Published on 12, July, 2020
For those who are interested in obtaining heat in a more independent manner than Main "utilities" there is the diesel cab heater as made in china and purchaseable for around £100.
Recommended fuel is road diesel at some stupid price, red diesel at a reduced but still unacceptable price or kerosene which in small amounts is obscenely priced.
I am now in a position to make quantitive and qualitative measurements as I have a second heater installed here in the garage from which I do much of my posting and other activities.
I can also measure outside air temp and indoor temps, and currently my heater is adding ten degrees to my garage where I sit and 5 degrees at the colder draughtier end.
It feeds a huge cardboard tube which both acts as a full length "radiator" and also directs warm air to where I sit for extra comfort. Currently it is running on road diesel whilst I negotiate my next purchase of kerosene.
Yesterday it used about 4 litres running continuously from 12:30 until 02:30. I tend to fire it up at high power initially until the tube gets warm then drop it back to 3/4 power for an hour or so to get some general warmth into the area, then I settle down to half power as soon as I am warm to keep the temps stable.
I eventually managed to get the other heater to swallow waste oil thinned with stale petrol only after I added 7 litres of road diesel to the 13 or so of mixed fuel I had made up already. The down side is that low power operation produces visible blue smoke...
There are two modes of operation thermostat where the heater brings the thermostat temp up then slows itself to suit, or dropper mode, where you control the speed at which the fuel is added and the heater controls it's fan speed. It seems that dropper mode allows you to explore various regimes of combustion, some of which are noticeably more efficient than others.
Future experiments will include more alternative fuelling investigations using the heater in the garden workshop, and developing a way of measuring efficiency between fuels more accurately here, until the weather improves at any rate...
Hello polite entity. Your words make no sense. I therefore feel it reasonable to presume you are a bot thing. You are an interesting one though, to be fair.
Dear Sir,
I had to comment on how you succinctly rounded up the price of heating these items...
Hello, thank you but it was an easy fix as I filed part of the housing that was rubbing. the bearings do work lose after a short running in period so I had to move the fan back but no issues since.
Yay!.....another tinker! Welcome. Your transport / vehicle / temporary office / mule / fortress on wheels / tow truck / soother [delete if you want] sounds flipping wonderful to me.
RE fan sticking - The bearings that are installed are not that great, many replace with better quality such as SKF 625zz or the fan blades could be rubbing on the outer housing, that would be an easy check/fix.
I use one in my 1976 Land Rover to make sure I have a warm vehicle to step in to and keep warm while out. I get the odd fault code due to the fan sticking and I am waiting for new fuel tank due to the old one leaking. Much cheaper than buying an Espacher.
It is, helps me dive into whatever is on the menu at the time, though cold in the winter (I have a diesel heater now) & very hot in the summer ... don't think I'll be fitting air conditioning ... mind you, that'll keep me occupied for a while !
Any space will do when you've got the right mind for it.....your CWL space sounds more than adequate for constructive fun and experimentation.
Thank you, I should have ended up as a 'mad scientist' but got kicked out of 6th form all I have is a conservatory/workshop/lab to play in
Nice to see new members with a practical bent. Welcome.
And if I do the insulation before the measuring, 1, the temp cycles will be longer making it more tedious, and 2. I'd like to have measurements of which improvements make the biggest difference per expenditure. ( could google it of course, but I learn best and deepest through "DIY"...
I have 3 of them, using one atm, a Maxspeeding Rods version. I have it set up in my conservatory, on a platform, on a workbench. It's raised because the exhaust goes out through a small top window & ideally should be level or angled down, I used a 2m pipe.
The hot air out pipe comes into the kitchen via a top window. I've found no exhaust leak from burner using CO meter, so happy to be in conservatory while it's running.
I've tested the exhaust gas on different settings with a carbon monoxide meter, power level 4 of 5 seems to produce the best burn & least CO inc better fuel useage.
It takes about an hour for the warm air to penetrate through the kitchen to the lounge & upstairs, but it does raise the temp in the house, I've had it going from 10 to 16 celcius, that's toasty for me as I tend to wear a shedload of track suits, jumpers & a bobble hat in the winter - I live on my own lol.
I don't know how to plan the setup for next winter, not that keen on boring holes through the wall (yet) if the unit is outside & have have concerns (safety) for a unit inside my lounge & still need a hole (smaller) for the exhaust & maybe air intake.
A CO meter is essential when using a parking heater in any closed space.
I've seen a ratio mix 60/40 diesel/kero gets good results, waste oil creates deposits but it seems that these burners are fairly easy to clean out & service.
Glad to see folks experimenting with them & there's loads on Youtube.
Exactly. We are already planning the insulation, now that the results are measurable. First I'll do the door and then the roof.. 2 litre runs seem Ideal for measuring purposes with eth difference outside and inside being taken into account also. I've known for several years that I need to re-examine how "latent heat" works...
ON a more exciting technical level I've examined the gubbins now and the only accurate feedback the CPU is getting is combustion temp!
That means the mapping for dropper pump versus air intake speed must be mapped for the designed fuel and that addition of at least an oxygen sensor, would allow more effective use of the available fuel...
Next up, before I change anything, let's put a burn of kerosine though the heater and see how efficiently that burns compared to road diesel.
Zoe - you are right - all empirical evidence that I have ever read or researched suggest that improving the air-tightness of the space and insulative properties of the "envelope" that you are trying to heat are the FIRST things to tackle if you are aiming for cheaper heating costs and a more sustainable planet..............but to be honest, Ispergs experiment is way more interesting !
With love........and a knowing self-identification = comment = "Typical flipping autist, doing the fun and interesting thing first, rather than the simple and obvious thing first !
At this point it's more about establishing a baseline.
This setup totally kicks the butt of my 2.6 KW electric fan heater, and is about equal where I sit to my 3KW zipro "corona" type kero heater but the loss gradient towards the cold end seems far less and the overall temp improvement is greater.
As soon as I add insulation, more effective draught exclusion or even shut the door to the colder room behind me I will get greater efficiency in my bit.
Would you need to have it on continuously for that long if you made sure the warm air couldn’t escape? Could you line the cardboard tube with some kind of foil? Have you made sure that all of the windows and doors are sufficiently sealed? I’m just wondering if that would drastically bring the cost down.
Yep, at 75p a litre for kero that's 3 quid a day to heat an uninsulated garage. OR closer to a tenner a day if you use road diesel...
But 14 hours runtime at a minimum 2KW (these heaters usually do 2-5KW) is 28KW/hrs. Currenlty I believe nat gas is priced at 12p a kw/hr and if my mintal arithmetic works, at kero prices that compares very favourably indeed, even before I start adding any "free of cost" ingredients to further reduce the cost of my fuel...
I could see me ending up making an on the fly fuel reservoir blending system that basically adds more waste oil when heat demand is high, and less when the heater needs to run at a lower power output.
Also, Kerosene CAN be obtained at a very low cost indeed from ones local airfield if one has the contacts, as once they remove it, they don't put it back during servicing the bigger aeroplanes.
4 litres is quite a bit of cost Sperg.
My immediate reaction is that you should build a cardboard radiator to contain and circulate the hot air you produce (at some stage)....just having a long tube with an open end will result in very deviant pockets of temperature here and there?
I will be interested in what your prelim records indicate. Good for you - this sort of stuff is always fun.