Do you think this could work as a way of keeping an insulated coop above freezing in the coldest winter days? I’m talking 12x12. Would the thing be mounted outside and just the warm air coming in to keep the dust out? How much diesel gets burned through?
I’ve used high powered frost fighters around helicopters but they are enormous, throw out ridiculous amounts of heat and guzzle diesel like crazy.
From what I have been able to deduce these 5kw heaters are putting out just under 20 000 btus (18000) at max power. that would certainly keep a insulated 12x12 toasty warm, likely warm enough at half that.
you could configure one of these units to be portable and it can sit outside the building and you just run a 3 inch, 4 inch air pipe into the building you want to heat. You would want the 5kw heater as that fellow in the video explains, both the 5 and the 2 kw heaters burn the same amount of fuel but the 5kw heater is much more efficient in extracting heat from the burnt fuel do to the larger surface area of the heat exchanger. Set your temperature controller to 2C and your chickens wont be cold all winter. Fuel use is stunningly little from what I have gathered. Each situation will be as unique as the building being heated so fuel use will be hard to predict but a wag for a insulated 12x12 at -30 would be 3-3.5 liters over 24 hrs. I actually suspect less maybe 2 to 2.5 because your only trying to keep the 12x12 just above 0 C.
But if the unit sits outside, how would the thermometer work? Isn’t it attached to the heater and therefore, would read the -40C outside and crank crazy heat inside the coop and near literally cook my chickens?
No, the front panel control pulls right off the unit, it has a short length of wire so you can remote mount it, I think its a couple feet, but if you need longer thats no problem, its only a three wire controller, you could just marrette in a length of old extension cord wire for whatever length you want. You wont cook your chickens..that would be bad.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
They have a 3 meter extension available from amazon.
but for me, considering the price I would just make my own.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
So I complained to the seller of the first unit I had bought, the one selling the unit as a 8 kw when it was really a 5 kw . He has kicked me back 45.00 to not leave a bad review and go away. Fair enough.
Of the three complete heaters I bought, each supplier is now out of stock and I am noticing from suppliers with stock many have their prices creeping upwards.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Of the three complete heaters I bought, each supplier is now out of stock and I am noticing from suppliers with stock many have their prices creeping upwards.
You are such a trend-setter!
Of the three complete heaters I bought, each supplier is now out of stock and I am noticing from suppliers with stock many have their prices creeping upwards.
You are such a trend-setter!
I suspect it more to the change in weather, than my actions. (winter is coming, always)
This idea started as just having another heating option for the garage, but as I have learned more about these, the idea expanded to having another heating option for the house, but that now has expanding further into a idea that if they work as well as I hope, incorporating the house one into my regular heating strategy. As winter comes each year a game of chicken is played where I see how long I can go before I have to fire up the wood stove and keep it lit till spring.
If using one of these can postpone the time before I have to keep the fire lit, and allow me to let the fire go out earlier in spring. This may be a more appropriate way to heat in the shoulder months. If I could shorten my wood burning season from 6 months of the year to four months. Using my high value, hard hitting heat value wood for the coldest months only. I save on wood use and have a more comfortable house as I am not cooking myself with wood heat when the extra BTUs it puts out is not needed in the shoulder months.
Looks like this winter will be a test of this idea...if I can get it installed in time. In a house I have to give greater thought to how I am going to install this heater and distribute the heat.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Have not even fired this unit up yet, but getting close. Found a fuel line on the under side that needed some tape protection where it goes through a hole in the metal
Then I decided to mount the fuel pump on the outside of the case so that I had room to make it absolutely quiet.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
My other units I ordered have come in and look at this, now with proper rubber grommets for the wiring and a screen on the back that I dont have to cut away as it doesnt restrict the air flow and no sharp screws pointing at the fuel tank!
Spooky, its like they were watching what I complained about and changed it...How freeky is that?
While I have not fired up one of these yet I have been learning more about them from other aficionados. These can be used for burning waste motor oil, vegetable oil, Canola oil, kerosene, and even gasoline can be burnt with a little modification to the burn chamber, though gasoline can be added up to 15 % if burnt with the other listed fluids without any modifications. So these are quite versatile in the range of fuels that can be burnt.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
If you have not heard about these type of heaters before, its not that they have not been around, its that there were only a couple German companies making them since the 1920s-1930s. VVKB, Eberspacher, Webasto. I like that the Germans designed these, and the Chinese are apparently copying them mostly faithfully. As best I can determine the copying began roughly 2014. So not that long ago. Most every part is interchangeable with the German originals. Now here is why a opened my wallet and bought some.
