WTB: Gas/petrol heater

[ibike]

Looking for a new or used petrol/gas heater. Espar, Webasto etc. Installing in an E350, wanting to tie into factory fuel tank.

Thanks,

[Lazy_Daves]

Good luck with your hunt for a gas unit. I also wanted a gasoline unit to tie into my fuel tank but went with a Chinese diesel heater instead. The diesel ones are less temperamental from my research. These things are a game changer for winter comfort.

[YetiTom]

https://expeditionupfitter.com/colle...ck-install-kit

[86Scotty]

Originally Posted by YetiTom

https://expeditionupfitter.com/colle...ck-install-kit

That's a great price for a gasoline unit IMO. I think the Espars are about twice that. I had a Planar diesel in a former van that I used extensively and it was great quality and performance.

[marret]

That is a good price. I went with a diesel Planar/Autoterm from Expedition Upfitter/Total Composites.

[basssears]

We have a Wallas diesel forced air heater on our sailboat and love it, but have always struggled with the idea of needing a separate diesel tank if we went that route on our Sportsmobile (or an outboard powered skiff).



This is the first I've heard of these...what's the safety factor of gas fired vs diesel? Sure would be nice to just plumb it into the main fuel (gas) tank and forget it.


-- Bass

[ibike]

Thanks for the comments/recommendations. I’ve got a lead on a lightly used Espar, hopefully it works out.

[SteelheadJones]

Isn’t 13,600 BTU a little much for our vans?

[basssears]

Originally Posted by SteelheadJones

Isn’t 13,600 BTU a little much for our vans?

Well it's sure nice to be able to blast out a bunch of heat and warm things up fast, especially with a pop top.

So I don't worry too much about going overboard on the high end, my concern would be what is the low end, i.e. what's the minimum BTUs this will put out? We have a Wallas diesel heater in a 32' sailboat (bigger than the van for sure, but not by a massive amount, maybe 1.5 times the cubic area), it's low is 3,000btu and high is 10,000btu and we use the high to warm things up when we've been off the boat for a while and are plenty happy to have that much power available.

But we were told not to size up to the next bigger because we might not be able to turn it down enough (which is true, sleeping we have the heater set quite near the lowest setting, a higher "low" might be too warm for us). But this is a heater that is always on when running, it can lower its heat output but it doesn't turn off and back on to maintain a certain temperature.

The other issue with the diesel heaters is if you run them on their very lowest setting all the time they can build up some residue on their burner (coke maybe?) so it's recommended to size accordingly so you're "working" the furnace most of the time not just letting it, essentially, idle.

Do the gas furnaces turn on and off as necessary to maintain temperature (like a propane furnace would) or do they run all the time and just vary the heat output?

-- Bass