A possible alternate source of heat?

[papaof2]

I'm looking at yet another backup heating system. Diesel heaters (parking heaters) are used in semis and RVs to provide some level of heat when the engine isn't running. They have been around since the 1930s but it took the Chinese manufacturers cloning a $xxxx system for under $200 (Ebbay, Amazon)to popularize them in recent years. They also work to heat an off grid cabin or yurt or ... The most common unit is a 5KW (you'll see the same unit advertised as "8KW" and the 60% power "upgrade" come with a similar price upgrade). A 5000 watt heater is about 18.000BTU which is less than the common round kerosene heater that's rated at 22,000 or 23,000BTU. You'd need maybe $50 in additional pieces (filters) and maintenance items (glow plug, gaskets).

The heater needs 12 volts at 8-10 amps to heat the glow plug during startup and shutdown. It also needs power for the fuel pump, the fan and the controller which varies from around 1 amp at the lowest heat setting to a little over 3 amps at the highest heat setting (more heat means more fuel pumped for burning and a higher fan speed to move the air). Running the heater for 24 hours would need a 100AH battery to provide 24 hours of run time plus the additional glow plug power needed at startup and shutdown.

I found a good series of videos on the care and feeding of these heaters, including teardown and minor overhaul. The video maker is John McK 47 on Youtube and you can search for him or just go to the first video in the series:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvwmU_CcmGI&list=PLne7MoW21Rk01DYGGfOqIbYt6H1ZFSFks

He occasionally repeats himself, but I'd guess that he's a retired engineer and always covers things related to safety or possible equipment damage more than once ;-)

Amazon's list of parking heaters: www.amazon.com/s?k=parking+heater

Ebay's list: www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=parking+heater&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

[papaof2]

With conflicting opinions about Winter 2021 (Nov 21-Feb/Mar 22) being "near normal" or "colder than normal", I bit the bullet and ordered a "diesel parking heater". My primary intended use would be in the unconditioned areas of the basement which have water pipes running through them. The heater is a generic "5kW" model which is about 17,000BTU. If I need an alternate heat source down there, I could drill a hole through the wall or, much easier, make a wood blocker for one window with an insulated metal sleeve for the heater's exhaust pipe. Burning 0.1 to 0.5 liter/hour, the 10 liter (2.6 gallon) tank is good for at least 19 hours at maximum output. If they would have let me pick it up at their warehouse, I could have had it within the hour as the nearest warehouse is maybe 30 minutes away. Having to wait for delivery, I should have the heater Friday. Delivered price was $123 and change.

I'll spend some time assembling the unit, building a way to test it (inside heat with outside exhaust) and measure actual fuel consumption - I think that will pretty well use up Saturday ;-)

Meanwhile, I need to get a can for diesel and buy some diesel to have on hand. Some of the heaters recommend mixing diesel and kerosene 50/50 in cold weather to prevent gelling of the diesel but I don't expect temperatures that cold. However, that does mean I could use some kero to stretch the diesel if I can't easily buy more diesel (such as a power outage which shuts down the 4 closest gas stations).

I'm not planning on having a PUTT-PUTT-PUTT heater in the living areas (even if it's only 58dB) but having it warm a portion of the basement would also warm part of the floor of the main level of the house - at least a little bit.

In another week or so, I should informed on how much space that heater is useful in and how many degrees of useful it is.

[9idrr]

Havin' back up for the back up is almost bein' redundant. :^)

[papaof2]

Nov 16, 2021 19:32:10 GMT -6 9idrr said:

Havin' back up for the back up is almost bein' redundant. :^)

I'm the backup VP for the backup Department of Redundancy ;-)

Remember that I'm the guy with solar-charged, hand-crank and USB charged LED lighting, plus candles, oil lamps (spare wicks) and propane and Coleman fuel mantle lanterns (spare mantles). I think that might be triple redundancy...

[papaof2]

Perhaps Friday is wishful thinking on my part - and FedEx's part. They were notified on Saturday and a label created but nothing further as I write this at 10PM on Wednesday. Until FedEx has the package in hand, they can't provide a good guess for a delivery date. If the vendor doesn't get the package out tomorrow (Thursday) they did not make their promised "3 BUSINESS DAYS SHIPPING OUT" commitment and I'll cancel the order and try with someone else - they do say they have 10 in stock so shipping ONE out should NOT be a problem.

