2KW diesel heater installed. Review, performance, sound, cost.

Although I no longer have a campervan I still lurk on MHFun
and found this thread absolutely fascinating and informative,
my shed is cold & takes the fun out of being inside for long,
the relatively cheap cost makes buying one won’t make a big hole in my pocket - after all I’ve read I’m edging towards a 2Kw
model . . . now to decide what make to go for as there seems to be more than half a dozen or more to choose between !
finally - well done to everyone who posted their thought.
 
Vikdikdok said:
Although I no longer have a campervan I still lurk on MHFun
and found this thread absolutely fascinating and informative,
my shed is cold & takes the fun out of being inside for long,
the relatively cheap cost makes buying one won’t make a big hole in my pocket - after all I’ve read I’m edging towards a 2Kw
model . . . now to decide what make to go for as there seems to be more than half a dozen or more to choose between !
finally - well done to everyone who posted their thought.
Click to expand...
Depending on how big your shed is you may be better off with a 5kw? Mine is similar to the ones available on Amazon/eBay.
Mine has 4 outlets instead of 1.
 
Last edited:
Vikdikdok said:
Although I no longer have a campervan I still lurk on MHFun
and found this thread absolutely fascinating and informative,
my shed is cold & takes the fun out of being inside for long,
the relatively cheap cost makes buying one won’t make a big hole in my pocket - after all I’ve read I’m edging towards a 2Kw
model . . . now to decide what make to go for as there seems to be more than half a dozen or more to choose between !
finally - well done to everyone who posted their thought.
Click to expand...

I agree with Soycd that depending on the size of your shed that you may be better off with a 5kw heater as I would imagine that your shed is poorly insulated.
 
Vikdikdok said:
Although I no longer have a campervan I still lurk on MHFun
and found this thread absolutely fascinating and informative,
my shed is cold & takes the fun out of being inside for long,
the relatively cheap cost makes buying one won’t make a big hole in my pocket - after all I’ve read I’m edging towards a 2Kw
model . . . now to decide what make to go for as there seems to be more than half a dozen or more to choose between !
finally - well done to everyone who posted their thought.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree with others. The 5KW may be better for a shed. I am guessing little if any insulation and slightly bigger than a motorhome?
I think the 2KW may struggle to warm it up in the first place?

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What is the 12v power consumption of these heater per hour/ day
Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but this is a mammoth thread.
Thanks
 
Gromett said:
Soo... I finally got off my arse and stripped the bed down to get to the Diesel heater.
The GREAT news is.. It took me less than a minute to get the cover off, the electronic housing released and the glow plug out.

The bad news is the hole where the glow plug goes is pretty much solid carbon. Really crunchy and nasty. so I will probably have to strip it down and give it a full service.

Rather than going through the process of stripping everything down today then doing the work tomorrow to reassemble, I am just going to wait for the new one to arrive and swap them out.
I can then service the existing one at my leisure.

BIG lesson learned. You do need to run them on full power for half an hour when you first install one to burn off the coatings from manufacturing etc. AND then you need to give a regular full burn especially if you are running it continuously on the lowest setting.

When I do strip it down I will take some pictures.

I will point out. That my use case is unusual and most people are unlikely to hit this problem. I still have full confidence in these heaters.
Click to expand...
To get around this you can run it on kerosene (if you have the room for a spare tank) which burns a lot cleaner but runs slightly cooler
 
I have 2 diesel heaters. 1, 4kw Eberspacher in a 110 defender and a 5kw Chinese heater in my Defender 130. Both are plumbed direct into the main tank with no issues. The internals are virtually identical with most parts interchangeable, with CDH being a lot cheaper than “branded Eberspacher”. The trick is roughly every 4wks run on full for 30mins to burn the carbon off, a common downside running them on tick over for days at a time. On the 130 I have made a homemade heat exchanger, I have tightly wrapped 10ft of 5mm copper brake pipe around the exhaust pipe close to the heater port. Water is then pumped around in a continuous loop through a 20litre (with micro switch to refill) tank with a separate header tank for expansion. To get to 40c takes about 10-15mins, 80c 25mins, the temp is regulated by the heater burn/pump rate. To prevent the sauna in the van🤣, I’ve put a flap valve in to divert the hot air to the outside. There is a firm called Bobil Vans (I’ve no connection) who can provide a readymade heat exchanger that works in a similar way but uses the hot air not the hot exhaust pipe. My setup with pipe, tank, pumps and clamps came to £53. If your using your heater a lot in winter why not make use of the free side effect? It can also be used for underfloor heating but I’m not brave enough yet!

