Thinking to buy a Chinese forced air diesel heater

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

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.

Eberspacher and Webasto largely exist on the back of the road market largely through high quantity OEM deals. You can bet these are not anywhere near retail pricing.

Other then some ancillary components there is nothing in their heaters specifically designed for the marine market.

[jtsailjt]

I have a 4 year old Webasto that suddenly won’t start. Getting a F01 (no start) fault on Smartemp controller. I checked that it’s getting fuel and short exhaust line is unobstructed. Called customer service and they referred me to a repair place in Pittsburgh so I called them and was impressed by their helpful attitude. They said since I’m not getting an igniter fault it was most likely the burner is fouled so i could either send it in to them or take it apart myself and scrape the carbon off the burner but I should replace the gaskets if I take it apart myself. I’m curious so ordered the gasket set ($54 including shipping) and next week I’m going to dive in and see if I can fix it myself. Wish me luck!

If I can’t repair it myself I’d consider getting buying a Planar or Chinese version. My biggest hesitation is, are the electrical connections/plugs on these ‘other’ heaters the same as on the Webasto or do you have to rewire it and use their controller?

[Oeanda]

Good luck! Post let us know how it goes.

Regarding the electrical connections they don’t seem to be the same in my case. But there aren’t many wires involved. I haven’t gotten into this project yet but probably in the next few days. If it helps here is what the connections look like on my Chinese diesel heater





Main connection to the heater. Seven wires in total. Power and ground to the heater, power and ground to the fuel pump, and three wires to the control unit.




Connection to the control unit.

[mako]

@JT, why would a gasket set cost $50 - what was in it?

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by mako

@JT, why would a gasket set cost $50 - what was in it?

I had to leave the boat for 2 weeks and they sent it to the marina so I haven’t opened it yet. Plan to get back to boat on Sunday so will find out what’s in it then. I assume part of it was shipping cost but still, the $54 charge on my credit card was about twice what I expected it to be. Usually I’d have asked about cost ahead of time but didn’t this time for what I assumed would be very inexpensive item. But when I get to the boat and actually see it maybe it will make more sense. I will take pix and follow up.

[jtsailjt]

Thanks Oceanda, definitely different connections.

[laird]

I have one the heaters in a box ,it's a self contained unit with its own small diesel tank , I'm very impressed by It ,it keeps my RV nice and warm
When I switch it in I start my engine first as the current draw is quite high initially I watch my amp meter and when it falls back I switch the engine off ,irun the unit at full bore unit Im warm then I turn it down to minimum ,this keeps the RV at a comfortable temperature
Make sure that you have a working co detector ,I have 2

[mako]

@JT I suppose that price is consistent with what we hear about Webasto high prices. Further argument for a Chinese heater.

[Oeanda]

A blizzard dumped half a foot of snow on us today before briefly warming into a delightful freezing rain which melted most of the snow then congealed all over the boat in hard lumps and shards. And now- wind, and more snow.

A good night to finally remove the old Webasto and install the new heater from the country which shall not be named.

The old broken Webasto seems like a fairly ancient model (HL 32). It has quite a lot of wires running to its rusty brain unit.

For now the brain is left dangling back there in the bowels of the ship. I tapped into it for power to the new one. Maybe the old heater is repairable again, but the PO sure didn’t sound optimistic and he wasn’t impressed with how much money he spent trying.

I temporarily jerry rigged the new heater in place. I got the air bubbles out of the fuel line by using the manual fuel pump override function on the controller, and pumping the delivery end of the line out into a container for a while before hooking it up to the heater. You need to get at least most of the bubbles out. If your new heater shuts down and displays an error first thing after installation, chances are good that it’s air in the line.

The soft plastic fuel line attaches to the bottom of the heater right next to the sizzling hot exhaust pipe, so that’s a bit of a concern to be addressed tomorrow.

I still can’t really figure out how to use the confusing controller display, but wtf, I did eventually make the thing go and it’s blasting heat all over the place, if not quite all the places I want it to blast. The old ducting is pretty rotten and leaky. I’ll see if I can get some new stuff tomorrow. But still, I’m in a t-shirt 20 feet away from the source drinking a freezing cold beer I had sitting on deck, and not shivering (much). Lovely warm air is blasting across my feet. Warmth -it’s really a wonderful thing!
Unfortunately there still isn’t much heat coming out up forward, where I have to attempt to sleep, but at least there’s hope for the future.

