5kw diesel heater myth

[Chris Dall]

It is illegal to mix anything with bleach or sodium hypochlorite unless it’s specifically made to do so and approved to be added to it end off , what you are suggesting is dangerous , all the surfactants are cheap LDA is only around £15 for  5 ltr and that will treat 13 x20 ltr drums of hypo , clever wash is around £45 for 5 ltr with both of theses products you only need 300 ml per 20 ltr drum of hypo so it’s hardly expensive stuff if ones cannot afford that then they don’t run a very profitable business. 

Sorry totally confused by what you are saying ????? 

You said, people that have used fairy before do not run a profitable business.

 

[doug atkinson]

There is also a 12 kw and 16 kw version of theses wabasto heaters I would love to see the 12 kw version used for our needs I think it would be much better option with far more adjustment in temperature, a mate of mine fits them in boats , when I get time I am thinking of trying one in my van with the current set up and see how it works . 

Probably the same heater

 

[Chris Dall]

Hi all. Just wanted to dispel a bit of a myth that keeps doing the rounds. Namely that a 5kw diesel heater only gets luke warm. I've seen many people say it on here and on FB. In fact I nearly cancelled my order after reading it as I was horrified to only get luke warm water for nearly £4k.

I'm glad I didn't as it's simply not true anymore. The new 5kw webasto Evo top is a cracking little heater and is more than sufficient for a one man system I've attached a couple of photos to show the heat. Nearly 45 degrees out the brush head which is too hot to hold your hand under.

So if you are thinking of going for it. Don't hesitate on the 5kw.

* Can't add the picture of the temperature it's says file too big but it was 44 degrees out of the brush head

View attachment 23647

View attachment 23649

All these units are great mate, you'll love it. Did you get frost stat protection?

You will notice the heat can fluctuate massively, sometimes even become cold, then is veers right past 60c then down again.

But in all, great products. Cut chemical use almost out on first cleans, upvc etc.

Happy cleaning!

 

[Pjj]

You said, people that have used fairy before do not run a profitable business.

I was using a generalisation that ones who use washing up liquid are cheap skates and not prepared to buy decent and safe chemicals , I didn’t mean you or your company if that’s how it came over I apologise. 

Probably the same heater

Yes I think they are just slightly bigger units and burners pumping in a bit more fuel . 

 

[RyeCleanLiam]

Webasto and Eberspacher regardless of their Kw are not meant for any of the functions we use them for as window cleaners.

A large manufacturer to the window cleaning industry who make water heating units specifically for our purpose have selected my business to trial their latest unit they have in R&D.

All I can say is the heating unit is Canadian, and is far more fuel efficient than the Webasto and Eberspacher units, let alone it needs minimal modification like the two mentioned above have to have done to them to fit our purpose of continually running water. It will also not get the massive heat fluctuations you experience either.

Watch this space as we have been informed of a late summer delivery and fitting.

All the best.

Sounds exciting that. Shame I've just bought mine lol

All these units are great mate, you'll love it. Did you get frost stat protection?

You will notice the heat can fluctuate massively, sometimes even become cold, then is veers right past 60c then down again.

But in all, great products. Cut chemical use almost out on first cleans, upvc etc.

Happy cleaning!

Yes it's got frost stat protection too. 

Yes I've not used it through much of a winter yet so that will be more of a tell. But so far very happy and I can't believe how much better hit cleans.

Cheers 

 

[RyeCleanLiam]

What size tank do you have ?? It is ideal for heating the tank between jobs the less water the  faster it will heat up as well on my smallest tank which is 600 ltr we sometimes switch the boiler off by lunch time generally there is about 300-400 ltr left and it’s that hot you cannot put your hand in it , but our tanks aren’t insulated so they do dissipate heat quite quickly  

425 tank so doesn't take much to heat up at all. Same thing the water is too hot to put your hand in by lunchtime. 

 

[Den]

Hi all. Just wanted to dispel a bit of a myth that keeps doing the rounds. Namely that a 5kw diesel heater only gets luke warm. I've seen many people say it on here and on FB. In fact I nearly cancelled my order after reading it as I was horrified to only get luke warm water for nearly £4k.

