Chinese Diesel Heater for garage / workshop

Before you do consider your carbon footprint, global warming, the ethics of buying stuff you don't really need that's travelled round world etc.

You've just depressed me, my son's future is ****ed and I understand his reluctance to have kids.

Edit: I'mm working outside in sub-zero temperatures today, the answer is wrap up warm and come in to have a coffee and type on STW now and then.

Yes, fitted one to my van about 2+ years ago during the conversion. New ones have a better thermostat but as a heater they are great. I only use it occasionally but it is very good. only problem is it gets too warm and has to be manually turned on and off, less of a problem when heating a much larger space I am sure.

This guy has really tested one I would recommend his channel.

Mispronounced Adventures

I bought one in a case with a small fuel tank and took it to pieces to fit where I wanted it in my van which worked for me. You will need to replace all the hoses and clips for better quality ones...

Crikey, Edukator, a man’s gotta stay warm. Yeah, cheap electricity from renewable sources would be the best way to do this, but until global leadership get their shit together, people gonna do what’s affordable.

I’ve got one of those heaters; They kick out some heat and are reasonably economical, especially on kerosene or cherry. Noisy though, best to install them outside (weather protected) and run the hot air vent through the wall. Safer that way too, noxious gasses wise.

I’m sure you’ve done the YouTube trawl already, but in case you’ve missed him, this guy is pretty much the go to resource for everything Chinese diesel heater related.

I've had an Eberspacher* diesel heater in my van for 10 years - they're awesome.

Santa is bringing me a chinese one for the garage for christmas, I have high hopes. Unfortunately, everyone has had the same idea this year, and supplies are running low...

I suspect they all come from the same factory, but Vevor get consistantly good reviews (although they're an importer rather than manufacturer and they are out of stock of them all!)

*All the chinese heaters are a copy of these.

And people have the cheek to slag off the air-conditionned stadiums at the World Cup.

And people have the cheek to slag off the air-conditionned stadiums at the World Cup.

if you can’t see the difference between making a vast area cool enough to play (and have a huge crowd spectate) a cold weather sport in the desert and a chap trying to warm a work area up enough to be productive in a cold climate, then there’s not a lot of hope for you.

@Edukator
[i]Before you do consider your carbon footprint, global warming, the ethics of buying stuff you don’t really need that’s travelled round world etc.[i]
If I didn't need it, I wouldn't be buying it. I cannot work in sub-zero temperatures stop things like glue, varnish, paint, resin etc actually working.

[i]You’ve just depressed me, my son’s future is **** and I understand his reluctance to have kids.[/i]
I am amazed you decided to have children. Can you imagine the carbon footprint that you have inflicted on the planet? You really want to check you hypocrisy meter before those environmentally committed people who have chosen not to pollute the planet with further unnecessary people*.

[i]I’mm working outside in sub-zero temperatures today, the answer is wrap up warm and come in to have a coffee and type on STW now and then.[/i]
I assume your coffee is grown in your own back garden and you haven't "buying stuff you don’t really need that’s travelled round world etc."

@Everyone Else
Thanks - I will check out what Vevor have

*No criticism of your son intended. THe comment is largely tongue in cheek but you started it so ner-ner-na-ner-ner

your workshop isnt exactly off grid - I can see the point if those heaters for a camper if you're wild camping. Why do you want to go out and buy fuel and bring it home to fuel a heater when theres a socket right there you can plug a into?  My local Sally Army charity shop is selling brand new fan heaters for £3 - you'd be running it for about 300 hours to cover just the purchase price of a diesel heater.

Air-con in a warm place to stay cool is exactly like heating a cold place to keep warm - using energy to change the temperature. The difference being you can wrap up to keep warm but once you're down to football kit you can't take more colothes off to stay cool.

I'd like to bet that the energy cost per spectator is lower than diesel heating a garage for one.

Heating tented terraces in front of cafés has been banned here.

then there’s not a lot of hope for you.

No need to get personal and insulting my intelligence, think about it, how intelligent is a species green-housing itself into extinction?