Wouldn't be the first time I've canceled an order for failure to meet a shipping/delivery commitment. If you can't do it, don't make promises.

[papaof2]

It took the vendor a full week - order placed on Saturday 11/13, package to FedEx on Friday 11/19 - so they didn't make their "Shppped out in 3 business days". Even if they didn't work the weekend, Monday morning through Friday noon is 4 1/2 business days. Wonder what damage or missing parts the item will have when it does arrive? That's a week out - 11/26 - per the FedEx page.

That's OK - we'll be past the bustle of Thanksgiving and having other people here for the holiday.

Thanksgiving desserts are looking good - pumpkin pie and a chocolate trifle. The turkey? I'm smoking it on the gas grill with apple wood chips this year as there were NO affordable smoked turkeys or turkey breasts available even two weeks before Thanksgiving. Unless we wanted to spend $90 and UP (mostly up) at Honey Baked Ham and others. There'll just be 4 or 5 at the table and maybe sending leftovers to one other person so no reason to buy 16-20lbs of turkey.
Unlike the years we had both leaves in the dining table plus an 8 foot folding table because EVERYONE was at our house for a holiday. This year's somewhat less work but probably won't be as memorable as some previous years...

[9idrr]

Might also work just to go with a monster-sized chicken or individual Cornish Game Hens. :^)

[papaof2]

Smoking our own turkey breast this year will be a new experience - and something that might turn up in a future story ;-) If you can't find what you need, you might have to do it yourself. In checking craigslist.org the past couple of weeks, there has been free apple and pear wood - you chop small for smoking - so the possibility of a totally DIY smoked turkey. However, under $5 for a (2 lb?) bag of apple wood chips (from Weber, the grill people) is much easier on these old hands so that's what we got ;-) Should be enough for several turkeys - but my grill's not big enough for Joe Burden.

[papaof2]

The vendor didn't get the package to FedEx until after noon Friday, but FedEx had it on a truck headed East at 6:57AM Saturday. The truck got to FedEx's metro Atlanta hub at 12:08AM today (it's now Monday, 22 Nov) or 38:11 on the road. Google lists the driving time as 31 hours so that fits. The FedEx tracking page no longer has Friday 11/26 delivery - it now reads:
Updated delivery:
Monday, 11/22/2021 by end of day

Not that I'll have time to explore my new "toy", with us hosting Thanksgiving and - as we learned earlier Sunday - being the primary location of some serious holiday baking: ginger cookies in the dozen plus shapes of cookie cutters the better half collected from multiple locations and ran through the dishwasher tonight. She did weed out Ronald McDonald, Sesame Street, Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Odie and some others as not being "holiday" or there would have been 30+ cutters ;-)

[biggkidd]

My 69 Deuce has a similar heater it will blast you out. IIRC it's rated at 30,000 BTU

[papaof2]

FedEx delivered the heater a little after noon today. The vendor was in no hurry to get it shipped ( 4 1/2 days for their claimed "3 days to shipping out") but FedEx did run with it once they had possession ;-)

The video series mentioned in the first post has lots of measurement details - from the physical size and weight of the heater to the temperature rise of the air passing through it. An 85C increase is a 153F increase so you do need to be careful of where and how you duct that heat ;-) My '61 VW bug had "over the cylinder head" heating - fine if you clean the engine regularly :-( The '68 bug had heat exchangers on the exhaust for faster heat production and it worked OK if you kept the engine speed up ;-) I thought then that I should just add a 12 volt blower to the ducting to get the warm air when sitting in traffic at idle but I never built it.

I'm just exploring other ways of heating a small area or adding a bit of heat to a larger area such as just enough heat in the basement to keep pipes from freezing if the central heat isn't working for whatever reason. We have heated the main level of the house with the gas logs at one end, a 22,000BTU kerosene heater at the other end and a few fans. No major event in the area - the controller board on the furnace died in January (highs in 30s, lows in teens) and the 3 day board turnaround took 14 days. We could do the same if power was off for a couple of weeks, but with enough sun plus gas for the little generator we could heat almost "normally".

That's why we look for things/processes which could break and try to find a way to minimize the harm if something does break - I think they call that "prepping", which I've heard is a big deal for some people but just part of daily life for others ;-)