My other comment is that the heater is quite loud. Not so much inside the boat as outside. And it’s just a steady rushing whine, so it’s not totally obnoxious. I haven’t tried the crappy looking muffler yet though.

[CaptTom]

Heat is a wonderful invention!

Thanks for keeping us posted. That picture reminded me of some places I've been in Atlantic Canada, so I had to look up Haida Gwaii. Other coast. Still, looks beautiful!

[laird]

The controller with the heaters from a "foreign " country are set to work on hertz ,the thing that is be most concerned about is the exhaust pipe on an old system ,I put in a new system and wrapped my exhaust with a bandage ,normally used for motorcycles ,I've also got 2 co detectors ,so that I can sleep.soundly

I love mine ,I've just got back from my RV ,it's about minus 4 celsius with the wind and it was toasty warm inside

The only things id change for a boat is the fuel lines ,the exhaust pipe to marine ss and have a proper through hull fitting

There's a good yt video on fitting one to a boat

[sv_pelagia]

Oeanda, trying to figure where in Haida Gwaii from photo?

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

Oeanda, trying to figure where in Haida Gwaii from photo?

Looks to me like sandspit marina.

Originally Posted by Oeanda

My other comment is that the heater is quite loud. Not so much inside the boat as outside. And it’s just a steady rushing whine, so it’s not totally obnoxious. I haven’t tried the crappy looking muffler yet though

I think the correct advice here is "don't". Those crappy mufflers are designed for use outside a vehicle and they are not sealed from exhaust gas escaping, used inside a boat could be fatal.

[jtsailjt]

I got my Webasto heater running again and since it’s supposed to drop down to almost freezing at night it’s such a relief to have it! It turns out that the cause of it suddenly not working was there was something wrong with the burner. First I was told that it was probably “coked” up and cleaning it would fix my problem. So I took the thing off the bulkhead where it’s mounted and took it to the table in main saloon which I covered with cardboard for protection. It came apart surprisingly easily, no more than 15 minutes to get access to burner. I think it was just 10 star drive machine screws and unplug a couple wire pairs. Once apart, in order to remove burner for cleaning or replacing there are 2 more screws to remove a bar that holds burner in place. Then push 2 rubber grommets that surround fuel line and ignition wires inward to allow wire with plug and short section of stainless steel fuel line that is welded right onto the burner to pulled inward as you pull the round burner out of the unit. The burner is about a 1.5” circle of what looks like compressed steel wool mounted on a stainless steel frame. Fuel arrives at the back of the steel wool barrier and seeps into it and air from fan is blown through small slots around the edge of the burner so the fuel that has seeped into the steel wool-ish burner is vaporized so it can burn. It turned out that my burner wasn’t very dirty so my second thought was that the tiny fuel line leading to burner might have got clogged so I ran a piece of monofilament fishing line into the fuel line and was able to push it all the way in so I think it was hitting against the back side of the compacted steel wool of the burner. Reassembled and it still wouldn’t start. Talked to tech and he was still sure it was the burner at fault so I ordered one and installed it and it started right up on first attempt and has been running since. New burner costs $174 plus shipping. I took a picture of my old burner but don’t know how to post a picture from my cellphone. Except for the high price of parts, these things are surprisingly easy to work on yourself.

[jtsailjt]

This is the burner I removed from my heater. Not sure why it stopped working because as you can see it wasn't badly fouled. Possibly fuel line was clogged in the back of the part of the burner that you can see in pic? Fuel is supposed to seep into the textured material that looks sort of like compacted steel wool and air is blown through the little slots in the rim of the burner and across the fuel soaked textured material to make a gaseous mixture that's easily ignited. The black rod is the igniter. The black material on the cardboard box is material I scraped off the surface of the textured material but even after doing that and reinstalling the burner it still didn't work. I replaced it with a new burner and it started up and ran immediately. This burner came from a Webasto heater but I suspect that all these type heater of all brands are pretty similar in how they're constructed.