Is it really going to work out better than a calor gas heater?
Propane and butane are also slightly lower CO2 per kWh.
For working out value one litre of diesel contains about 11kwh of heat. I don't know what the efficiency of those heaters will be but maybe only 60% as the need to push the exhaust out so one litre of diesel will give about 7 kWh of heat to your workshop.
At £1.80 per litre this is about 25p per kWh of heat.
That is going to need quite a long time to offset the cost vs a fan heater or second hand calor both of which will be nearly 100% efficient as they don't push heat out in the exhaust.
Butane in 7kg bottle is about 30p per kWh and about 25p in 15 kg from calor website prices. Unless you fancy fitting a new toy to the workshop whilst gaining more chilblains then I'd go fan heater or calor all the way.
NB other gas brands are available.

I did look at a calor gas heater but then would need buy one of those and the size and ability to locate the heater better made diesel easier.

I agree with the electric heater cost argument but I do have the idea of making the heater a portable fixing so I can take it elsewhere if needed. Also the possibility of a motorhome conversion has been mooted with MrsWCA and she only said "Over my dead body" so not totally rejected. I thought I might use this to see what it is like in case I want to use one in any motorhome conversions that may or may not happen in the future.

imagine just burning diesel to get warm.
How much of the price of diesel is just tax?
when there are so many alternatives: waste oil heaters (not in Scotland though), wood burning stoves, infra red heaters etc

So people would be looking at insulation first.

How big is this garage?

This guy reviews the Vevor heater, and makes a load of other diy heaters using different fuels and materials
Im making one (or two) so I can keep warm IF we get a load of power cuts, and make the heat supply better suited to my needs.
Also I have a large butane bottle in the shed so I need a little heaeter to use that up
But yeah, I dont know the current regs for veg oil or red, but biodiesel doesnt look that hard to make

The Chinese 5Kw gas heaters are good value, seem to work pretty reliably now, and come with a self contained kit including tank. The propex gas heaters and eberspacher diesel heaters are very good and probably more economical, but you pay for the name

whatever you do, don't buy a gas "space heater' - the one that produces a massive flame.... easiest way to empty a butane tank Ive ever seen apart from blowing it up.

[i]imagine just burning diesel to get warm.
How much of the price of diesel is just tax?[/i]

Garage is partially insulated with a ceiling or sorts attached to the rafters so there is an airgap above.

Diesel is not the only fuel. There are much 'greener' alternatives. This does depend on how you judge 'greeness' obviously but local burning, relatively efficiently of what would otherwise be waste could be considered better that the remote power generation with associated transmission inefficiencies.

Plus there is always to option to run it during power cuts etc - not that Putin and pals would ever try to squeeze the energy markets in Europe. It is only the weak Europeans on the mainland that are giving government warnings about potential power cuts and suggesting their population take measures to prepare. Here in the UK we are immune from such challenges as we voted BREXIT, remember.

Hugely popular this year as lots are buying them for their campers, many who live in them permanently. Keeping warm in your workshop seems sensible to me and they’re very efficient by all accounts.

@Edukator - think of the heating as saving NHS time and resources. If WCA can’t feel his fingers while working there’s more chance of him chopping something off! 🤣🤣🪚🖐

At £1.80 per litre this is about 25p per kWh of heat.

but Kerosene is about 75p/ltr at the moment, and they run beautifully on it. Als red is about £1.10/ltr.

I suspect your efficiency estimates may be a bit off too, although these heaters also need a permanent 12v feed with quite a high initial draw to heat the glow plug, so that needs to be taken into account too.

ethics of buying stuff you don’t really need that’s travelled round world etc.

It’s going to warm up this time next week. You could buy a fan heater and have heat in your workshop by lunchtime or you can buy a heater for a camper van you don’t own and have it up and running in time for spring

were half way through December and workshop heating has only just become an issue. Whatever you get you won’t use it a lot

What about an IR panel heater - just heat's you and uses significantly less energy, circa 300w. Do look carefully as some 'panel' heaters are the traditional type and use 2000w or more.

In principal you could run it on waste cooking oil and be (roughly) carbon neutral if you can find a chippie that'll sell it to you. Engine oil also works, but is illegal.

As above. You'll need a 12v supply too.

FWIW we have one in the campervan and it's great for heating that. There is a constant low-level hum from the fan. Uses very little diesel to warm up our wee van but that's also well insulated.

I reckon a small electric fan heater would be a better option if you have mains supply though.

