knock of hydronic coolant heaters?

hayden

New member
i am looking for a non name brand diesel fired coolant heater. Back story my "inlaws" live in southern mn and we go up for christmas every year, theres no where to plug the truck in on the drive up or parked on the farm (all circuits fully loaded running animal water tank heaters) . last year we saw -12f in northern iowa and -16f in Minnesota my 2002 7.3 f350 needs help at these temperatures and with a girl and a dog we need heat in cab in less than an hour. so I am in search of a budget coolant heater I can procure and install over the summer. Whats available? What do you run?
 

RunninCold

New member
Webasto or Espar. I have a Webasto that I’ll be putting in my Excursion this summer.

Edit: I didn’t see the part about non-name brand.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

hayden

New member
I cant find anything new that seems acceptable in price. I can find used espar d5 units fairly easily on ebay. What breaks in these? what will be worn out? all thats needed is fuel pump, controller, heating unit, and a coolant pump? Am I forgetting anything?
 

Victorian

Approved Vendor : Total Composites
What is a reasonable price to you? We are starting to sell the Planar brand diesel heaters soon. They are made in russia and very well made. Pricing is about half of the German brands. In any case, we have the forced air heater in our camper and can't say enough good things about them.
 

Joe917

Explorer
Webasto
Can't comment on the Espar but they are basically similar to Webasto. Additional parts that fail/wear: igniter, blower fan(in burner unit). Personally I don't think its worth buying these units used. They are cheap for a reason.
 

b. rock

Active member
It's been a couple years and these are only growing in popularity. Any other info on the hydronic units? There's plenty out there on the air units, but not as much on the hydronic ones.
 

Trail Talk

Well-known member
Any other info on the hydronic units? There's plenty out there on the air units, but not as much on the hydronic ones.
What info in particular are you looking for? We are just getting to know the Webasto Thermo Top C in our OEV Summit. The hydronics was a key selling feature for winter travel. There is so much to like in terms of simplicity and versatility: the Webasto heats the cabin and provides hot water, or pre-heats the truck engine to ease starting in cold weather. Shut the Webasto off and turn a couple of valves, and the truck heats the cabin while driving down the road.
 

b. rock

Active member
Mainly if they're holding up. The knock off air units seem to hold up pretty well, just looking for similar info. Also if people are able to adjust the fuel rate for higher altitude camping.
 

Daviticus

New member
Please excuse my raising of the dead here, for the sake of information.

I have a "Junyize" brand 5kw hydronic heater sitting in a box waiting to go into my E350 - it is as of this writing marketed by multiple off-brand companies like Hcalory and come-and-go in availability. So far I've bench-tested the unit on diesel and 85-octane gasoline, with decent results on both fuels. I've had similar experiences running the cheapo diesel air heaters on both diesel and gasoline. As my van is a gasser, I'll be fueling both the hydronic and (backup redundant) air heaters with gasoline. I've got a pile of older China heaters in the shop, a few of which were specifically marketed as gasoline heaters, and I've found no difference in hardware or controllers between gasoline and diesel units. Also, the Junyize manual (comically in Engrish, Russian, and Chinese) mentions the mid-size 5kw unit I have as able to run on diesel and gasoline, but the larger and smaller units are listed for diesel only.

Per high altitude fuel adjustment - I have had success with a small needle valve between the fuel pump and heater at roughly 9,000ft. The pump and heater both aren't equipped with the appropriate hardware or software to care, and do not complain.
 

Peter_n_Margaret

Adventurer
What info in particular are you looking for? We are just getting to know the Webasto Thermo Top C in our OEV Summit. The hydronics was a key selling feature for winter travel. There is so much to like in terms of simplicity and versatility: the Webasto heats the cabin and provides hot water, or pre-heats the truck engine to ease starting in cold weather. Shut the Webasto off and turn a couple of valves, and the truck heats the cabin while driving down the road.
Ditto. Our Webasto Thermotop C has been operational as per the above for 7 years.
I built my own fan heat exchange units to keep the noise ultra low.
It just works.
Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome
 

llamalander

Well-known member
"So far I've bench-tested the unit on diesel and 85-octane gasoline, with decent results on both fuels."
Nice experiment, I've wondered if that was possible, with diesel and kerosine both recommended fuels.
Thanks for posting that up-
 

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