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

[Two on Tour]

So what is the lowest steady-state output in kW for these heaters with a clean, reliable burn? I note maxspeedingrods sell 2, 5 and 8kW that all, on the face of it, work fine as low as 1kW.

Dave

Normally it's down to keeping the burn chamber temperature above 125C and whatever fuel delivery rate that requires, and as to the heat output, there are too many variables in the environment the heater is being used in and the installation of the heater to give a definitive answer.

 

[Two on Tour]

Heads up for anybody looking to buy a Chinese diesel heater.
It's priced at £59.99 with free delivery and I doubt you can beat that price, so I have ordered one as a spare.

Although the title describes it as being 2kw it is in fact a 5kw unit.

Pardon our interruption...

 

[Gromett]

Heads up for anybody looking to buy a Chinese diesel heater.
It's priced at £59.99 with free delivery and I doubt you can beat that price, so I have ordered one as a spare.

Although the title describes it as being 2kw it is in fact a 5kw unit.

Pardon our interruption...

Hmm sorry seems a bit suss to me. Something smells off about it? Or is it just me?

Seemed to be selling them in 2019 for a month then stopped. Has someone hijacked his ebay account? Sorry to be so mistrustful.

I would buy using paypal to give you some protection.

 

[Two on Tour]

Hmm sorry seems a bit suss to me. Something smells off about it? Or is it just me?

Seemed to be selling them in 2019 for a month then stopped. Has someone hijacked his ebay account? Sorry to be so mistrustful.

I would buy using paypal to give you some protection.

I placed my order just before posting my post and I have since received a legit tracking number, plus I bought it via the link after watching this video.

I'll let you know in a few day's time.

 

[Gromett]

I placed my order just before posting my post and I have since received a legit tracking number, plus I bought it via the link after watching this video.

I'll let you know in a few day's time.

The casting looks better than any I have seen before.

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[DABurleigh]

Email back from Craig of Lavaner LLC. I was mulling 2kW or 5kW as both could crank down low.

"Hi Dave

2KW is a good choice for you.

If you kept using the heater always on L1, the burner will be clogged very fast, lots of heaters such as Webasto and eberspaecher has been clogged for a long history when people kept using on L1 in the RV. the correct way to use the heater is to use it on the thermostat, because when the cabin temperature drops around 4 degrees centigrade (for example drop to 17 if the setting is 21), the heater is going to get back and work at the highest settings again, at least that there is a chance for the heater to run on high for 10 or 20 minutes, this will definitely postpone the time of the soot built up."

 

[CJK]

you might be interested in what my friend Josh has looked at in relation to diesel heaters.

Thank you. He’s very good and clear.

 

[Gromett]

ok. My new method of operating is.
At night as I go to bed I turn it on full blast. Once the room is well heated up I turn it off. Usually 15 minutes.
Next morning before I get out of bed I turn it on full blast and have 15 minutes napping/reading etc.

Doable at the moment. If it gets really cold will need to do the crack the window thing and run it high for 30 minutes.

If after 6 weeks of this it is still going strong I will ease off a little. I want to find out roughly how much high temp operation is required to keep it clean.

Fortunately I have 2 now so can swap them out after experiments and strip down to look. Although to be honest I probably won't bother unless it does gum up again.


Seen a controller/ECU that is supposed to give access to the settings. Will need to reprogram from 5KW to 2KW but apparently that is not too hard. Probably order one of these near the end of this round of tests.

https://amzn.to/4aJTaqU

 

[Dazzola]

Like I said earlier, they don't need too much time at full chat, and not everyday.
20 mins on full in a morning to get things warmed up and mines turned down to 1 or 2, I leave it on while travelling to work and just turn it off.
Just give it a full speed clear out every few days and chances are it will be fine.

 

[Oscar]

Thanks Two on Tour - we've just ordered one

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[Gromett]

Like I said earlier, they don't need too much time at full chat, and not everyday.
20 mins on full in a morning to get things warmed up and mines turned down to 1 or 2, I leave it on while travelling to work and just turn it off.
Just give it a full speed clear out every few days and chances are it will be fine.

Are you talking about the 2KW or the 4KW. My 4KW has never had a problem. The 2KW took 5 weeks to coke up.

 

[Dazzola]

2kw, it's been in my van for over a year and used whenever it gets cold as the heater in my van takes a good couple of miles to work.
It's used for half hour mornings to clear frost or all day on low when we camp in cold weather.
An occasional high burn seems to keep it going fine.

 

[Gromett]

2kw, it's been in my van for over a year and used whenever it gets cold as the heater in my van takes a good couple of miles to work.
It's used for half hour mornings to clear frost or all day on low when we camp in cold weather.
An occasional high burn seems to keep it going fine.

