Cheap Diesel Heaters

[Meantime]

There have been many discussions here and on other places about how cheap some of these imported heaters are with many saying that for the price you could just throw them away and replace them, rather than repair them if they go wrong. Some even on here have really extolled the virtues of these cheap heaters. I had to replace my heater a couple of years ago and decided to go for another heater from Mikuni heating, supplied with all the proper instructions, parts and after sales service, even if it was a lot more expensive. You cannot put a price on life.

Below is a statement issued by Suffolk Trading Standards.

Suffolk Trading Standards Imports Surveillance Team have detained 973 diesel heaters at the Port of Felixstowe over the last two months. All products were found to be unsafe, with listings for all sellers removed on eBay.

Consignments arrived at the Port in October and November and were stopped by the team, with samples sent to a test house for assessment.

Each of the products did not meet the requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 because they could present the hazards of fire and death due to poor supporting installation information.

Manuals supplied with the products failed to give measurements for installing and did not give the minimum distance the exhaust pipe can be installed from flammable material, or material that could give off poisonous fumes when heated, such as insulation material.

No warning was provided about heat and dangers to the user if installed incorrectly.

Large parts of the manuals were written in poor English and had incorrect words used. The intended meaning was, in some cases, difficult to understand.

Additionally, the products and instructions did not have the name and address of the importer or manufacturer, and did not included the required Declaration of Conformity (DoC). A DoC is a formal declaration by a manufacturer, or the manufacturer's representative, that the product to which it applies meets all relevant requirements of all product safety directives applicable to that product.

If you have purchased a product that you think may be unsafe, stop using it immediately and report it to Trading Standards via Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 0808 223 1133.

[Smoggy]

If installed properly and as a replacement using original eber/webasto pipework and exhaust don't panic,  it's a paperwork thing that's missing, there is no trail of fires as evidence.

If chucked in by a numpty with the bits supplied panic.

But remember some people do run around with scissors and other pointy things, darwinism is ready to catch anyone out.

[marshman]

But I can guarantee that one of those installed without proper validation, would be sufficient to hinder or stop any insurance pay out! They refused to pay out with a fire on my boat, simply because the WHOLE of the boat wiring had not been checked on a regular basis.

And don't suggest it was a cheapskate company, it was probably the most well known one!!!

[Meantime]

19 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

If installed properly and as a replacement using original eber/webasto pipework and exhaust don't panic,  it's a paperwork thing that's missing,

I wonder how many reputable boat engineers or yards would install one of those at your request? Which probably means it will be down to the "competent" DIYer to install their self. Meaning the correct instructions are all the more important. If you do, please don't moor next to me.

[oldgregg]

While I do think that Eberspacher and Webasto have been taking advantage of a lack of competition for many years, I'm really not a fan of the stuff from China.

If the heater can be bought for around £100 delivered, has poor instructions and generally slightly iffy tolerances and build quality why are people not seeing the risks?

The thing that would concern me most is that the innards of these heaters rely on a casting. I would guess that the casting from a £100 heater might not be made from quite the same quality of alloy as a £1000 one, and that the tolerances, QA and general engineering might also differ somewhat.

My concern would therefore be that over time if that casting were to develop structural cracks due to the repetitive heat cycling, then there would not be too much preventing combustion gases from mixing with the hot air output.

You pays your money and you take your choice I suppose. I'll go with the proven brands for now, personally.

I don't doubt that in the long run this increased competition will lead to more innovation from the big two, and I suspect it also won't be long before the chinese think of ways of doing things better and that will push existing brands to offer more.

There are already combined hot air / hot water units on offer from China, imagine if they added a small generator in there so that external power was only needed for startup. That would be a game changer for the hire industry.

[Smoggy]

Hence the phrase "If chucked in by a numpty with the bits supplied panic."!

These heaters have been around for years now and there just isn't the trail of fires and deaths that everyone seems convinced they must cause.

I still have a working eber D4 and not about to change it while it's working, I fitted it in it's current position (original was so impracticle and had poor airflow) and it's passed 2 BSS tests in that time, both times the examiner had a good look at it so I'm not trying to preach to justify myself in anyway, merely pointing out that a well fitted chinese heater has no history to scare folk off continuing to use it, a poorly fitted eber will kill you just as easily as a poorly fitted chinaspacher.

The kits shouldn't be advertised as "for boats" as the accessories just are not up to it but anyone taking the time to read through the pages of info online about them can fit one perfectly well and safely if they use the right parts, good engineers don't only work for boatyards.

 

[floydraser]

In my experience buying equipment from the far east is fine if you are prepared to check a few things:

Look over visually for faults. Test it if possible before fitting. If you have the means and the knowledge, strip it and make sure it's been put together properly.

On my first pillar drill they hadn't cleaned all the sand from the main casting, just next to where a bearing was fitted! We stripped my milling machine on arrival to find the main shaft bearings were way out of alignment and that horrible waxy "grease" they use was very sparsely applied.

The far east have though, improved their customer service in the last few years and they seem to value a good reputation so they are usually keen to sort out any problems. A lot of them have depots over here now.

[eddybear]

This threads headline is cheap diesel heaters coming from China what about meet range diesel heaters which are safe and certified to use on boats and I believe our Russian yes I said Russian in origin and the importers are AUTOTERM

 The Chinese heaters are about £100, the other three leading ones are £1000 plus, but the AUTOTERM ones are about £500 and safe, I know which ones I would go for.

[marshman]

The insurance companies will find ANY excuse not to pay out - that as suggested in the OP seems like a built in "get out of jail" card!

Down to the individual but I would not put one in my expensive boat for the sake of a few hundred quid and no cover at the end of the day!!!!

P.S. Are we actually allowed to trade with Russia still??

