Awesome , my plans on location were crushed . Now looking at new location in van.

Awesome , my plans on location were crushed . Now looking at new location in van.

The unlock code is 1688 for changing parameters. Should be able to adjust the pulse rate all the way down to .8hz then. You can even program in different current levels for the glow plug, if for example, if you are burning used heavy oil. I have not found a need to change the glow plug current level yet but its nice to know I can should the need a rise.

We have had some cold weather hit starting last Friday or so, I know it was -23 at my place yesterday, at least -20 now and going to be cold all week. The garage heater has been bumped up to 2.7hz and that works out to 4.6 liters of diesel per 24hrs, bear in mind my garage (unlike my house) is horrible for heat, only r12 walls, big leaky windows, over head doors that dont seal tight or even come all the way to the floor, should be torn down but I am just not that ambitious. Anyway, the heater is keeping it above 0C. +2 or +3 C, in that range. I could use the heater to drive the temp up higher, but just above 0 C is all I am aiming for.

I now have well over 5000 hrs of experience running these things (house and garage), and they have run perfect for me but Someone I know has just had a problem and their unit wont start so I get to trouble shoot one this week. (I suspect they have sucked something up the air intake, like sawdust)

The on demand water heater as been working fine, when I get some time I will crunch the numbers and work out the propane cost per shower.

I spoke too soon. The garage heater quit working today. Fuel pump was the problem, it looked like the pump was functioning but it wasnt really forcing the fuel into the burn chamber. I estimate 2700+ hrs on this unit. First problem I have had.

Edit, So I had replaced the fuel pump and the unit ran fine. The next day it was bothering me that the pump had failed. So I looked the unit over again and put the original pump back in and the heater continued to run fine. I suspect I reached the wrong conclusion, the pump had not failed, I now suspect the clamp holding the fuel line to the fuel pump had become loose or just loose enough to let a little air to be drawn into the fuel line intake and in replacing the pump I tightened up this clamp fixing the problem.

Just picked up 4 barrels for diesel storage. Really nice barrels, these are 205 L barrels but also have the removeable top so would be good for food storage as well. You can find them for sale on kijiji, 35 dollars each, available north side of Edmonton.

Final numbers are ready on the propane cost for the on demand water heater. Assuming you are paying typical retail propane price of 30 dollars for a thirty pounder of propane, I found I can get 90 showers out of a tank for a cost of 33 cents a shower. Thats a 10 to 12 minute steaming hot shower at a flow rate of 2.9 liters per minute (yes I have low flow shower head). As I get my propane cheaper, my cost would be about 17/90= 18 cents a shower, cheap, really cheap.

The next few days will put my garage heater to the Test. -31 this evening, likely going lower over night. I set the pulse rate to max,5.5 pulses per second. I have never ran a unit that high, and at that high of setting, fuel use will be horrendous....9 liters over a full 24 hours, but this is how I see what it can do. Forecast is for some coming nights going down to -36,-37,-38.So far this Diesel heater is keeping the leaky 22x22 (about 460sqft garage) above 0 C.

Edit; The heater held the temp above 0C while the out side temp fell to greater than 32 below.

I think it fell to -36 C overnight. The heater is not keeping up now, the temp in the garage is sitting right at 0 and if we have another night as cold I expect the temp to fall a little below 0C.

Now failure of the house heater. It had been running continuously all winter long but for the first time ever I let it run out of diesel fuel by accident and after refueling I could not get it to ignite. I estimate the unit has 4500 hrs on it. I did a quick check and suspect the problem to be just carbon build up, likely on the glow plug, minor. I will tear it apart this weekend and see what I find.

It’s certainly been a milder winter this year, save for a couple of week.

I know you thoroughly conduct analysis of things, so my question is how much wood did you save for heating this year with the new heater(s)?

In your trade of wood for diesel, what do you estimate your savings to be?

It’s certainly been a milder winter this year, save for a couple of week.

I know you thoroughly conduct analysis of things, so my question is how much wood did you save for heating this year with the new heater(s)?

In your trade of wood for diesel, what do you estimate your savings to be?

HP, I would normally have kept track of everything in detail but life was a enormous cluster phuck last fall racing to get multipule units running at my place and then for others that I can say little with certainty.
I can say I used half the wood I normally would (with certainty) partly, largely, because of the diesel heater but a bit because of the mildness of the winter. I am questimating I used somewhere around 300 litters of Diesel for the house heater, 300 X.88 cents when I bought it, gives me a cost of 260 dollars.
(This cost saved 2-2.5 chord of the wood I buy. The cost could have been less but even when I have the big wood stove running I kept the diesel heater running (on Low ) not because I wanted heat from it but rather I wanted to run up the mechanical hrs on the unit too see what would fail.
IHope to be better set up for the next winter.

I dont keep track of fuel consumption for the garage, as I earn in the garage And it doesnt matter to me the fuel consumption. I earn 200 to 400 a day working in my garage so at maximum fuel consumption of 9.5 liters in 24 hrs I consider fuel cost not worth tracking at this time, for the garage. (9.5 x .88= 8.36 dollars) I should track this though as its a business cost. Next year I will be better set up for tracking costs.

I have to say I am very grateful for stocking up multipule barrels when the price was .88 cents a liter. I have enough fuel put away at 88 cents a liter for all of next year and into the one after that at 88 cents a liter.

Thanks for the insight.

Is there a good way to long term store diesel? I normally add chemicals to my gaz, but am unsure what to do with diesel. I don’t keep much, just a jerry can or 2 for the tractor, which I can stretch quite a while.

For long term Diesel storage, I recommend a fuel algicide be added. Diesel always seems to have water in it, or maybe gets it from condensation from storage. I have seen old diesel from 10-15 years of storage where the water has separated out with the diesel floating on top and a green sludgy bacteria growing in the water part. You can drain off the water part as best you can and then run the diesel through a filter to get rid of any remaining algae.
That would be all you would have to do to make old diesel good for use in one of these heaters, though I know some farmers who would not use old diesel that had sat long enough to grow bacteria in it as they worry about what it might do to there expensive farm equipment fuel systems, but for these heaters or some of the old diesel engines I have kicking around, I would burn old diesel without concern (after, draining off the water and filtering.)

So I have taken my house heater apart to check the condition and have other units from people who had their units quit over the winter. My unit is the one with the clean looking burn chamber. The other two have huge amounts of carbon build up. Built up to the point that the units quit. I dont know why, all the units burnt the same pump diesel? and my unit has the most hours and fuel put through it. After cleaning out the carbon the units fired right up....interesting.

Very easy units to work on. Takes longer to clean than take apart.

Tip, if you look at the three units above you will note the top one has no torn gasket material around the screw holes (outer ring). The gasket from that unit came off cleanly and is reusable. The other two units had gasket material that was fragile, a green coloured material. Turns out two types of gasket material are available for these units, black and green. You will want to order the black gaskets as they are better quality and reusable.