Ahhh. You don't run it constly at low setting. the one in my van does the same as yours and hasn't coked up. It is the 24 hours x 7 day of running at low that did mine in I think.
I am just trying to find out how often at full and for how long. Experiments are the only way of finding out I think.

 

[OnlyTony]

I installed a 2KW diesel heater 2 days ago. Here is my initial review.

I was heading towards the peak winter usage of gas at 1 bottle per week and these are currently costing £42.99 per swap.
In addition my gas heater just doesn't cut it in the winter even on full blast. So a Diesel heater has been long on the cards.

Now I have my industrial unit I could strip stuff down and had places to store all the crap while I did the work and it wasn't so much of a hassle to do.

Soo. The install. I wanted to install it under the bench seat opposite the one I use as a bed. But due to the water heater being in an awkward position this was not possible with the chassis rails.
Moving it is possible but is a future project and I didn't want to do it just now. So. I installed it under my bed as that is the easiest place to get to. Right at the head of the bed.
It wasn't until I started testing it I suddenly thought about having that fan/tick right next to my head whilst trying to sleep and got a bit concerned.

This fear turned out to be unfounded as once the cushions were back on it is actually quieter than the blower in my Truma gas/electric heater.

Noise levels are therefore not an issue at all with the 2Kw heaters at low. And at low it is heating my caravan beautifully. I have had to turn it off once due to it getting too hot in here once, the sun was out and heating the van up.
Then twice I have opened a roof vent with the fan on for 2 minutes each time to knock down the heat a bit at night. Turning it off cools the van too much and then it has to ramp up to get the temp back up again. So letting a little bit of the hot air out works out better.
It is not something you have to do often with the 2KW heater.

2KW vs 5KW heater. I chose the 2KW heater because I would rather have one that could go very low and use the least diesel rather than work most efficiently in the winter. I think this was the correct decision. The 5KW in my van cab pumps out a LOT more heat on the lowest setting and would have been too much for my caravan.

Usage: The diesel tank gauge hasn't moved off full in the 2 days I have been using it. So I just timed the ticks. It is running at 1 tick a second at night and during the day it drops lower than this. But I just did the maths based on 1 tick per second.
1 tick = a 0.02ml dose. So 0.02ml x 60 x 60 is 72ml an hour and 1.728L a day. I am buying my red diesel at 99p per litre. So the cost is £1.71 a day or £11.97 per week. Even if I have to go the more expensive supplier round here it is £1.15 per litre it would be £1.99 per day or £14 per week. When I can get onto the kerosene it will be £0.79 per litre or £1.36 per day or £9.55 per week. I was considering getting a Kerosene bunded tank but the cost of it and the savings means it is probably not worth the effort. The payback time would be too long.
Anyway I think that is off the beaten track

My calculations are that if you can get red diesel then the cost of running a 2KW diesel heater is a quarter of the price to a third of the price of gas bottles and probably half the cost of LPG.


Summary. Not as noisy as expected, much cheaper to run than expected. Dead easy to install and a good level of heat even on the lowest setting. For a caravan it is better because refillable LPG are not always practical. For a motorhome if you use the main diesel tank I think it still works out cheaper than LPG in a refillable but perhaps not as clear cut depending on the price of Diesel. However, if you are fulltiming during the winter. Having the diesel heater running from your main tank gives you a much long run time before needing to seek a refill. With a dual 13KG gaslow in the peak of winter you would be seeking a refill every 14-18 days. A 90 Litre tank in a fiat ducato would last 53 Days. So there is that advantage to consider also. In 2009 and 2010 winters I got snowed in and had a hellish job getting cyclinders delivered. I couldn't get out to get my Gaslow bottles topped up. It hasn't happened since, but...

Anyway, I will post follow ups if I have any further information.

Be no to get Diesil heater your information has decided me thank you for that, will look to buying one now, my van is a 7.2 mt Burstner and ng installing in the garage would be my best option with fuel tank attachment to door ?.

 

[Raul]

Don’t put the tank on the door, if you use the door. Make a support near or on the wall.

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[DABurleigh]

Oh, supplementary email this morning from Craig at Lavaner. While the 5kW Alpine version has been available for a time, it has now been joined by their 2kW one. This reduces the dosing with altitude for a cleaner burn. So if you envisage spending time in the mountains, consider the Lavaner Pro Max Alpine versions.

Dave

 

[Pausim]

I noticed that the first diesel Truma Combi had an additional high altitude kit for use in mountainous areas. The latest version has automatic altitude compensation. Until I read about the original kit it had not occurred to me that altitude was such an important factor. Do gas heaters cope with thinner air and less oxygen by simply having a more volatile fuel that always burns completely?