 

[oldgregg]

24 minutes ago, eddybear said:

This threads headline is cheap diesel heaters coming from China what about meet range diesel heaters which are safe and certified to use on boats and I believe our Russian yes I said Russian in origin and the importers are AUTOTERM

 The Chinese heaters are about £100, the other three leading ones are £1000 plus, but the AUTOTERM ones are about £500 and safe, I know which ones I would go for.

I think the Planar heaters are certainly much less of a worry, but I haven't heard particularly good things about their longevity.

They do seem popular with camper van installers, though, and various suppliers offer a heat exchanger which goes between the heater and the ducting and provides hot water.

[Vaughan]

Whilst I very much appreciate the need for safety when installing appliances such as heaters or cookers, I notice that the issues raised by Suffolk Trading Standards are concerned with the standardised documentation supplied with the heaters but make no criticism about the function, manufacture or safety of the heaters themselves.

[grendel]

having chatted to the autoterm engineer when he came to look at the one on Broad Ambition on lads week, he was saying they are no longer made in Russia, they have moved production elsewhere now (Latvia I believe), also they have an installation service, 

he did find a warranty fault on the heater, a bad connector between two non user serviceable parts, and changed the heater under warranty as in his words, he had fixed it by wiggling the connector, but could not guarantee it would not fail again, so replaced it. he also thoroughly tested the installation (which he had already said was spot on) with the heater connected to his laptop, which was where we found an issue when the intake air had to flow through both the bulkhead intake and the door intake when the door was open, not a show stopper, but marginal air flow when the door was open and the flow passed through 2 intake grills, that was the lengths they went to to ensure the installation was perfect.

[Mouldy]

41 minutes ago, marshman said:

P.S. Are we actually allowed to trade with Russia still??

According to the Autoterm website, the heaters are now manufactured in Latvia, so being EU based, surely must meet required European safety standards too?

[Smoggy]

Yes autoterm are now latvian made, I wonder where the owners are based though????

They have a good name but I'd want to be sure where my cash was ending up now before thinking about one, not that I'm that keen on sending my cash to china either but I will take a good deal over a vastly inflated price based on a price fixing cartel.

[Mouldy]

There’s always MV (Mikuni) to consider.  More expensive than Autoterm but a lot cheaper either Eberspacher or Webasto.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Thought one of the big boys brought and shut down the real Mikuni brand some years back. There is one perhaps MV, or possibly AV with bad reviews regarding customer service and warranty claims.

[Meantime]

59 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

but make no criticism about the function, manufacture or safety of the heaters themselves.

I'm assuming you missed the following bit then. If they don't have the relevant declarations of conformity, how does anyone know how safe they are until they are tested. I wouldn't think your insurance company would want you to be the one testing it on a boat insured by them!!!

"Additionally, the products and instructions did not have the name and address of the importer or manufacturer, and did not included the required Declaration of Conformity (DoC). A DoC is a formal declaration by a manufacturer, or the manufacturer's representative, that the product to which it applies meets all relevant requirements of all product safety directives applicable to that product."

[Mouldy]

19 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Thought one of the big boys brought and shut down the real Mikuni brand some years back. There is one perhaps MV, or possibly AV with bad reviews regarding customer service and warranty claims.

Excerpt from an article from Yachting World fro 2021 attached.  MV have recently updated their range with new models.  I haven’t seen any negative reviews of them, but time will tell.

In a marketplace dominated by two big names, additional choices must be good surely.

[Ray]

In respect of insurance problems, it never hurts to speak to them before taking further steps, this applies to any form of insurance. If they say they have no problem continuing cover then you're good to go.

I have no knowledge one way or another about the heaters themselves.

[BroadAmbition]

To add to Grendels informative post

The Planar heating engineer we had onboard last October stated that he had checked up on some of those cheap Chinese heaters that did indeed have a 'CE' marking but detective work on his part revealed the 'CE' marking only related to the unit not giving out any radio emissions interference  from the motor / pump.   Nothing to do with electrical / exhaust / fire safety  

We used to have a Mikuni and was well pleased with it, it developed a fault we couldn't find so swapped it over for the Planar unit - Sods law then of course came to the fore and we found the blasted fault which was easily fixed (Gave the unit to a fellow boat owner)  The current Planar is working faultlessly as did its predecessor until a 'Never seen before fault'  developed.  First class backup from Planar - Couldn't fault them

Griff

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, Meantime said:

"Additionally, the products and instructions did not have the name and address of the importer or manufacturer, and did not included the required Declaration of Conformity (DoC). A DoC is a formal declaration by a manufacturer, or the manufacturer's representative, that the product to which it applies meets all relevant requirements of all product safety directives applicable to that product."

Makes no difference to my comment above. See also Griff's comment below.

 

[oldgregg]

1 hour ago, BroadAmbition said:

To add to Grendels informative post

The Planar heating engineer we had onboard last October stated that he had checked up on some of those cheap Chinese heaters that did indeed have a 'CE' marking but detective work on his part revealed the 'CE' marking only related to the unit not giving out any radio emissions interference  from the motor / pump.   Nothing to do with electrical / exhaust / fire safety  

We used to have a Mikuni and was well pleased with it, it developed a fault we couldn't find so swapped it over for the Planar unit - Sods law then of course came to the fore and we found the blasted fault which was easily fixed (Gave the unit to a fellow boat owner)  The current Planar is working faultlessly as did its predecessor until a 'Never seen before fault'  developed.  First class backup from Planar - Couldn't fault them

Griff

The other thing you have to watch with chinese imports is that they cooked up a very similar 'chinese export' mark which you will find on all sorts of products. Naturally, it does not assure any form of genuine CE marking.

https://www.auersignal.com/en/technical-information/standards-markings/ce-marking/#:~:text=Fake CE markings