I have one. Route the intake inside and reduce fuel consumption by 50%. mount your fuel pump to a piece of pool noodle and the noise will stop. and, a stick of 3/4 inch electrical conduit fits perfectly to extend the exhaust. Have fun! I love mine!
Leave your exhaust be. If you direct that exhaust upwards you're going to collect water. Route your intake air from inside your house as has been mentioned. Thanks for sharing.
Those heaters are supposed to mount inside and the burn air intake and exoust go outside. With the heater inside it is pulling in inside air to heat so it is more efficient than what You are seeing because You are always heating cold air.
I don't trust them enough to mount inside my house. Yes they aren't meant for houses but some of us need temporary solutions. You could pull fan and burner intakes from the inside of the house. I have mine in a semi insulated barrel with vent lines insulated running into my house. Not pretty, but one could make cosmetic changes if they were clever.
I don't think the mounting outside is an issue, and it does help with noise, but yes, the air intake from indoors helps in many ways, stops odors, drafting and allows the unit not to have to work as hard so you can run on lower settings helping with fuel usage.. good points!
There is a small hole in one side of the small exhaust muffler. This is a moisture drain-hole The Muffler needs to be oriented as you have it but vertical so that hole is at the bottom. This will then let collected moisture drain out and with luck no vapour expelled when starting up. Also check out videos on ideas for reclaiming more heat from the exhaust tube to get even more economy :)
Neat unit, good idea adapting a vehicle heater to heat a house. And yes, get that exhaust up above the air intake bc that is a seriously large Carbon Monoxide risk as it is. Even better would be to run the air intake into the house, no risk of CO and you'll get much warmer air plus no cold air coming in while it starts up
It does need to point down to drain moisture but he should be drawing his air from inside the house as well not the colder outside air. The combustion air intake is fine outside.
CarbonMonoxide sinks more than air... if you put the exhaust above the intake, you are more likely to suck in the "falling" exhaust... Exhaust should be the lowest point in the system. Vent Hole in the muffler should point down. Muffler outlet should point sideways. The point of not leaving it anywhere close to UP, is so rain water and condensation can't form a puddle in the exhaust.
You are right about the startup issue, but as long as your air intake is inside the space you are heating, it doesn't actually reduce the temperature at all.
it really isn't unless you're only using it for maybe 4 hours a day. They start off on about 150 watts but then go down to 40w. If you wanted to really be sure you had the battery at 100% it would be much better to have around 100w, it's really not much more expensive than the 25w.
Hey!!! I was researching diesel heaters and came across your channel. Im in Maine aswell...small world. I live just outside of Brewer.. Eddington... Great vid. Very informative. I appreciate the help. take care.
If you pipe your inlet into the house also, this would allow the warm air inside to recirculate, It will run more efficient and also don't have to worry about the exhaust fumes coming into the inlet and then the house.
Something like that might work out in my shop for heat in the winter....yes, the startup on them is very slow, sometimes they never start at all, and is also another common complaint...however, most of the other videos on these where they're being so nice in their review is because they're being paid by the company they got it from to do the review, in exchange they get a free diesel heater. The cost on them isn't too bad, and that clicking fuel pump sounds exactly like the electric fuel pump on my tractor, they're pretty loud, but so is the fan they have in those heaters.
I have two of those units in my cabins and in the Winter b4 bed I turn it on so I don't have to keep putting wood in my fireplace. It keeps the heat constant to 65-70 dry heat uses about 1/2- 1 gal a night depending on temp I bought a 12v to 110v converter so I can plug it in if need to. Great video. But you do need to cover the unit especially the fuel container it tends to Crack at the seams from u.v rays.and mounting it outside is best for the noise ... but don't turn the unit sideways you will have fuel burning issues later
I have been using these things for many years, after 1 year of use the bearings in the motor get dry, you can re oil them if you take it apart soak them in trans fluid works great they don't like running on any setting but high or they fill with carbon and unburnt fuel , they like clean fuel waste oil any mix of oil is a no no incomplete burn and carbon in the primary swirl chamber that is very hard to clean out,had very good and very bad luck with these things lol but still use them every year
Maine ! Hello fellow Mainer. Love the diesel heater I have 5 in 4 places the first lasted 4 years before I turned it it to parts. Ps Lebanon Maine. In 30ft wad 24 ft motor home. Camping 24/7 !
