LPG Advice Please.

[kevinc250]

with this heater what I found last year is I purposely let  my stystem freeze over and I then popped the heater on, within half an hour it was de-frosted enough to work.

on a few occasions I left the heater on overnight on a low 1.2 kw setting was -7 outside during the night sometimes but in the morning the heater was showing 19 inside the van so everything was nice and supple and ready to go to work, placed it on full wattage and half an hour later the temps were at at a heady height of 39c 

for me, it takes care of any overnight chills and frost we may have and it enables me to work without  all those oil fed rads and duvet covers etc which we have played with over the years and didn't work.

 

[Baldmonkey]

I've fitted and 18l one but would recommend a 9l as the flow rate has to be quite high on mine to trigger the flow rate sensor, meaning if I want a slow flow the boiler won't kick in and just get cold, turn up the controller and it kicks in.. Again that was because I fit an 18l and not any fault of the system... I paid around £100 for the boiler and its worked Brill... Hot water on demand and uses very little gas.. Which brings me onto the gas bottle. 

I would strongly advise you to invest in a "gasit" refillable bottle (works out less than £200) which means you can rock up to any petrol station that does lpg and legally fill it up (mines the 11kg bottle holding around 25l of lpg) this costs me around £13 to fill instead of £28 to exchange cylinders... So every time I fill up I'm saving the time of detaching the bottle, lugging it to desk, lugging a new one back and reattaching it.. And £15 saving. 

I bought the kit that allowed me to plumb the bottle externally for filling purposes.. 

Got to be honest the only thing I need to do now is plumb the vent through the roof as it causes condensation in the van. 

I've included a few pics below

The last shows the little black cap on the side of the van where I fill it ?

 

[Den]

hi norvick, I have used one of these for last years cold weather and, I just wished i'd have found it earlierhttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Excelvan-5KW-12V-Integration-Diesel-Air-Heater-Parking-Heater-Warming-w-Remote/323948450386?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item4b6cd51252:g:NbkAAOSw5CddVma-&enc=AQAEAAACUBPxNw%2BVj6nta7CKEs3N0qVLGFs3j7eyZKwf6uqXfKHzPpNEndn9IOFLAkImc3qIUSg9XLuaMIuLBUUk8djaEtEA40uyeW6HKDUo3bym02rKMcwccgqMxXiv2dxoLoxv1%2B7mFDhnmCcUFC2REoFXrWodi8BxNUNlhgclOUPWM0YoZlumgNM1g2j1C88D3Df6fbRvW4Cj7bemg84M1QXWm2p3QAAm5sTGjGPV2F75zpPee9sdEikWKLCxoh1raxWBdiBN1v0QknuQwmD0pP9ID0h3e7cWYbCdAY%2Bv15NHkAqBX9sidjjE%2BsLlP3m%2FOwdvZGj5MnuZdtgbS5xwE3i8ZKSozGGJ1sIezr2K36C%2FFgztC5FxdC2PkkHaB3t0x2cp6O7%2FqcpY3UVBhsNpIU%2BuSXjlH9cgzx8LvMK91lTdBlv3FrOt%2FG%2BM9yAezhoAq4z%2BiRhL5%2F98gsa4G%2FfG%2FVSIfpG9rhDbqbMApXhLQlRgn9K1p9s5XN2eG%2BkkK6eJERfbW%2BMUTccYNewGuhMBFID8q6t1woP1JZubKNvDOO43SuvLfXLIFObfjtn%2BaYlpMRhtIoaqn%2BRmtjmc7jI1EF5st34iVvcBayZLfLsrMd58BluM1%2FRLDE4VWFzy4Ib0pb76wLhE7JnRehVRSdk6gYrVExqNJUaR2QcuRxX5ynttMescsV3h7%2FhboiDaAVOARZdhLJpyPUIDvzx6vwva2sY0Ztafbkzq%2Ben%2Bi3Lai23fxVYIAnGpZh6azPzKdnQ8DUuVpZ1YiXzCSFAItOA70NByLvs%3D&checksum=3239484503869b20e27006b64124a8680e99b2b6aaaf&enc=AQAEAAACUBPxNw%2BVj6nta7CKEs3N0qVLGFs3j7eyZKwf6uqXfKHzPpNEndn9IOFLAkImc3qIUSg9XLuaMIuLBUUk8djaEtEA40uyeW6HKDUo3bym02rKMcwccgqMxXiv2dxoLoxv1%2B7mFDhnmCcUFC2REoFXrWodi8BxNUNlhgclOUPWM0YoZlumgNM1g2j1C88D3Df6fbRvW4Cj7bemg84M1QXWm2p3QAAm5sTGjGPV2F75zpPee9sdEikWKLCxoh1raxWBdiBN1v0QknuQwmD0pP9ID0h3e7cWYbCdAY%2Bv15NHkAqBX9sidjjE%2BsLlP3m%2FOwdvZGj5MnuZdtgbS5xwE3i8ZKSozGGJ1sIezr2K36C%2FFgztC5FxdC2PkkHaB3t0x2cp6O7%2FqcpY3UVBhsNpIU%2BuSXjlH9cgzx8LvMK91lTdBlv3FrOt%2FG%2BM9yAezhoAq4z%2BiRhL5%2F98gsa4G%2FfG%2FVSIfpG9rhDbqbMApXhLQlRgn9K1p9s5XN2eG%2BkkK6eJERfbW%2BMUTccYNewGuhMBFID8q6t1woP1JZubKNvDOO43SuvLfXLIFObfjtn%2BaYlpMRhtIoaqn%2BRmtjmc7jI1EF5st34iVvcBayZLfLsrMd58BluM1%2FRLDE4VWFzy4Ib0pb76wLhE7JnRehVRSdk6gYrVExqNJUaR2QcuRxX5ynttMescsV3h7%2FhboiDaAVOARZdhLJpyPUIDvzx6vwva2sY0Ztafbkzq%2Ben%2Bi3Lai23fxVYIAnGpZh6azPzKdnQ8DUuVpZ1YiXzCSFAItOA70NByLvs%3D&checksum=3239484503869b20e27006b64124a8680e99b2b6aaaf