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Platelet said:
To get around this you can run it on kerosene (if you have the room for a spare tank) which burns a lot cleaner but runs slightly cooler
Click to expand...
That has been covered and as explained above. Unfortunately there is no pumped kerosene near me :( Red diesel is cheaper in the small amounts I buy and I cannot warrant either paying the expensive cost of kerosene by the carton or installing a bunded tank to get 500L delivered.
Red diesel is the best option for me. None of my other Diesel heaters soot like this.
 
Platelet said:
I have 2 diesel heaters. 1, 4kw Eberspacher in a 110 defender and a 5kw Chinese heater in my Defender 130. Both are plumbed direct into the main tank with no issues. The internals are virtually identical with most parts interchangeable, with CDH being a lot cheaper than “branded Eberspacher”. The trick is roughly every 4wks run on full for 30mins to burn the carbon off, a common downside running them on tick over for days at a time. On the 130 I have made a homemade heat exchanger, I have tightly wrapped 10ft of 5mm copper brake pipe around the exhaust pipe close to the heater port. Water is then pumped around in a continuous loop through a 20litre (with micro switch to refill) tank with a separate header tank for expansion. To get to 40c takes about 10-15mins, 80c 25mins, the temp is regulated by the heater burn/pump rate. To prevent the sauna in the van🤣, I’ve put a flap valve in to divert the hot air to the outside. There is a firm called Bobil Vans (I’ve no connection) who can provide a readymade heat exchanger that works in a similar way but uses the hot air not the hot exhaust pipe. My setup with pipe, tank, pumps and clamps came to £53. If your using your heater a lot in winter why not make use of the free side effect? It can also be used for underfloor heating but I’m not brave enough yet!
Click to expand...
I am familiar with both the Truma hot air duct water heater and the Bobil heat exchanger. Neither would help with my issue.

If you had read the thread you would know I have already realised it needs a high burn time periodically and I am doing this with the replacement. I know it is a long thread and you wanted to help but we figured out the cause and have a solution :D just a case of testing. The 2nd one which I was testing the regular burn on is leaking exhaust fumes into the living area so had to be turned off. I am just looking for some time to swap this back out for the original one which has now been cleaned and a new burn chamber installed.

I was aiming to do this a few days ago. But got waylayed by work. I am now going to wait for my new turret to arrive and reinstall the heater in the front gas locker so it is easier to get to and maintain. Going to do it in such a way that I can swap out in minutes if needed.

And before anyone questions the wisdom of diesel heater in the same locker as a gas bottle. the locker is being modified so it will be safe.
 
Gromett said:
I am familiar with both the Truma hot air duct water heater and the Bobil heat exchanger. Neither would help with my issue.

If you had read the thread you would know I have already realised it needs a high burn time periodically and I am doing this with the replacement. I know it is a long thread and you wanted to help but we figured out the cause and have a solution :D just a case of testing. The 2nd one which I was testing the regular burn on is leaking exhaust fumes into the living area so had to be turned off. I am just looking for some time to swap this back out for the original one which has now been cleaned and a new burn chamber installed.

I was aiming to do this a few days ago. But got waylayed by work. I am now going to wait for my new turret to arrive and reinstall the heater in the front gas locker so it is easier to get to and maintain. Going to do it in such a way that I can swap out in minutes if needed.

And before anyone questions the wisdom of diesel heater in the same locker as a gas bottle. the locker is being modified so it will be safe.
Click to expand...
How come it’s leaking fumes, is it split at the base?
 