Good review. As other have stated if your air intake were routed inside you would not only gain much greater fuel efficiency but it would also correct the problem of it pumping cold air in for the startup time. With the unit itself mounted indoors, the unit is always at room temperature. I can imagine where up North in extreme cold the units efficiency would be greatly effected by being directly exposed to the extreme cold. If you were installing in a very well sealed environment then the intake outside would make some sense as it would bring in fresh air. Here in the south, the heater would quickly become clogged with dirtdobber nest. The little assholes love plugging up everything. In our case, it only makes sense to mount the entire unit inside and port the exhast and exchanger intake outside....best of all worlds there. Plus the entire unit would be out of the weather.
Maine here also, I have one in my van. 5kw. It was 23°f out. Cold start on my diesel heater and within 30 min it was 60°, 40 min it was 75 and banked down to a low fan setting.
On your point about the fan running before the unit is putting out heat, there are some newer units that have the ability to program the fan separately. And there are some aftermarket controllers (The Afterburner) reviewed by youtuber David McLuckie that have other advanced features. If your air supply (not combustion air, but house air supply) is drawing 'less cold' air from inside the home, the trip through the cold and starting heater does remove some heat, but the resulting 'return air' is not as cold as if the supply is directly from a very cold outside. A low tech workaround is to devise an 'air valve' where your heated air enters the home, with a physical flap routing the return air outside during the startup phase. Important note for such air valves: If the air flowing over the heater is not allowed to move because you have somehow blocked the movement of air, you could have a dangerous buildup of heat inside the heater case and damage the electronic board and possibly cause fire. So be sure to create an air valve that never blocks the air from moving across the heater fins. Additionally, there is a great series on these heaters by Australian youtuber John McK 47 that covers a great deal of useful details on how these work and the ways to optimize a system. Good Video. Thanks.
thanks for great real world review. been thinking of buying one myself. hope it`s powerful enough to give comfortable temps when its -28 C outside aswell 😀
Worth remembering that anyone who is unlucky to have a fire in a vehicle or building which has one of these heaters installed, isnt insured. There are many videos covering these heaters, but not seen a single mention of no insurance cover?
I was thinking of this very same thing, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Everybody I asked said it wasn’t a good idea and they didn’t think I should do it, and nobody was willing to install it! So I ended up getting a mini woodstove instead, but I sure would’ve liked to have it installed.
I have one on order, but I want to get things started, like a piece of plywood for a window. I need to put the hole in it for the warm air to come in.like you have into the bedroom. So what size hole or tubing is that, looks like 4 to 6 inch. Thanks for this video and your help.
Definitely have a second hole somewhere for an intake inside the house and turn the silencer 90 degrees, it has a hole in the edge to let out condensation and should be facing down.
My first heater, fitted to van, from new was smokey and sounded like a jet engine.on start for quite some time. Did eventually run clear after many starts. Now just bought a 5-8kw, but mounted on it's side and never smoked or sounded like a jet.
I believe the start up fan run time is to evacuate any possible flammable vapors before heater ignition, common in a lot of HVAC units. Other than that looks like your going to make other changes for the better ! Thanks for sharing !
I have a vevor 3kw running off a battery pack and 12v charger currently to heat our porch, thought to run a solar panel but no way to get a panel to get enough juice to a battery. I get maybe 25ish hours cranked up when I have my hz settings 6.5 usually. When the burn chamber doesn't get hot enough also causes the diesel Not to burn properly, I have messed around with different hz settings to see how it operates. I'm running also 2 lengths of muffler pipe. If you can run a intake pipe for fresh air further away from muffler be better for c02 safety
the air intake (air to be heated) should be routed to the inside as well, just like a normal home heater, so that you are reheating air instead of attempting to heat ice cold outside air. this will greatly increase your efficiency
I tried that with a pellet heater and didn´t turn out so good. Pulling air from inside in turn pulled cold air from the outside into the home. Just my experience in my particular situation though.
@@leonobrega1418 this is a heat exchanger just like a forced air gas furnace. The combustion intake and exhaust go outside but the air being heated cycles through the furnace by way of your returns and registers.
