BSC and Chinese diesel heater.

[Mad Harold]

Having fitted a Chinaspacher I am worried that at BSC time,a certificate won't be issued with this aboard.

Has anyone on here had a BSC inspection with a Chinese diesel heater fitted?

If so,what was the result?

[Nightwatch]

Sorry in advance.

 

Does it have flu?

[Mad Harold]

8 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Sorry in advance.

 

Does it have flu?

Don't thinkso,but have just read that seven employees of Webasto have been confirmed with Novavirus.

[matty40s]

PART 8 APPLIANCES, FLUEING AND VENTILATION

8.4Bii A sufficient supply of antibacterial face masks should be provided for all boat visitors, for application prior to entry. 

[ditchcrawler]

On what grounds do you think it will fail and if you dont think it safe then why risk fitting it

[Mad Harold]

9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

On what grounds do you think it will fail and if you dont think it safe then why risk fitting it

Cos working on the boat at this time of the year is cold and miserable.

It is properly flued in that the combustion air inlet and the exhaust are on proper skin fittings to the outside,but my concern with the BSC is that the fuel feed pipe is plastic,and as these heaters are sold for trucks,campervans etc.they have not been certified to an international standard as suitable for installing in a boat.

The reason I chose a Chinese heater was the price (£117) which is cheaper than some of the parts prices for Eberspacher and Webasto.

I am thinking of contacting my BSC inspector,but I suspect he is going to tell me to remove it before he inspects the boat,so I am hesitating.

[David Mack]

Can you not just replace the fuel pipe with a metal one?

[Flyboy]

36 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Cos working on the boat at this time of the year is cold and miserable.

It is properly flued in that the combustion air inlet and the exhaust are on proper skin fittings to the outside,but my concern with the BSC is that the fuel feed pipe is plastic,and as these heaters are sold for trucks,campervans etc.they have not been certified to an international standard as suitable for installing in a boat.

The reason I chose a Chinese heater was the price (£117) which is cheaper than some of the parts prices for Eberspacher and Webasto.

I am thinking of contacting my BSC inspector,but I suspect he is going to tell me to remove it before he inspects the boat,so I am hesitating.

You will need to change the plastic pipe to metal to pass the BSC, that's all as far as I can see.

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Flyboy said:

You will need to change the plastic pipe to metal to pass the BSC, that's all as far as I can see.

And change the silencer for one without a CO-escaping drain in it. Unless you’ve already done that. 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, Mad Harold said:

as these heaters are sold for trucks,campervans etc.they have not been certified to an international standard as suitable for installing in a boat.

I like to save a penny or two as much as the next man, but when it comes to safety / security / Life / death I think it is easy to make a big mistake.

 

Not only are they non-compliant but they have a 'drip' hole to let condensation out of the exhaust - doesn't matter on a truck as the drips and gases just drop down below the truck

Not quite the same as on a boat where it will just be exhausting into the boat.

 

Sorry - but you have made an expensive and potentially life threatening mistake.

 

If you knew it was not certified for boat use, why on earth did you think that "I'm different, it won't do anything bad in my boat".

 

Had you even considered that if anything happened your insurers would have an immediate escape route "not boat approved - insurance invalidated"

 

Your forum name is very apt.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[Mad Harold]

29 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I like to save a penny or two as much as the next man, but when it comes to safety / security / Life / death I think it is easy to make a big mistake.

 

Not only are they non-compliant but they have a 'drip' hole to let condensation out of the exhaust - doesn't matter on a truck as the drips and gases just drop down below the truck

 

 

 

 

Had you even considered that if anything happened your insurers would have an immediate escape route "not boat approved - insurance invalidated"

 

 

Fitted a longer exhaust because the standard one was too short.There is no "drip hole"in it so no fumes in the cabin.

Your last paragraph sums up my main worry.If (heaven forbid) there is a fire aboard,then yes,an insurance claim will most likely be rejected.A worse outcome could be if the fire on my boat sets fire to another,then a third party claim against me could also be rejected with ruinous consequences for me,to say nothing of causing injury or death to some innocent person.

As you can see,I am giving this matter some serious thought and talking myself out of the heater.

The alternative is to buy an Eber, Webasto,  or Propex and spend about £1000.I know the Propex is cheaper,but as there is no gas on the boat,they will all be pretty much the same price when fitted.

Thanks for your input.

[Momac]

54 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Not only are they non-compliant but they have a 'drip' hole to let condensation out of the exhaust - doesn't matter on a truck as the drips and gases just drop down below the truck

Not quite the same as on a boat where it will just be exhausting into the boat.