I've just installed a cheap 8kw (actually outputs about 4-4.5kw) all in one to heat our garden office, only had it a week but first impressions are very good, I've positioned the unit outside and ran the heater duct into the building to minimise the noise, next step is to make an insulated box to reduce the noise externally.
I did worry a bit about the environmental impact but, in the grand scheme of things I'll use less diesel heating the office for 8 hours than I do driving into my 'actual' office and it has also given me the excuse to add solar to the office (to keep the car battery the heater runs from charged) which long term will be expanded to supply power for computers etc and the air con unit we use to keep cool in the summer.
I'm also going to get one for the garage/workshop to replace the propane space heater I currently use as they output dry heat, propane produces a lot of water which isn't seperate from the heat output like the diesel heaters so you get a lot of condensation and surface rust on tools.

I’d like to bet that the energy cost per spectator is lower than diesel heating a garage for one

The heaters run on an absolute dribble of fuel. About 100ml an hour. You could heat the garage for 10 hours for £1.80 at current prices

Engine oil also works, but is illegal.

Do you know what happens to the waste engine oil that is collected from garages?

It is burnt.

If I was running a motor servicing business I know what would be heating the place in winter.

buy a heater for a camper van you don’t own and have it up and running in time for spring

Or a couple of days....

As above. You’ll need a 12v supply too.

No. You can get 240v ones.

IR panel is what I’m looking at too. Kids’ school uses them, they work well and not intense like the patio heaters.

You get ones with led lighting integrated, just replace a light fitting on the ceiling.

There's a very busy FB group dedicated to these heaters which used to be almost entirely hashtag vanlife people. Now there's loads of people installing them in sheds, garages, conservatories etc.

I've never owned one yet but they do really pump out lots of hot air and they sip tiny amounts of fuel. Apparently they run beautifully on kerosene.

This is a useful page which gets updated regularly...www.vanlifeuksurvivorsguide.co.uk/post/tried-and-tested-diesel-heaters-3-0-2022-2023

I've had pre-chinese era diesel Eberspachers and gas Propex heaters in my campervan and work vans. They are a good choice where you have a limited 12v supply. I cannot see that they'd make any sense in a building with mains power.

You are paying tax and duty on diesel and having to collect it, and running it in a heater that is not 100% efficient and is not designed for long term operation (a few weeks a year is fine, hundreds of hours each winter is likely to cause reliability issues)

Electric heating is 100% efficient, is pretty close in price per kWh to diesel I'd have thought, so IR panel for instant heat on you, or oil filled rads for comfortable all day heating so you don't notice the fan heater (or Chinese diesel heater) cycling on and off and instantly making the room feel colder.

And...you can sign up to a green tariff if concerned about your carbon footprint

The joys of the northern climate workshop 😆

If you'd access to free timber i'd suggest a wood burning stove. Those are the traditional way to heat a workshop. But from you tube im seeing a lot of these heaters being installed and used to great effect so go for that.

They work well. Two winters for me in a detached single skin garage. Mines a van type, sits on a shelf I cobbled up land runs fine on “parrafin”. Dry heat as mentioned up there, keeps cast machine tools dry and rust free. I use a leisure battery on a ctek charger as it uses a fair amount of current initially running the glow plug as mentioned previously.

I put a “all in one type” ( looks like a large PC tower) in my dads garage and he is in there a lot as a model engineer and it works a treat.

The FB group has loads of info as they tend to arrive with a variety of control panels and remotes that can take a little sorting.

@Edukator

Do you think hectoring people in that pious self-righteous tone is going to change anybody’s mind? It almost makes me want to set the car idling for an hour or so to even out the karma for your pompous post.

Tinas, gobuchul, I thought you can get a license to run a waste oil heater.
Given this is wca, I'm surprised he's not welding up a few bits of pipe and an old gas bottle to make one.

I was given an old Calor gas heater recently. Love the thing. Instant toasty heat. Might be a good option for a workshop. Jury is still out on cost as I’ve only had it going a week.

The condensation caused by gas heaters was a consideration as I don't want rusty tools.

My experience or IR heaters is not good. If you are not stood in front of them you don't get warm, Paint, resin, glue etc doesn't warm up, all the tools are still freezing to work with.

Electric mains fan heater would have been a valid option but, as mentioned earlier, I want to keep my option open about moving this away from places with power.