@@lordgarth1 I think I might have read the OP comment incorrectly. Thanks for correcting me. They said that they wanted to reroute the air to be heated intake from outside to inside, which is correct. Sorry
We have an Eberspacher diesel heaters our VW T5 and the whole unit is mounted under the vehicle and the pump is described as “near silent” in the handbook and I can honestly say I’ve never heard it either inside or outside the vehicle, might be worth buying one from Eberspacher if the ticking bothers you. The supplier who fitted it also recommended having the air intake inside the vehicle to draw in warm air instead of cold air from outside as this would be more economical. Hope this helps someone 👍🏻🇬🇧
By having outside air heated and injected into the bedroom, you are essentially pressurizing the bedroom and causing air to leave from where ever it can (the vent you mentioned).
Great video. You explain things well. I'm a rookie and I think I will try this heater. Question: What kind of battery is that? I think you said..."12 volt". Where did you purchase it? Can you give a link? I followed the other links to Amazon. Thanks again. Great video!
Which controller do you have that allows to change the number settings ? Ones I’ve seen just allow temperature change setting or pulse rate. How do you set to third setting as you say ?
This is not a house heater it was made for the trucking industry the black body is supposed to be inside the cab pulling in inside air not out side air. This let's a truck driver shut off his or her truck and have a warm place to sleep at night in the winter. I am sure they never meant it to heat a house.
You are correct. I heated my small house with it two Winters ago. I was amazed at how much it dropped my electricity bill. I live out in the country in an old small poorly insulated farmhouse. My unit was mounted outside but the intake was routed into the house as well. It's pretty amazing piece of equipment.
Sorry your feeling are hurt but look how many other items have dual purposes. And I'm sure the companies aren't complaining with the profits plus look it gives the funds to help advance the product to be more efficient and effective.
And you were made to procreate and work. Is that all you do? You're incorrect about it being inside and drawing inside air. The unit where combustion occurs should be outside, as should the intake. Thanks for spreading more bullshit misinformation
I've just had a great idea I think, if you put the hotblow pipe onto a copper water cylinder coil, full of water, it will eventually heat the water and heat Room at same time
Ok, like others say, run an intake hose from inside the room to heat heated air. In a home it is called the cold air return. Do not run your warm air inlet toward the cieling. Heat rises and you will end up with cold air down low and your thermostat wont work right also. Mount the fuel pump on a piece of rebar or pipe pounded into the ground. this will mount it solidly without reverberating into the house. You could mount the heater off the wall similar to the fuel pump to keep it from making nois inside. Definitely try a larger battery to run when the suns is not shiming and use maybe a 6-10 amp charger to charge that battery fully so the batrtery can run the fan when there is no sun. Obviously a 200 watt solar panel would be best because it would put out over 8 amps in direct sunlight but that would only be for a couple hours a day. Oh, and an obvious thing to note is that if you run the intake inside then you wont be picking up diesel smell from the outsided.
We install these on semi trucks which is mostly what they are used for but are actually called an Espar (The non Chinese version actual German company that makes I think is like Eberspacher). I think your system would work much better if the entire unit was inside the house and you just plumbed the exhaust out of the wall. I know they will keep a large sleeper cab toasty when its -30 outside plus with the unit inside you wouldh't have to worry about your diesel gelling up in the extreme cold. Looks like its working great for you though good job.
Wait, so where's your control panel? Is that still attracted to the heater? Or did you move the panel so that you can control it without having to go outside? And if so, how did you extend the wires? I can't seem to find an extension cable, so I'm gunna have to splice together some scrap wire in order to extend the panel into the house so I can control it without having to go outside..
I put one in a 30 ft wilderness camper drafty old windows an all . I installed it in the seating area near the table , the exhaust is plumbed outside just drilled a hole in the storage door. . air intake I was able to stuf it in the floor, an existing hole that had chicken wire from whoever built the camper. I pulled the chicken wire up an cut around it an re stapled it after feeding it under the camper. I stuffed a battery their whith the heater , as far as fuel tank the back side of that seat is were it is simple. just as you walk in the door in case a small spill happens wile filling it"" pump was placed under the seat as well. I've had it two years. I've had no issue at all I fill the tank run it on 2 to 3 unless I'm goin home . A tank of fuel lasts 4 an a half days. that's on a setting of 2 or three. 2 during the day , 3 at night it cools of buy morning. I crank it up for five or so minutes. before shutting it down, just for preventive maintnance, to clean her out... before shutting it off for spring . I've had no issues since I installed it. I've had it for 2 years now. I lived in it for a wile to save money , to save money , It was cold outside 20 degrease some nights an mornings, the heater had no problems heating that camper at all once everything was up to temp inside I found myself opening a vent in the ceiling sometimes. These are great in my opinion after using one I will shurely buy another just as a back up just in case. I swear buy them very good source of heat, in my opinion. Best of luck folks, I would like to know how they would be in a insulated place .