Platelet said:
How come it’s leaking fumes, is it split at the base?
Click to expand...
I won't know until I uninstall and bench test. I suspect either a cracked casting or a blown gasket. Can't see it being anything else.
The combustion chamber isn't under that much positive pressure, so it must be fairly serious as I can see a mist of exhaust fumes after it has been running for 10 minutes.
So bench testing should show pretty quickly where the problem lies.
 
I was going to do a tear down video to show you what was inside. But it appears David McLuckie already did a really good one. Remember this is 5 years ago and before there was an info on youtube about them. So he figures it out as he goes.

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I’ve been watching him for a while, very informative and does some weird experiments. There’s also John McK 47.
 
Gromett said:
I have also answered this earlier in the thread.

I would recommend against it.
1) You would need to disconnect the output of your old heater and join the pipes together, other wise you would be pumping the air back into your old heater with unknown consequences.
2) The length of the pipe may exceed what the heater can handle reliably and you may end up running rich and sooting it up.

I would recommend keeping your existing heater in place as a backup and install a single or at most 2 vents from the diesel heater.
Click to expand...
Ok thanks for that .I will see if i can fit two separate outlets of the diesel heater
 
Jimbohorlicks said:
The instruction may be rubbish but the heaters certainly are not.The fittings are ok. It's just poor translations from chinese to English.
It's a shame they don't have a proper translation.
Click to expand...
Reports i have seen are all good on the Chinese made heaters. Way cheaper than branded . We have a local Auto Electrics Company . They have supplied and fitted several Chinese systems with no problems.
 
Gromett said:
I have also answered this earlier in the thread.

I would recommend against it.
1) You would need to disconnect the output of your old heater and join the pipes together, other wise you would be pumping the air back into your old heater with unknown consequences.

I would recommend keeping your existing heater in place as a backup and install a single or at most 2 vents from the diesel heater.
Click to expand...
I connected my deisel heater hot air outlet to my existing Whale heater vents. It's OK but when I ran the Whale it warmed up the deisel heater and an error code came on the display e5 ( overheating) so I will replace a T piece vent I put in with one that has a swivel flap inside to prevent any hot air blowing back into the deisel heater or the Whale heater.I will have to switch it manually but it's in an easy location.
 
Jimbohorlicks said:
I connected my deisel heater hot air outlet to my existing Whale heater vents. It's OK but when I ran the Whale it warmed up the deisel heater and an error code came on the display e5 ( overheating) so I will replace a T piece vent I put in with one that has a swivel flap inside to prevent any hot air blowing back into the deisel heater or the Whale heater.I will have to switch it manually but it's in an easy location.
Click to expand...
I couldn't be arsed faffing about. I am glad I didn't as the problems above mean I have not had it working for 3 of the last 12 weeks. My fault for not cracking on with it. But having the gas heater ready go was a godsend. And expensive godsend but there non the less.

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Vikdikdok said:
Hmm - you’re probably right, I’ll look at the 5Kw makes & models
Click to expand...
Oh boy - my head is spinning after looking at various makes (I’m wondering if they are using the same components but marketed under various different brands/makes)
i have watched several YouTube videos & on one made by 4wdTALK (American) he tried out 5 different makes but seems to prefer the one he’s been using for the last few year, it’s a ‘Plantar’ - BUT looking it up I see that the cost is over £1000 AND it’s made in Russia so that’s a no no.
 
Vikdikdok said:
Oh boy - my head is spinning after looking at various makes (I’m wondering if they are using the same components but marketed under various different brands/makes)
i have watched several YouTube videos & on one made by 4wdTALK (American) he tried out 5 different makes but seems to prefer the one he’s been using for the last few year, it’s a ‘Plantar’ - BUT looking it up I see that the cost is over £1000 AND it’s made in Russia so that’s a no no.
Click to expand...
Planar were popular but the whole Russian thing has made them undesirable in my view.