 

[jockaneezer]

I don't think it matters what fuel you burn, but getting the fuel to air ratio right for optimal combustion is what's being talked about here ?
Higher altitude generally means less dense air, leading to a rich fuel air mix, incomplete combustion and more soot being produced.
I'm assuming these "Alpine" heaters can compensate for this somewhere in their software ?

 

[Two on Tour]

I'm assuming these "Alpine" heaters can compensate for this somewhere in their software ?

Normally they have a BME280 or the like which is a small digital barometric sensor that measures temperature, humidity and air pressure and the heater ecu changes the speed of the fan to compensate for the reduced air density at any given altitude.

 

[Gromett]

would be my best option with fuel tank attachment to door ?.

I would say that is the worst method personally. The weight on the hinges would damage them over time. Shutting the door may have impacts on the mountings? I just don't like the sound of it sorry
I would say have it near the door but protected. Then use one of these to pump the diesel into the tank to prevent spillage inside the garage.
I bought one of these pumps and they are fantastic. Wissel borrowed mine a couple of times and has now also bought his own.
A fast and clean method of transferring diesel from the jerry can to the tank. If you are filling up at the petrol station directly be careful as they fill fast.

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[DABurleigh]

This shows how much the Lavaner Alpine controller reduces dosing (fuel/air mix ratio) as a function of altitude. Academic in the UK, and probably only significant if overnighting in ski regions or stopping in mountain passes; but in any case it will probably be going at full whack rather than tickover, so less likely to soot up.

Dave

 

[Winger]

Heads up for anybody looking to buy a Chinese diesel heater.
It's priced at £59.99 with free delivery and I doubt you can beat that price, so I have ordered one as a spare.

Although the title describes it as being 2kw it is in fact a 5kw unit.

Pardon our interruption...

I opened your link and it shows at£199.00

 

[Two on Tour]

I opened your link and it shows at£199.00

That is because they are now out of stock at present and some sellers then change the price to a silly amount to keep the listing live until new stock comes in, and then re-price the new stock without having to go through the process of writing a new listing from scratch for the new stock.

 

[Two on Tour]

The £60 diesel heater has arrived and as Gromett noted, the aluminium casting is very good and defined.

 

[WanderingWibble’s]

It is a chinese diesel heater. Link to all the products I used is on the first page posts #16 and #17 please forgive me for not typing them all in again.

T'ing into the existing ducting is probably not practical. The Truma has two outputs so you would end up blowing warm air back into the truma and probably not making it back out to the other branch.
The diesel heater is also best operated with only 1Mtr output or at least limiting it. Pumping it all round the van in the truma ducts is probably not going to give good results

Ah, ok thanks, new here, thanks for the advice.

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[Gromett]

New burn chamber arrived yesterday so time to do a bench strip down and service.
VERY easy to strip down less than 5 minutes. Most of which was figuring out how to get the unit out of the plastic case because the end plastic cap was welded on.

JEEEZZZZ

Sorry really hard to get a good camera shot. Or I am crap at photography. Either way I hope you can see? It is completely blocked up so much that you can barely see the fins.
The bottom has so much I doubt there was much exhaust getting past the end of the burn chamber and back to the fins.

New and old Burn chamber side by side.

Inside the burn chamber. TOTALLY Clogged except for a hole about the size of a 1p piece.

Should look like this;

 

[Gromett]

Doing the initial scrape to knock the worst off. You can see the difference. There is still 1-2mm on those fins. top 4-5 fins given a light scrape so you can see the comparison.

 

[Two on Tour]

New burn chamber arrived yesterday so time to do a bench strip down and service.
VERY easy to strip down less than 5 minutes. Most of which was figuring out how to get the unit out of the plastic case because the end plastic cap was welded on.

JEEEZZZZ

Sorry really hard to get a good camera shot. Or I am crap at photography. Either way I hope you can see? It is completely blocked up so much that you can barely see the fins.
The bottom has so much I doubt there was much exhaust getting past the end of the burn chamber and back to the fins.

View attachment 853144

New and old Burn chamber side by side.

View attachment 853145

Inside the burn chamber. TOTALLY Clogged except for a hole about the size of a 1p piece.

View attachment 853146

Should look like this;
View attachment 853147

Blimey, that is well sooted up.

 

[Gromett]

Sadly the pipe on the new one is not bent correctly and I am struggling to get the new burn chamber fitted. After half an hour of finagling it I thought I had it but the 3rd screw won't go all the way and I suspect I have cross threaded it.


Will be ordering a new set of bolts and tap it out.

 

[Manic]

Well sooted up, how long had it run for
( sorry can’t remember)

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