Thinking to buy a Chinese forced air diesel heater

[mako]

Good job on the purchase OP. Don’t worry about the funky instructions- that’s par for the course when sourcing directly from China. My sounder just arrived from Hong Kong and I experienced pretty much the same thing - but it’s a very solid unit.

Let us know how it goes.

[Sparkplug1939]

Fix your old Webasto !

[goboatingnow]

Just a perspective on low speed running . I installed 4 Eberspacher units over the years all straight by the book. My experience is that if the unit repeatedly runs at low speed or even worse shuts down and does temperature based restarts , that still led to significantly more fouling then a unit run hard and then turned off.

The symptoms would manifest by smoky or poor restarts and restart failure.

Hence my advice to run the unit hard if at all possible.

[Windpilot]

I bet buying the Chinese heater is half price of fixing the webasto.
Mines been flawless for 3 years now, although I very much understand the eyebrow raising stigma of buying cheaper Chinese products. It's a personal choice as well as your own money.
I'd also like a new Oyster Yacht but could only afford an old Hunter, guess I need to make the best of it.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Windpilot

I bet buying the Chinese heater is half price of fixing the webasto.
Mines been flawless for 3 years now, although I very much understand the eyebrow raising stigma of buying cheaper Chinese products. It's a personal choice as well as your own money.
I'd also like a new Oyster Yacht but could only afford an old Hunter, guess I need to make the best of it.

Reasoned argument is fine raised eyebrow stigmas are best responded by raising a vertical finger

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Just a perspective on low speed running . I installed 4 Eberspacher units over the years all straight by the book. My experience is that if the unit repeatedly runs at low speed or even worse shuts down and does temperature based restarts , that still led to significantly more fouling then a unit run hard and then turned off.

The symptoms would manifest by smoky or poor restarts and restart failure.

Hence my advice to run the unit hard if at all possible.

Knock on wood, I've had none of those symptoms. But it's only been installed since April. My only shutdown ever, I ran out of fuel.

When sizing, I found it difficult to determine how big a unit was needed for the size of boat. Having an old uninsulated boat that could very well be in cold NE waters with cold air also, I didn't want to be undersized.

I guess I should have included more about use cases. But up in the Narragansett, it would be run closer to mid range more and sometimes all night. Now that I'm running down the east coast, I use it to bump the inside of the cabin up from 60 in the morning and keep the cabin comfortable until I go to sleep. It's there and sips diesel, so I use it even when it isn't fridgid. But 40° last night made me thankful for it.

- AT

[Oeanda]

I’d be more inclined to fix the Webasto, but the previous owner already had it fixed at significant cost, before it broke down again.

I don’t know what the problem was. Till now it has been just another mysterious twice-broken object down in the bowels of the boat. Not very tempting.

Now that I have a little better understanding of what these heaters are, I’ll dissect the Webasto when I get the chance, and see how it compares. I also wonder how anyone could charge nearly $4000 for what is basically a large diesel blowtorch in a can with some ducting on it. I mean, that’s several years net income for the majority of the people in the world. If the cheaper versions work, it’s hard to see a lot of justification for paying that price, on any level.

[mako]

And hence the reason why I rarely step foot in West Marine for something that can be sourced at Home Depot.

[Opie91]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Just a perspective on low speed running . I installed 4 Eberspacher units over the years all straight by the book. My experience is that if the unit repeatedly runs at low speed or even worse shuts down and does temperature based restarts , that still led to significantly more fouling then a unit run hard and then turned off.

The symptoms would manifest by smoky or poor restarts and restart failure.

Hence my advice to run the unit hard if at all possible.

Absolutely true on these Chinese heaters. They run best when you set them to run in Hz and not to auto temperature regulation. I prefer to run it wide open and crack a hatch if it gets too warm.

Generally not a problem during the winter in New England.

[Oeanda]

The fellow in the video I linked to, who certainly appears to be an expert in the field, feels that they’re OK to run on a lower setting as long as you crank them up full blast every now and then to clear out the system. He also advocates replacing the very soft noodle of a fuel line which is included, with a somewhat firmer flexible version. More responsive to pump pressure and less prone to collecting bubbles. Since he clearly knows what he’s talking about, I’m considering doing this.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Oeanda

I’d be more inclined to fix the Webasto, but the previous owner already had it fixed at significant cost, before it broke down again.

I don’t know what the problem was. Till now it has been just another mysterious twice-broken object down in the bowels of the boat. Not very tempting.

Now that I have a little better understanding of what these heaters are, I’ll dissect the Webasto when I get the chance, and see how it compares. I also wonder how anyone could charge nearly $4000 for what is basically a large diesel blowtorch in a can with some ducting on it. I mean, that’s several years net income for the majority of the people in the world. If the cheaper versions work, it’s hard to see a lot of justification for paying that price, on any level.

Which is why the Chinese can knock them out for $200. We were being ripped off in a side market that’s largely wholesale OEM deals

[Oeanda]

Well let’s hope they did great things with all that money. I think the golden dodo bird has flown.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Oeanda

Now that I have a little better understanding of what these heaters are, I’ll dissect the Webasto when I get the chance, and see how it compares. I also wonder how anyone could charge nearly $4000 for what is basically a large diesel blowtorch in a can with some ducting on it. I mean, that’s several years net income for the majority of the people in the world. If the cheaper versions work, it’s hard to see a lot of justification for paying that price, on any level.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Which is why the Chinese can knock them out for $200. We were being ripped off in a side market that’s largely wholesale OEM deals

To be fair, there's a number of things going on, and I've seen this process play out in other product categories as well -eg studio microphones.

1. Niche high-technology western company invents, patents and perfects clever device
2. They gain brand-recognition and earn a decent profit selling into a few niches (eg marine)
3. Patents expire, and/or low-wage-cost countries make low-cost, inferior clones of product.
4. Clones find a bigger market and sell in large numbers. Quality improves.
5. Clones dominate.

With regards to these heaters, I think a big factor that has driven down costs for the clones is #4: they sell a sh!tload of them for heating trucks and other vehicles all over the world. As a market, marine is a gnat compared to that.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

With regards to these heaters, I think a big factor that has driven down costs for the clones is #4: they sell a sh!tload of them for heating trucks and other vehicles all over the world. As a market, marine is a gnat compared to that.

I bought my Planar unit in 2015, direct from Russia. I got the impression that the market was for trucks even then. So did the big-name, high-price marine companies invent these things, or just adapt truck heaters for a market where they knew they could charge a premium?

To me, these are just very small, oil-fired forced hot air furnaces. The technology has been around for a very long time. Packaging it in a tiny form factor was clever, but not clever enough to justify a 1,000% mark-up.

[AKA-None]

Not sure if it’s been mentioned in this thread but make certain you have a working co alarm