Diesel Heaters On Boats – Extend Your Season
The Basis for this video/article began backing 2012 after we had quoted our third customer in a month for diesel heater install. We were only marking up component costs by 3%, over our wholesale costs, yet not one customer bit. The response from every one of them was “too expensive”. About that time we were contacted by a Canadian company interested in getting into the marine market. I purchased a 2Kw Heater, interested in becoming a dealer. By the time I was done the installation my total cost was comparable to an Espar or Webasto. Why? Because the Chinese truck heater did not come with any of the components that make up a marine compliant install. Once I added dual wall exhaust, a marine thru-hull, Intake Silencer clamps etc. the $1000.00 heater was no longer competitive.
Fast forward to 2021 when I suffered a brain hemorrhage that left me hemiplegic, I could no longer load 40 pond bags into my pellet stove. I decided to try one of the now dirt-cheap CDH (Chinese Diesel Heaters). I think I paid $150 for the first Vevor that turned out to be DOA.
Determined to find an inexpensive heater for this article I then bought an HCalory. This heater worked fine for three weeks and then the fuel-pump failed, after that the glow plug cracked & failed. When I took the HCalory apart to fix it I very quickly realized it was the identical casting to the Vevor. The only difference Wass the control board. The HCalory had all the bells & whistles including altitude compensation. For some reason my heater kept adjusting, thinking I was at high altitude. The heater sooted up very badly. I gave upon Vevor & HCalory and purchased an LF Bros heater, which was a much higher quality casting and it worked fine until the motor started squealing due to bad bearings.
It was at this point that I began looking for a company that really focussed on quality and I landed on HLN. Everything about the HLN was equal to that of an Espar and the damn thing just works, it is also very very quiet. far quieter than any of the commodity level heaters I bought.
This article/video focusses on an ABYC compliant install:
This is the only manual that should be used for a Marine Installation. All the Chinese Diesel heaters are direct copies of the Espar D2 or D4 and Espar is the only company providing a marine installation manual.
We have curated a Diesel Heater Store on Amazon, with lots of hard-to-find parts & pieces as well as commodity heaters suitable for a marine install.
Amazon Diesel Heater Store
https://bit.ly/4c9W7UO
HLN Heaters – We can offer you a 10% off coupon code, The coupon code is: MHT10
https://bit.ly/3O0gKZJ
Kyocera Glow Plug:
https://bit.ly/4akYTEn
Espar Ultra Quiet Dosing Pump
https://bit.ly/4auANYZ
Espar Marine Fuel Line:
https://www.heatso.com/espar-eberspacher-marine-iso7840-fuel-line-kit-6-m/