Wow you’re in New England!! I’m in Rhode Island and I’m going to try this. I also have space in upper main to for a tiny house. Thanks for sharing. #UKNOIT
On mine, I put the rubber onto that plumber's tape that metal stuff with all the little holes in it, then I put it on to another piece of rubber and then mounted it to the wall stops a lot of the ticking sound definitely need to bring that cold air return into the house though
You can solve the diesel smell by running the inlet inside the building. That will also make more efficient your heater, probably cutting by half your fuel consumption...
I have mine running for three nights now at between -5 and -10c with the intake outside like yours, my settings are 1 to 10 , I run it at 4 and it take 5 litres of diesel for 12 hours so it cost me 10$ a night because fuel is $2.00 a litre in Canada now so I find this is very expensive to run compared to propane or electric, thought it was much more efficient
im doing exactly this kind of thing here in the UK but im feeding the heater air from inside the house as it is uneconomical to heat the outside air, this is probably where your extra fuel is going. at start up you wont get cold air coming through the vent but warmer air from inside which will warm up the heater and aid ignition.
Remember these are cab heaters, unit inside and burner intake exhaust out. I would put unit on it's side inside building. Draw fresh warmed air and recycle through heater.
Vevor specifically state that exhaust should be horizontal or downward .. to not put upward. I can understand this as the system is not like a cars exhaust which has pressure from piston / valve action ... Second - surely having intake pipe dragging in air from same spot as the heater ? you will get diesel fumes on start up ??
Perhaps as a short term option why not add some type of ducting to move the air intake point a bit further away from the exhaust. If a long distance may need to increase duct size to reduce loses. It does not need to be expensive duct , Perhaps extractor ducting.
Just an idea and please point out a reason if I'm wrong but here goes. Why not have the air intake from inside the building? For one it'll be warmer air than outside especially when temps get lower and may allow it to run on a lower setting as a result. Plus it'll eliminate the fume intake and cold through draft when it's not running.
They were designed for use in semi trucks. The pumps tick is to confirm your heater is working. Usually the pump was under the bed. So annoying. But got used to it. No tick no heat. It gets to minus 40 degrees Celsius here . When the tick isn't present you wake up fast lol😊
Hi I'd like to use this to warm the area under my mobile home it's sealed and it's a double wide..trying to keep lines from freezing also would imagine it would cost less to heat my home using central system
I got one for my friends autistic son that like th stay in the barn he is not a inside kid at all only thing I’m trying to figure out is how to run to diesel fuel line I don’t think they sent me. All the parts i got a tube that looks like it screws to the fuel cap where did you get the tap for at the bottom of your tank and how do you think it would run on off road diesel it’s a lot cheaper then cursing and diesel right now in my town I run my turbo heater off it I would assume that’s the same thing it just burns hotter but I would like your input on this thank you for your time and your review
You will burn way less when you intake room air not outside air, you are heating very cold air rather than reheating heated air so obviously that cools the unit faster requiring it to burn more to maintain chamber temp
You can do all kinds of things to make your heater work and run better. Your setup could be better, I hate to tell you. I see a lot of problems. I have installed many of these heaters for customers in custom applications. And use them myself for my trailer, home, and back shop.
Question: does the combustion air intake and exhaust have to be out the bottom? (i.e. could this be turned, on long axis, 90 degrees, where said goes in/out on the side?)
Do not route exhaust up! You will soot combustion chamber. Also, taking air to heat from inside will make heater much much more efficient and you will not intake exhaust gasses inside home
@@redneckcomputergeek yes it is, but directing exhaust up or extending it causes many issues with those units. I have one, so to educate myself,i have joined some fb groups for users and people were complaining that any kind of restriction causes soot buildup. Have in mind that exhaust gasses contains water vapor that condenses in long /up directed exhaust and will flow to lowest point.