Do you refer to the curly copper pipe shown on the following image ?

 

[WotEver]

11 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Do you refer to the curly copper pipe shown on the following image ?

 

No, the one that can be seen in the bottom centre here:

 

[Alan de Enfield]

 

The 'silencer' rather than the exhaust pipe.

As WotEver shows - the drain hole in  the bottom

 

[TheBiscuits]

3 hours ago, Flyboy said:

You will need to change the plastic pipe to metal to pass the BSC, that's all as far as I can see.

 

2 hours ago, WotEver said:

And change the silencer for one without a CO-escaping drain in it. Unless you’ve already done that. 

 

The bloke that bought my old boat fitted one of these, and that's exactly what I told him to do.

 

The stainless exhaust skin fittings are about £40 on ebay, and the copper fuel pipe is cheap enough too.  I don't see why one of the planar copies would be a BSS issue as long at it is installed correctly.

 

The standalone ones with an integral fuel tank and an exhaust pipe over the side always strike me as dodgy though. 

 

Was it @ronnietucker that tried one of them?

[ronnietucker]

13 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

The standalone ones with an integral fuel tank and an exhaust pipe over the side always strike me as dodgy though. 

Was it @ronnietucker that tried one of them?

 

Guilty as charged. The all-in-one units are the same as the other ones but just nicely installed in a case. Exact same bits. The exhaust in the all-in-one comes out of the bottom of the heater the same as the standalone units.

 

I think the issue with the BSS is the fuel line? Not 100% sure on that though.

[Jess--]

The chinese heaters (and russian planar heaters) are copies of the airtronic heaters (close enough that physical parts are interchangeable), the 2kw versions are a copy of the airtronic D2 and the 5kw (or 8kw) are copies of the airtronic D4.

 

I have one here that has been running 24/7 on heating oil since november, it uses around 5 litres per day (or around £2.80 a day)

 

for BSC the only issues are fuel line and silencer / exhaust as they are unsuitable for boats.

for insurance I would discuss with your insurers .

 

I would love to know what the person installing the silencer in wotever's picture was thinking though, they have a bit of the intake tube (foil & paper) and the intake debris screen (plastic) on the outlet of the exhaust.

[WotEver]

2 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

I would love to know what the person installing the silencer in wotever's picture was thinking though, they have a bit of the intake tube (foil & paper) and the intake debris screen (plastic) on the outlet of the exhaust.

Who knows? He was installing it in a camper van - it was the first piccy I found of the silencer. 

[Chewbacka]

On 03/02/2020 at 12:50, Jess-- said:

...........

I would love to know what the person installing the silencer in wotever's picture was thinking though, they have a bit of the intake tube (foil & paper) and the intake debris screen (plastic) on the outlet of the exhaust.

Unless it is the air inlet and it uses an exhaust silencer to reduce the air intake noise.
Added - I doubt it is the exhaust, as the exhaust gas temp is more than hot enough to melt the plastic bits.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Chewbacka

[WotEver]

47 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Unless it is the air inlet and it uses an exhaust silencer to reduce the air intake noise.

That’s exactly what it is. Here’s a picture of the exhaust silencer (also showing the condensate drain)

 

[Jess--]

18 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Unless it is the air inlet and it uses an exhaust silencer to reduce the air intake noise.
Added - I doubt it is the exhaust, as the exhaust gas temp is more than hot enough to melt the plastic bits.

I did wonder if that was the case afterwards, but I have also seen...
installs where people have used the black tube as exhaust (lasts about 20 minutes)
installs where people have clipped the fuel line to the exhaust (once the fire starts the fuel pump keeps adding extra diesel as long as the heater is hot)
 

[reg]

For an all in one setup I used the following:

Suitable exhaust on ebay £39.50

Stainless steel exhaust

Exhaust skin fitting(other styles readily available) £35.75

Exhaust skin fitting

 

I also replaced the flexi stainless steel exhaust pipe with a genuine eberspacher pipe for about £15 (1 metre) as the supplied pipe looked and felt a bit insubstantial. 

Eberpsacher Flexi Exhaust pipe

 

Other costs were exhaust bandage and heat joint sealer. 

 

Also of note is this from 2016 indicating the discontinuation of eberspacher install kits that use copper fuel pipes in favour of suitable all hose instalation kits

https://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/professionals/examination/technical-news-info/new-products/tb16-03-eberspacher-all-hose-system/

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by reg