These units cost thousands of dollars under the German branding. Multi thousands of dollars! But do to these knock offs (quality knock offs, not junk, maybe from the same factories even, on night shift) The price of these copies are roughly a 10th of what you would have had to spend for a German branded one. Look here... the originals prices are falling but still thousands of dollars! https://www.amazon.ca/VVKB-Parking-Heater-Apollo-V2-Certify/dp/B01MEFOQJJ/ref=sr_1_54_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=eberspa+diesel+heater&qid=1600055173&sr=8-54-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFaSTZCMkg5NjJHOE4mZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA0MDM2NDQxUUZKRDlXUFhaNk4zJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA1NTEzMzYxTDU4WFNaS1YwSVNCJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYnRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
This gives you a idea of what these cost Before the 2014-2015 time frame. Thousands!!!! (correction multi thousands, but now in 2020 only a couple thousand for the originals)
I think I have spent 1000.00 dollars total , and I have 2 complete units, ready to run, one kit (just missing a enclosing case, plus every single part needed to keep my units running. So roughly three complete units plus parts, every part I could need for the rest of my life , for less than half the price of a original German design, yet of near equally quality, I am a cheap guy (now), but will open my wallet when value enters the room.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
I now have ignition of the house diesel air heater. I have only been able to get one ducted 3 inch air line into the main living area of the basement do to time constraints. This one air duct comes in about 6 inches off the floor into the main sitting area downstairs. Its only been running for a hour or so, I am still getting use to it.
Its absolutely amazing the amount of heat this thing is putting out. I had to fabricate a exhaust pipe (pipe within a pipe within a pipe) to vent the exhaust out through a wall. There is enough heat going out the exhaust that I could heat water with just what is going out the exhaust pipe. I am not using this with the thermostatic control feature rather I have it set to pulses per second and currently just on the lowest setting 1.4 hz .
If I have done the math right, with a 1.4hz pulse rate I should be burning 100 ml per hr of diesel fuel or 2.4 liters in 24 hours
The learning starts today!
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Been a few hours now, I am just cautious testing things while monitoring temperatures. I have taken the pulse rate up to 1.9 (Max is 5.4) and the heat is cooking me in the sitting area, I will have to back it down a bit. I can see why the guys in trucks and RVs love these things, it will keep them toasty warm, but a house is not a truckers cab or rv. I have r20 walls (down stairs), even my basement ceiling has insulation in it so I dont need the full power these things can put out.
I will eventually walk the pulse rate up to maximum just to see what it can do but I sure dont need much heat from it this evening. Changed one thing already, my exhaust pipe had the third layer of outside pipe bent down at a 90 degree angle thinking that then wind would not create back pressure, turns out just the 90 degree bend caused enough back pressure the output pipe temp to start climbing past 128 degrees C . I ripped that pipe right off when I measured that and the temp fell back to a more reasonable 80 C. Where the exhaust pipe comes out the wall, if I am close to it, the sound is like a mini turbo spooling up. Not loud, not annoying, all low frequencies, cant be heard in the house.
I have propane heaters including the popular "Buddy heaters type" I think on low this puts out way more heat than those, and good dry heat. This controller has a clock so you can program in start and stop times if you wish. Its normal operation is continuous. Just steady heat, so far at the lower settings I am testing it at, I cant even hear any bower noise from the fan. I could sleep right beside this unit no problem. From where I am sitting on the sofa if I could reach my arm through the wall, and if my arm was a foot longer, I could touch this heater, so its not more than 4.5 feet from me, but separated by a wall.
I am happy as hell so far.
Start up took a while as I had to get the pump primed. There is a combination of buttons to press and the pump will do its own priming sequence, I could not be bothered to look that up, and just hit start instead. Had to let the unit go through about 6 start sequences before the pump was primed and the burn chamber ignited. It helps if you tap on the fuel filter, pump and lines to shake air bubbles out while its priming. You only have to prime once, the first time you use it (just dont let it run out of fuel or you may need to prime again)
I can tell you one thing, a fourth unit is going to be on the way, I have a pull behind trailer (camping 24 foot ). It has a propane furnace, after seeing what this heater can do, that propane furnace is getting ripped out and one of these put in.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
I have found the code to unlock the settings in this controler. I can now over ride the factory settings for fan speed and pulse rate. I can go as low as .8hz but am currently running the pump at 1hz. At 1hz,this should allow me to burn a measly 72ml per hr or 1.7 liters over 24 hrs.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Finished 2 days of using this heater, not that I needed to use it, but I wish to test it hard now and wring out any problems.
Power use is nothing, takes about 120 watts on first startup for the glow plug (maybe 2 minutes) then the power use drops to about one amp just for the blower fan.
I ran the unit up to a pulse rate of 5.2 last night. Very hot is all I can say.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
3rd evening testing this unit. Running it at a pulse rate of .9hz this evening. This will give me a burn rate of (.02ml x.9hz x 60 sec x 60 minutes x 24 hrs ) = 1.555 liters of diesel if used for 24 hrs. I am only running the unit from 7 pm to roughly 8 am so I will burn .84 of a liter of diesel.
I wont have time to duct in another vent so I built a deflector for the one vent going into the sitting area down stairs. This deflector divides the air. pushes it down along the floor right where a persons feet would be is sitting on the sofa or love seat, then being hot air, will rise up. I basically am making a heat bubble in the house where I spend 80 % of my time (other than sleeping) in the house. I am now ready to see how long I can go before I need to light my wood stove up.
Previously I had said that I would be replacing the controller on these units with a simple on off and knob control. It turns out this controller is actually user friendly, more features than I will ever use, but still simple enough that my blood pressure stays low.
4 C out tonight, inside temp of the walls in the basement area this heater empties into roughly 21 feet x 21 feet , is 20 C. will see if this heater holds that temp. I have bumped the pulse rate up to 1.5.
EDIT: low was 3 C overnight and the heater held the temperature to 20 C.
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.