These are good reliable heaters, I’ve had them in semi trucks for years. One thing that has always come up with time is that they have to be cleaned out inside. Soot coke builds up on the inside. Not a big deal. Just routine maintenance. I have wanted to use one as a home backup heater.
The soot thing seems to be coming up often in the comments. The way mud wasp are in the summer around here I figure I will break it down and store it in the spring.
I was told to avoid the soot issue turn the unit on high let it burn the soot out it takes about 30 min soot build up is from running it on lower Temps it don't burn all the fuel.
I have two in my 3 car garage. Installed them as a backup to my nat gas heater. Prefer them over nat gas heater. If one goes down always have a second one to turn on. So far in one year they have run flawless. Haven't had to clean them out yet. Spare parts are cheap to keep on hand. I got spare glow plugs, gaskets and fuel pumps. Yet to need them
It would heat better if you had the air intake coming from inside. You are trying to heat cold air to hot. A normal home heater system does not draw air from outside to heat the house. They circulates air from in the house and it's more efficient. That will help the efficiency of the heater
has to be a single room max, he's using the 2kw version. For reference my 5kw can barely heat a 300 square foot space (uninsulated). Same place as this guy, so COLD
Cold air intake increases fuel consumption. Unit should be indoors and exhaust runs outside. Clacker pumps can be noisy but can be reduced with proper insulation
Typically the fan blowing air through the system before heating is a safety feature. It will purge any excess fuel from the system on start up and shut down.
If you put The air intake into the house the first few minutes and it’s pumping cold air will be pumping the same temperature air that’s in the house already so I don’t think you’d notice it as much just my thoughts I’m going to install mine within the next week and I’ve been looking at all of these things here and I’m gonna try to do it that way with the air intake in the house and the air hexedine into the house also so your recycle in the air that’s in the house
Would not recommend you to put the muffler higher than the unit. Inside the exhaust some evaporated water condensate against the exhaust and that would eventually flood your heater I think. Better is to mount the intake what higher up.
i have electric baseboard heat in my house..soon as i turn the breakers on in the winter my electric bill goes up to like $400-$450 a month as soon as I just turn the breaker on and when I start running them it goes up to like $750-$850 a month. It's absolutely ridiculous. I may look into something like this atleast to heat my bedroom and downstairs for my animals. Thanks for this man!
I have a 4 unit apartment building in Minnesota that I put electric baseboard heat in. 100% electric heat and the bill for the whole building is $600ish in January. Invest in insulation.
@@Chris.Rhodes one of these will 100% cost less than that even if you leave it running 24/7, even if it's the more powerful version. Use it inside and have the exhaust go through the window, use a hot tent stove hole thing in the window or just DIY it out of some scrap metal and make sure the area surrounding the exhaust doesn't get hot. IN my case it's directly touching aluminum but it doesn't actually get hot more than half an inch around the exhaust pipe... easy enough....
Your heater will burn about 12.5 litres of fuel in 100 hours in the low setting .125 litres per hour. Even if you are not pulling air from the other side of the bedroom, you should be pulling air from inside, and definitely away from the exhaust. Exhaust that doesn't stink can still be deadly, and most people who die from CO poisoning die in their sleep. I currently run two of these heaters without any inlet or mufflers, and one with no pipe at all. There is a difference, but I don't find them that noisy. That being said... one is in my garage and one is in a vehicle... so I'm not trying to sleep. These heaters usually take about 3-4 minutes before they actually start blowing heat. This is because the combustion air and heating air share the same motor, and also why they cost $100 - $200 and not much much more. To start a flame and then start blowing hot air, you not only need two motors, but also a control system. The 3 minutes of cold air makes more sense than the added complexity and cost. These are designed to be parking heaters for vehicles / trucks... At the end of your driving shift, you shut your engine off and turn your heater on. The heater would recirculate the air and not pull cold air from outside, so this would not be a problem. I'm not sure what the price of diesel is where you live, where I live, propane would be a MUCH better alternative for heating a living space. I love these heaters, but I think they are often used in ways that doesn't make sense.
I see it was already suggested that your inlet should come from the inside so it won't pick up exhaust fumes, plus the muffler has a hole in the side of it which should point down so condensation will drain. Hope it never sets your house on fire 🔥 😫
Ran into this video as I was searching for a solution to heat my uninsulated garage during the winter so I could still do some projects. Do you think this would work in an uninsulated environment like a garage?
