for another supplier, but wanted to know if the 32cm and 37cm units are easily interchangeable for exhaust and mounts.

 

[bergie]

Can't say. Our boat originally had an old 5kW Webasto unit. Since then we've had a 5kW and a 2kW Vevor unit fitted (the latter borrowed from a neighbouring boat to test with). The body of the Vevor units was smaller than the Webasto, but all have worked with the same mounts and piping.

 

[Refueler]

It sounds like you have a defective unit. Have you contacted the vendor about a warranty replacement? We got our Vevor heater replaced for free when it failed after a year (something about the fan sensors). The new unit arrived in just a few days, and was a 20min job to swap.

Blimey ---- don't let Paul know you are using a Chinese Vevor !! He'll be having kittens waiting for your boat to go up in flames ....

(I have a 5KW Vevor .... )

 

[iantomlinson]

Our 5kw Chinese packed in and the replacement turned out to be a 2kw version. All exact same fitting sizes except the inlet and outlet air hoses are smaller on the 2kw.

 

[Graham376]

.

I have installed a 2kw Chinese heater. It is either going in the bin or hopefully back to the eBay store because it overheats and stops, even when set up in the garden without any ducting or other air flow restrictions. I believe it is a rogue heater, as many other people use them without any issues.

I installed a Chinese heater and ran it for the first time just before we left the boat in October. It was installed using the old D3LC Eber exhaust and ducting. On first start, no need to prime as the fuel line was already full, I had only changed the pump. It certainly seemed to be overheating so I shut it down before it did it itself.

We'll be back on board after Christmas so need to sort it then. Googling around, have found a couple of comments suggesting they can be set up wrongly from the factory with the fuel pump running too fast, which can be sorted via the controller. Fortunately, I have a spare unit so can swap over if it's faulty.

 

[webcraft]

A free tip - buy a new silicon base gasket from Ebay and use it to replace the supplied rubber one to avoid a smell of burning rubber which takes many, many hours of operation to begin to dissipate.

- W

 

[Graham376]

A free tip - buy a new silicon base gasket from Ebay and use it to replace the supplied rubber one to avoid a smell of burning rubber which takes many, many hours of operation to begin to dissipate.

- W

Thanks for the tip, maybe that was the smell I associated with overheating.

 

[Dellquay13]

Our 5kw Chinese packed in and the replacement turned out to be a 2kw version. All exact same fitting sizes except the inlet and outlet air hoses are smaller on the 2kw.

Were the combustion inlet and exhaust the same 24mm on the 2kw as the 5kw?
I take it you mean the warm air ducting was smaller? Most 2kw have 60mm duct instead of 75mm.
I’m not too concerned about the ducting, that just needs a cheap adaptor, it’s the expensive exhaust and mount I’d rather not replace.

 

[bergie]

Blimey ---- don't let Paul know you are using a Chinese Vevor !! He'll be having kittens waiting for your boat to go up in flames ....

(I have a 5KW Vevor .... )

I have nothing bad to say about the Vevor heaters. Ours has kept us warm and cozy through two northern European winters, and all that for less money than a new glow plug would've cost for the Webasto.
And unlike the old Webasto, this one has a remote. It is nice to turn up the heat in the morning before getting out of bed to make coffee.

We do carry a second unit as a spare, as heater was seen as quite mission critical when we sailed high latitudes. Now in Canaries, it is less so.

 

[superheat6k]

Blimey ---- don't let Paul know you are using a Chinese Vevor !! He'll be having kittens waiting for your boat to go up in flames ....

(I have a 5KW Vevor .... )

It will be a very long pregnancy !

 

[hurley]

Last week I replaced an old Webasto with worn screeching bearings with a 2kw china heater. The exhast od is 24mm. I bought a stainless steel adapter from Ebay to allow the step upto my 28mm ID stainless exhast. I just gave the eBay seller the od and ID sizes and it was made to measure. It was a tenner. Just used my verniers to measure up. The replacement webasto parts were about 300 quid. The china heater under 100 quid and it works very well.

 

[Dellquay13]

Last week I replaced an old Webasto with worn screeching bearings with a 2kw china heater. The exhast od is 24mm. I bought a stainless steel adapter from Ebay to allow the step upto my 28mm ID stainless exhast. I just gave the eBay seller the od and ID sizes and it was made to measure. It was a tenner. Just used my verniers to measure up. The replacement webasto parts were about 300 quid. The china heater under 100 quid and it works very well.

Is your new 2kw heater the larger 37cm unit with 75mm ducting or the smaller 32cm one with the 60mm duct?

 

[peteK]

Were the combustion inlet and exhaust the same 24mm on the 2kw as the 5kw?
I take it you mean the warm air ducting was smaller? Most 2kw have 60mm duct instead of 75mm.
I’m not too concerned about the ducting, that just needs a cheap adaptor, it’s the expensive exhaust and mount I’d rather not replace.

The combustion and exhaust are the same size on 2kw and 5kw also the mounting plate is the same.

 

[Dellquay13]

The combustion and exhaust are the same size on 2kw and 5kw also the mounting plate is the same.

Sadly this is still needing further clarification as there are 2 sizes of 2kw heater commonly for sale.

To save anyone having to read the whole thread;

Large size same as 5kw or 8kw 37cm with 75mm duct
Small size 2kw only 32cm with 60mm duct

 

[Hunterlees]

Something to watch out for if replacing with chinese unit is to use the supplied pump. I replaced mine to an hcalory unit using my old pump which was plumbed in a distance away from the heater then found that they have different pump rates causing the heater to overheat and run with a lot of smoke. Swopped to supplied pump, problem sorted.

 

[peteK]

Sadly this is still needing further clarification as there are 2 sizes of 2kw heater commonly for sale.

To save anyone having to read the whole thread;

Large size same as 5kw or 8kw 37cm with 75mm duct
Small size 2kw only 32cm with 60mm duct

The genuine small size 2kw is 24mm ,the larger size 2kw which is actually a 5kw but ran on low is 2kw is 24mm and the falsely advertised 8kw which is actually 5kw with a 8kw label is 24mm.Hope that helps.

 

[Dellquay13]

The genuine small size 2kw is 24mm ,the larger size 2kw which is actually a 5kw but ran on low is 2kw is 24mm and the falsely advertised 8kw which is actually 5kw with a 8kw label is 24mm.Hope that helps.

Thank you for the comprehensive info. I did think it highly likely that the larger 2kw size I have is just a detuned 5kw.

 

[Aquanaught]

I recently replaced a 20+ yr old Eber with a HLN "chinese " heater - is better made but pricier than the cheaper types but choose mainly because its exactly the same size as the D3LC it replaced and with 4 KW output. However I found after careful inspection of the old exhaust which I inteded to keep that the exhaust easily cracked on the bends and had to be scrapped. So please don't assume an old exhaust is still good - they clearly have a limited life.