I don't think Edukator was being serious in his post. I assumed it was just a gentle trolling, hence my gentle reply. If it was serious then he is obviously a hypocritical earth rapist for drinking coffee and contributing to the over populationof the climate. I would try to over react more but I am not a trained climate campaigner.

Waste oil does need a license to dispose of. It is £3,000 initially and then £1,00 a year after that I think. Then it is just burnt. This is not just a cynical money grab apparently but a genuine attempt to save the planet by ensuring people who burn it have paid for the pleasure or pay tax on new fuel, otherwise they would be getting all the benefits and recycle more oil without any tax revenue being generated which is clearly bad for the planet.

I have a quality one in my van which was a lifesaver today for warming toe4s after a snow ride. Based on how well it worked I bought a £100 chinese one to heat my little AirB&B bothy. Mounted in a weatherproof box outside and ducted through the wall, it works a treat and not too noisy once up to temp. I used an old PC power supply to get the 12V source which works great. At the start of the season (which has been pretty warm to be fair) I stuck in about 4 litres of cherry (so £3 worth). I guess it has been used about 10 times on colder nights by guests anbd there are still 2 litres remaining. The space it heats is not large and is very well insulated mind. Pay attention to the exhaust gases mind. I have piped mine up above roof level like a proper chimney. Weirdly though the one in the van exhausts into the prop tunnel under the van as this is the stock route for the factory fit model!

How come no local companies are able to produce/manufacture some cheap reliable heater using diesel like the Chinese diesel heater? I was searching Youbtue the other day and apparently very popular in the state. The Chinese made are rather plastiky otherwise I would buy one to try it out. Not sure how that can work in a flat though.

Oh ya ... my living room temperature is 11.3c at the moment and I am wearing woolly hat, base layer, mid layer, woolly jumper with insulation, thick vest, comfy jogger, merino wool long john and double woolly socks. The only cold part of my body is my hands while typing away ... LOL! Let it freeze!

Last night was cold and I had to turn on the central heating for extra 2 hours.

Me think me should order some proper Inuit clothing, you know the one they wear while hunting.

How come no local companies are able to produce/manufacture some cheap reliable heater using diesel like the Chinese diesel heater

Because local companies aren't allowed to employ 12 year olds on 60 hour weeks with cheap electricity from poor quality coal and throw all the rubbish in the ditch behind the factory?!

For working out value one litre of diesel contains about 11kwh of heat. I don’t know what the efficiency of those heaters will be but maybe only 60% as the need to push the exhaust out so one litre of diesel will give about 7 kWh of heat to your workshop.
At £1.80 per litre this is about 25p per kWh of heat.

^I would agree with those numbers (I'd use 10.4 kWH / litre for diesel or 9.8kWh / litre for kerosene).

Eberspacher's literature says 69% efficiency at low output for their 2kW diesel heater.

The heaters run on an absolute dribble of fuel. About 100ml an hour. You could heat the garage for 10 hours for £1.80 at current prices

100ml / hour cannot provide more than ~1kWh of heating, and if efficiency is taken into account, it'll be more like 0.7kWh - 10 hours would be about £2.10's worth of electricity at current prices, so you'd need to run the heater for ~300h before it would pay for itself if using pump diesel (vs using an electrical heater).

The Chinese ones are much noisier than Eberspachers or the genuine, European manufactured Autoterm/Planar ones - I have had all 3 (& currently have a Chinese one as a shed heater - I'll be drawing some kerosene out of our heating tank to run it on having worked these numbers out a week, or so ago!).

I've had an Eberspacher that I've had in various vans/vehicles and it's great. They are noisy though - mine has silencers for the inlet and exhaust. I'm currently on with making it fit in a 30l aluminium flight case so I can use for emergency heating.

I used to own a workshop with a used oil heater and again - it was great! It seemed to burn cleanly enough but the need for an expensive licence killed it.

Slight thread hijack, but these IR heaters.

Are they a good shout for heating up an area within a room very quickly where you only really need it heated for say 60 minutes per day?

Electric heater. (Fan)
You really only want it to take the chill off on particularly cold days.
Quiet and can set a temperature limit as well.
Works for me and not used that much.
Insulation may help a bit .
Filling up diesel things tends to be messy.

A battery powered heated vest works well, can charge the battery(s)from solar during the day so purchase price aside it’s free to run and can be used on the bike too