I'm glad I didn't as it's simply not true anymore. The new 5kw webasto Evo top is a cracking little heater and is more than sufficient for a one man system I've attached a couple of photos to show the heat. Nearly 45 degrees out the brush head which is too hot to hold your hand under.

So if you are thinking of going for it. Don't hesitate on the 5kw.

* Can't add the picture of the temperature it's says file too big but it was 44 degrees out of the brush head

View attachment 23647

View attachment 23649

Is that a DuPont brush?

 

[scottish cleaning service]

Probably the same heater

A customer of mine makes heated clothing and has went down the patent route. He was saying a patent lasts 20 years before anyone can copy it. Maybe Webasto has been out 20 years now and other companies are looking at making their own version. I'm not up to speed with patents but he seems to know what he is talking about.

 

[RyeCleanLiam]

Is that a DuPont brush?

Yes the first ultimate Dupont with black inner bristles. I just use it for washing the van now lol

 

[Den]

They last forever my son uses the same one he has had it since then were released lol 

 

[Pjj]

A customer of mine makes heated clothing and has went down the patent route. He was saying a patent lasts 20 years before anyone can copy it. Maybe Webasto has been out 20 years now and other companies are looking at making their own version. I'm not up to speed with patents but he seems to know what he is talking about.

There are cheap chinese copies of the wabasto heaters available for £250-350 I wouldn’t want one but from what I hear they are fairly reliable but have much thinner wiring on them 

 

[spruce]

Webasto and Eberspacher regardless of their Kw are not meant for any of the functions we use them for as window cleaners.

A large manufacturer to the window cleaning industry who make water heating units specifically for our purpose have selected my business to trial their latest unit they have in R&D.

All I can say is the heating unit is Canadian, and is far more fuel efficient than the Webasto and Eberspacher units, let alone it needs minimal modification like the two mentioned above have to have done to them to fit our purpose of continually running water. It will also not get the massive heat fluctuations you experience either.

Watch this space as we have been informed of a late summer delivery and fitting.

All the best.

From what I can remember Calcutt Boats took a 'hammering' from the sale of Webasto heaters back in the days of poor red diesel supplied as fuel and heating oil on inland Marinas.

They started to promote Hurricane diesel heaters made in Canada as the better option. Brodex also used to sell them as did another supplier who no longer exists.

http://www.calcuttboats.com/hurricane.html

The manufacturers of Hurricane convinced a few that their heater was better than a Webasto and they didn't suffer from the same coking up issues. According to an outside boat heating specialist all heaters, including Hurricane suffered from the same problem. The reason why there were so few repairs done on Hurricane heaters was that there wasn't many sold to go wrong, rather than having better reliability.

Hurricane even brought out a 'special' heater for the window cleaning market. It works on the same principal as any other diesel heater.

https://itrheat.com/products/special-applications/the-windowwasher/

Again if memory serves me one of the Hurricane suppliers refused to sell the unit to a diy installer. They insisted if you purchased a unit they had to fit it in their workshop.

What I didn't like about them was that their exhaust came out of the top of the unit so could cause burns as it wasn't caged. It also would add unnecessary heat inside the back of the van. There was a comment once that they also offered an underneath exhaust option but I never saw proof of that statement.

 

[Pjj]

From what I can remember Calcutt Boats took a 'hammering' from the sale of Webasto heaters back in the days of poor red diesel supplied as fuel and heating oil on inland Marinas.

They started to promote Hurricane diesel heaters made in Canada as the better option. Brodex also used to sell them as did another supplier who no longer exists.

http://www.calcuttboats.com/hurricane.html

The manufacturers of Hurricane convinced a few that their heater was better than a Webasto and they didn't suffer from the same coking up issues. According to an outside boat specialist all heaters, including Hurricane suffered from the same problem. The reason why there were so few repairs done on Hurricane heaters was that there wasn't many sold to go wrong, rather than having better reliability.