this is just a quick example of what I have, the supplier is your choice of course

I have one of these all in ones diesel heaters (not benched tested it yet) to be installed  in my man cave when finished off.  I have the normal diesel heater installed in my high top lwb campervan 2kw version and it’s toast in there even on the coldest night.

 

[kevinc250]

10 hours ago, spruce said:



This may be of interest to you.

that's the same-ish way I heat my water up spruce, but I beg to differ on the froststat as the webasto and eberspacher have different start up and slow down times and I believe, ian  tweaks the controllers to suit, there again with the other diesel heater in use you just don't need the frost stat, hell its even remotely controlled so you could switch it on from the lounge window or if you don't want to bother with that just program it into the inbuilt timer so it comes on at a certain time and cracks on during the night

 

[wezza13]

with this heater what I found last year is I purposely let  my stystem freeze over and I then popped the heater on, within half an hour it was de-frosted enough to work.

on a few occasions I left the heater on overnight on a low 1.2 kw setting was -7 outside during the night sometimes but in the morning the heater was showing 19 inside the van so everything was nice and supple and ready to go to work, placed it on full wattage and half an hour later the temps were at at a heady height of 39c 

for me, it takes care of any overnight chills and frost we may have and it enables me to work without  all those oil fed rads and duvet covers etc which we have played with over the years and didn't work.

Are they simple enough to use? And run off of red diesel fine?

 

[Den]

Are they simple enough to use? And run off of red diesel fine?

I run mine off heating oil a lot cheaper and cleaner ?

 

[kevinc250]

if its fitted properly then, its very easy to use wezza, I prefer to use diesel from the pump as it burns cleaner-that's just my preference as for the time its used it costs very little in fuel and if I used red for the little saving i'd make I could lose a mornings work if it sooted up so the savings are not worth thinking about in this scenario, one full tank of 5litre has lasted me since November last year so its not worth doing the sums

 

[francie]

Are these diesel heaters noisy? 

 

[kevinc250]

depends what you call noisey  francie,my eberspacher is loud compared to the Chinese heater I have, that is so quiet- even the Chinese water heater I tried this year was so much quieter in comparision to the ebers or webastos I have used in the past but you can buy silencers for them all

 

[CHWS]

if its fitted properly then, its very easy to use wezza, I prefer to use diesel from the pump as it burns cleaner-that's just my preference as for the time its used it costs very little in fuel and if I used red for the little saving i'd make I could lose a mornings work if it sooted up so the savings are not worth thinking about in this scenario, one full tank of 5litre has lasted me since November last year so its not worth doing the sums

Am I right in reading that you use that heater to also heat your water ? 

 

[paul alan]

I dont insulate the tank as the main purpose of the immersion is frost prevention throughout all the equipment in the van, which it does perfectly.

The immersion is mounted as low as possible, probably around 4-5 inches from the bottom.

Piping hot to me would be un touchable by hand, I get around 50 degrees at the brush head after 13 hours of 3kw power, no more.

 

[CHWS]

surely that would take hours heating a cold tank

 

[NorVik]

diesel water heaters I've looked a bit now is:

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000308470645.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail

It's a 8KW WATER/liquid heater (330USD), I've also seen people online using "egr piping" from cars to exhaust as there is a lot of heat to retain from that also combined with a small pump, or even using copper wire around exhaust.

EGR exhaust hot water

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yyF2I6iZxd4

Even the cheap 5KW diesel AIR heater for 100-150 GBP/USD the"egr piping" / copper wire on exhaust seems very effective.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32869602694.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail&spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.5b832e0eAeuest

I like the safety aspects of diesel vs LPG, even though I've lived quite some years in Asia, they use LPG all around.. Insurance wise I'm pretty sure it's okay with LPG heater in van here.

