webasto - fumes in cabin

[corinthmistral]

Hi there. I have a webasto HL32D. It fires up ok and runs fine (provided the batteries are completely charged). After a few minutes of running I notice a very faint mist in the cabin. I shone a torch near the heat outlets and, again, the fine mist is evident. It doesn't smell particularly of exhaust fumes, but as stated, it is really a very faint mist. I checked whether the exhaust silencer is an automotive type with the drain hole, but I can't see one anywhere obvious. The heater is mounted in an aft locker with the air inlet drawing air within the locker rather than from outside (not ideal I know). Again, the mist is evident there. Query: is there a seal inside the unit that could have broken down, thus allowing exhaust to be sucked into the clean air stream? I guess my next step is to place a pipe over the air inlet when running to ensure that only clean air can enter the unit. Any comments, advice or suggestions gratefully received. Also, can anyone recommend a good webasto engineer on the east coast (boat is at tollesbury). I believe that bob ballard is recommended - anyone had good / bad experience? Many thanks.

 

[pvb]

Don't use it. Get it professionally serviced. And, ideally, re-route the intake air to a clean area.

 

[shaunksb]

I find that it is very difficult to get a good seal on the exhaust of these type of heaters.

On my new boat I got some high temperature gasket sealent from halfords and this seems to have worked a treat.


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[Deefor]

I once had an old Eberspacher that had an internal seal that had given up, leading to fumes in the warm air outlet ducting. Struggled to find a marine engineer to look at the problem for a reasonable cost, so I turned to commercial truck and bus dealers who supplied and fitted warm air units. Labour charges were around half of what the marine guys wanted .

Six months later, the electronics gave up so ended up changing to Webasto .

 

[David2452]

Could be anything from a leaking exhaust, joint to stub, corroded pipe, joints at admittedly inapropriate silencer etc. (never, never draw heating air in from the same space as the exhaust) to a porus heat exchanger, they should be changed as a service item at 10 years (cue "I've had mine 20 years and it's still OK etc etc) a warped face causing the gasket to leak between the heat exhanger face and combustion air blower. As has been said get it looked at and don't use it until you have, it's probably well time it had a proper service anyway Whilst the CO levels produced by diesel heaters should be below 200ppm it can not be guaranteed if they are not set up properly and there is still the CO2 to contend with which is at around 10 - 12% by volume.
Worth noting that parts apart from a few basics are getting very scarce for these critters now too.

 

[alteredoutlook]

have a look at the heater unit whilst it is running - maybe exhaust is leaking from exhaust pipe and rising northwards into the unit through the rubber seals and then being blown out through the ducting.

 

[Jabamusic]

Dave2452 seems as though he knows what he's talking about...........

From what I've read and learnt, exhaust leaks are certainly well avoided and Eberspacher for example very strongly advise replacement/renewal of internal gaskets on mine (and I'm sure on all heaters) as leakage there can result in gases mixing from the exhaust into the expelled warmed air circuit.
I've just done mine - It was a cheap and easy job (£25 and less than an hour).

Jaba

 

[KevinT1]

I've also a Airtop HL32D - fitted in the Engine room and exhausting to starboard.

It needed to be rebuilt as it stoppped working when the "vaporisor" disintegrated - a piece of lint like material that the diesel is sprayed through.

The issue I had was that having worked it wouldn't fire up and produced a large volume of white smoke without any internal heating, additionally I could hear the ignition “clicking” as it tried to ignite.

You can get the rebuild manual and parts manual from Webasto -it's actually quite easy to strip down and rebuild. Webasto recommend that all the seals are replaced and I decided that from a safety perspective that although it was quite costly I would replace all

I tried to find somebody to rebuild it - but the Webasto agent on Hayling wasn't really interested.

I found www.mellorautoelectrical.co.uk really helpful in identifying the parts and they sent them really quickly - contact stuart@mellorautoelectrical.co.uk on +44 (0)1924 274774 - in all it was about £100 for all the gaskets + vaporiser

PM me with your email address if you want the manuals