Hurricane even brought out a 'special' heater from the window cleaning market. 

https://itrheat.com/products/special-applications/the-windowwasher/

Again if memory serves me one of the Hurricane suppliers refused to sell the unit to a diy installer. They insisted if you purchased a unit they had to fit it in their workshop.

You are the proverbial font of all knowledge spruce there isn’t much that gets past you ?

 

[spruce]

You are the proverbial font of all knowledge spruce there isn’t much that gets past you ?

It became quite a well known case about 12 years ago. A boat owner felt that the boatyard had sold a Webasto diesel heater that wasn't fit for purpose as it needed expensive repairs within its warranty period. Webasto had rejected the claim as the internal components were choked up with carbon. At the time Webasto did advertise in their instruction brochure that their heater would run on red diesel.

The boat owner filed a claim in court against the boatyard and the yard in turn on Webasto. There were a lot of other boat owners awaiting the outcome of this case. Had the original boat owner won his case then Webasto would have had an avalanche of court claims against them.

I don't recall how far the court case went but Webasto eventually took the heater and repaired it as a goodwill gesture and then ran the heater for the same period using road diesel supplied to the heater via a separate tank. After a year they opened the heater up and the customer saw that the internal components were virtual free from carbon deposits. He also acknowledged that the heater has run faultlessly during that test year. So Webasto triumphed. The customer was at fault as he used an inferior diesel.

They concluded that the red diesel was of very poor quality and causing the failures. Webasto have since changed the wording in the brochure to specify what standard of diesel can be used in their heaters.

Since then legislation has cleaned up the quality requirements of red diesel sold to inland marinas. There is hardly a murmur on the boat forums about Webasto heaters these days. However, when the quality of diesel changed those selling 'red' diesel on coastal  outlets for boats at sea (such as fishing boats) weren't under the same quality restrictions. They could continue selling a lower quality fuel. Apparently pollution at sea and pollution on land aren't the same.

I've never been able to find out what the current situation is. Our local garage sells only red diesel mainly for the fishing industry, so I have always been dubious about running my heater on their fuel. If they were selling the lower grade diesel would they admit it?

A local tree surgeon runs his chain saws and wood chipper on red diesel. He buys it from an inland BP garage 12 miles away, not from our local outlet.

The rift between this boatyard and Webasto doesn't appear to have healed. The manufacturers of Hurricane heaters climbed on the marketing bandwagon hoping to capitalize on the outcome of this court case. They claimed their heaters would run on even the poorest quality of diesel.

I believe that the design of Hurricane heaters limits their marketing potential. A Webasto heater is compact and components can be fitted where there is space. The Hurricane heaters are of a plug and play design. By heater standards they are a bulky box that just doesn't fit in a small space. Where would they fit that in a narrow boat?

Looking at the boatyard's website there is a price list of servicing costs. As with Webasto servicing costs on-site aren't cheap. Getting the whole heater into the boatyard for servicing would be a major undertaking. I don't see the market flooded with Hurricane heaters, do you?

 

[spruce]

A customer of mine makes heated clothing and has went down the patent route. He was saying a patent lasts 20 years before anyone can copy it. Maybe Webasto has been out 20 years now and other companies are looking at making their own version. I'm not up to speed with patents but he seems to know what he is talking about.

Sometimes strange things happen with patents. They can also be renewed within that 20-year period. Bosch had a patent on the pendulum action on their jigsaws. Someone in Leinfelden (Bosch's headquarters near Stuttgart) didn't renew the patent and in the gap before they did Black and Decker marketed a pendulum action jigsaw which Bosch could do nothing about.

Bosch also had patents on SDS and SDS Plus drill bits but they opened them up. Many companies manufactured these drill bits, I guess under licence from Bosch. Initially this was aimed at Hilti who couldn't sell SDS bits for their machines at first and all they could offer was a rather poor substitute.

All those patents will have expired by now.

I'm not sure how long Webasto Thermo 90 S and ST's have been out, but the Chinese have copies for sale. I haven't seen any copies of the Thermo Pro 90 though. What we never know is what is actually made in China for Webasto to begin with.