You have two options. Buy cheap and get a basic one. That is what I do. <£100
The next level up is people like MaxSpeedingRods who have a good reputation. £150 ish Wissel likes these I believe.
Or go with Webasto or Eberspacher and pay a shit ton for something that isn't as far as I can tell that much better?

Vevor also making a bit of a splash. But no experience with them,
 
Vikdikdok said:
Oh boy - my head is spinning after looking at various makes (I’m wondering if they are using the same components but marketed under various different brands/makes)
i have watched several YouTube videos & on one made by 4wdTALK (American) he tried out 5 different makes but seems to prefer the one he’s been using for the last few year, it’s a ‘Plantar’ - BUT looking it up I see that the cost is over £1000 AND it’s made in Russia so that’s a no no.
Click to expand...

They are all pretty much the same and you would just be unlucky if you got a duff one as you can with anything.
If you wanted a good known brand and were prepared to pay for the quality, then go for a Lavaner.
I have been running a Lavaner Pro for the last three and a half years and it's a great bit of kit.

 
When the Webasto's remote display broke in my son's Iveco (ex Council truck) I could have bought 3 CDH's brand new (complete with remote displays) for the price of one replacement remote from Webasto.
 
jockaneezer said:
When the Webasto's remote display broke in my son's Iveco (ex Council truck) I could have bought 3 CDH's brand new (complete with remote displays) for the price of one replacement remote from Webasto.
Click to expand...
I guess Webasto has to recover their research and development costs, unlike some of the others.

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Pausim said:
I guess Webasto has to recover their research and development costs, unlike some of the others.
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to agree with you to an extent, those inscrutable orientals have no morals when it comes to ripping off other's ideas, but I do get the feeling that when Webasto and Eberspacher were the only two in the game, they had the compact diesel heater scene stitched up between themselves ?
 
CDH / Russian heaters vs Eberspacher / Webasto. Why is it that the former seem to have managed to copy the physical parts of these heaters but they don't seem to have managed to copy the electronics? I always believed the far eastern counties, and maybe the Russians were the experts at cloning electronic equipment.
My Eberspacher D2 Airtronic (and the ones that I have had in the recent past) have been fool proof, set the required temperature press the heat button and forget it. However those who report on here seem to be talking of soot build-up, replacing sensors and having to juggle the controller settings to achieve a reasonable outcome.
 
rod_vw said:
CDH / Russian heaters vs Eberspacher / Webasto. Why is it that the former seem to have managed to copy the physical parts of these heaters but they don't seem to have managed to copy the electronics? I always believed the far eastern counties, and maybe the Russians were the experts at cloning electronic equipment.
My Eberspacher D2 Airtronic (and the ones that I have had in the recent past) have been fool proof, set the required temperature press the heat button and forget it. However those who report on here seem to be talking of soot build-up, replacing sensors and having to juggle the controller settings to achieve a reasonable outcome.
Click to expand...
The one in my van uses the thermostat method and has worked flawlessly without any interaction or fiddling by me.

The reason my little 2KW is causing me issues is I have it on it's lowest possible setting and stuck it there. Then ran it for weeks on end. This is not how they are anticipated to operate. The sooting up was self inflicted.

There are a couple of reasons for sooting up. But they all come down to not enough air flow for the diesel. The other reasons for sooting up are also self inflicted but install issues.
Exhaust pipe not on a continuous downward slope resulting in condensation forming inside the exhaust and restricting air flow.
Too long an exhaust or inlet pipe causing restrictions to the air flow.
Poor location of the inlet/air filter or unsuitable air filter, or blocked air filter. causing restrictions to air flow.



I have not been able to discover any case where the cause was faulty electronics.
 
Pausim said:
I guess Webasto has to recover their research and development costs, unlike some of the others.
Click to expand...
Erm, They have done many times over. They patented this technology in the 1960s and 1970 and have had a monopoly on diesel heaters all that time. they are now living on past glories and gouging the public for what it is you actually get.

Having stripped one down. The basic idea is a stroke of engineering genius but there is nothing special about the product itself.
 
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