If using diesel water / air heater, there it seems to be that you need to retur the hot water straight to tank first with small transfer pump, then pump it again from wfp pump, this is not as easy with instant feed of hot water the same way as LPG water heater as one of you just mentioned. I guess a lot more energy is being used if feeding into tank instead of hot water instantly..

These LPG heaters have frost protection - at least the one I bought with 8LPM, but does that really work...? Can I leave the LPG heater in van with no problem in say -10C?

I've also looked into LPG bottle / circular ring under the van instead of spare tyre, and connect that to LPG heater, would get away from some safety issues / regulations here at least. And also have LPG gas safety valve connected..(similar to this, but the gas sensor should also be 12v)

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/33045488287.html?trace=wwwdetail2mobilesitedetail&algo_pvid=146770e6-4733-4d71-8e3c-71a7a10400ad&algo_expid=146770e6-4733-4d71-8e3c-71a7a10400ad-1&btsid=ab735b01-3e71-4632-9a0f-dcb4e967e3d2&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_8,searchweb201603_55

Immersion heater also seems pretty good, I've just moved where this could be a possible solution, but not sure yet...

@kevinc250 @spruce @Baldmonkey

 

[kevinc250]

@norvik what do you/would you require from these heaters?, if its just a means to keep everything from freezing then the cheaper 5kw air parking heaters would be a good go to as you can control the output wattage via the controller ie full blast at 5kw or low at 1.2 kw

they have a remote to turn on and off and also a timer should you need to use that,

if you are thinking of heating the water then, an immersion is the most cost friendly and easiest way to do this as long as you don't mind the temps being around 30c you'll be fine,

the way I heat my water is by using a 5kw eberspacher diesel water heater which passes through the burner and then back to the tank-I have an insulated tank so it makes more efficient use of the retained heat, also I use a liebig condenser as part of the exhaust stystem similar to that youtube vid but purpose made for the eber, this is used solely for lifting the heat of the water to my hosereel rather than back to the tank although I have a prv installed which goes back to the tank when the univalve is closed the heat increase is around 15c depending on flow to the reel/brush.

with the water heaters all you are doing is controlling the heat difference between whats in your tank and what the heater is capable of.

I tried one of those Chinese water heaters this year and yes, they are very good as it had a few output readings that the ebers and webasto's don't have so it was easy to monitor and get a feel of what was going on,

on a 5kw heater with the boiler at a heat of 82c the heater loss through the heat exchanger was 20c so 62c in reality the heat loss was always 20c even with double passing on the exchanger there was a sweet spot where the difference was 11c, unfortunately once the boiler got to a certain temp it think it was around 65c or so the fuel pump wouldn't ramp down so it caused overfuelling leading to a shut down, now when I placed the eber fuel pump on as its a lower wattage pump the heater worked but the useable heat was at best 45-50c 

hope this helps a bit

 

[CHWS]

@norvik what do you/would you require from these heaters?, if its just a means to keep everything from freezing then the cheaper 5kw air parking heaters would be a good go to as you can control the output wattage via the controller ie full blast at 5kw or low at 1.2 kw

they have a remote to turn on and off and also a timer should you need to use that,

if you are thinking of heating the water then, an immersion is the most cost friendly and easiest way to do this as long as you don't mind the temps being around 30c you'll be fine,

the way I heat my water is by using a 5kw eberspacher diesel water heater which passes through the burner and then back to the tank-I have an insulated tank so it makes more efficient use of the retained heat, also I use a liebig condenser as part of the exhaust stystem similar to that youtube vid but purpose made for the eber, this is used solely for lifting the heat of the water to my hosereel rather than back to the tank although I have a prv installed which goes back to the tank when the univalve is closed the heat increase is around 15c depending on flow to the reel/brush.

with the water heaters all you are doing is controlling the heat difference between whats in your tank and what the heater is capable of.

I tried one of those Chinese water heaters this year and yes, they are very good as it had a few output readings that the ebers and webasto's don't have so it was easy to monitor and get a feel of what was going on,

on a 5kw heater with the boiler at a heat of 82c the heater loss through the heat exchanger was 20c so 62c in reality the heat loss was always 20c even with double passing on the exchanger there was a sweet spot where the difference was 11c, unfortunately once the boiler got to a certain temp it think it was around 65c or so the fuel pump wouldn't ramp down so it caused overfuelling leading to a shut down, now when I placed the eber fuel pump on as its a lower wattage pump the heater worked but the useable heat was at best 45-50c 

hope this helps a bit

when your using this for defrosting purposes, Where do you direct the exhaust 

 

[kevinc250]

@chws both air intake and exhaust must go through the floor i.e. drill two holes in the floor connect to the battery and supply fuel and away you go, theres a bit more to it than than but that's the basics

 

[CHWS]

@chws both air intake and exhaust must go through the floor i.e. drill two holes in the floor connect to the battery and supply fuel and away you go, theres a bit more to it than than but that's the basics

No drilling lol I’m out ?