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Diesel for my Eberspatcher


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Hello all. 
 

well what an interesting time to start living aboard a narrowboat! 
 

Im currently having to keep working and the marina I’m at is only opening for a few hours a week, understandably. 
 

I want to top up my tank for my Eberspatcher, question is, can I just use diesel from a petrol station for the heater? 
 

sorry if it seems a daft question, but last thing I want is broken heating with the current situation. 
 

thanks 

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It's the same stuff - but without the dye in it. You may find a garage who legitimately sell non road fuel diesel - in which case it will be cheaper and you may legitamately use if for heating your boat.

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13 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

It's the same stuff - but without the dye in it. You may find a garage who legitimately sell non road fuel diesel - in which case it will be cheaper and you may legitamately use if for heating your boat.

I only use it for an hour before and after work, so should be able to get it from marina, but good to know as a back up. ??

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16 minutes ago, Man 'o Kent said:

Just thank your stars that grossly overpriced, unreliable and more tempremental than a football diva is actually working!

"Vorsprung durch technik" ---- Yeh! So much for the myth of German "excellence"

To be fair, as with webasto if they are fitted correctly ( which  90 percent are not ) They do  a very good job as back up heating.

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11 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

With some places charging well over 80p and supermarkets charging around £1-04 the difference is not that great

I’m doing a 1hr commute, 5 days a week at the moment (Nantwich > Man Airport) in my van, so I just insert the nozzle and close my eyes anyway. 

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38 minutes ago, LadyG said:

It's 50% more expensive.

With current forecourt prices there is little difference - if you have to move the boat for X hours then you will probably have used more fuel (cost) than if you'd picked up a couple of Jerry cans when passing the Petrol Station.

 

Filled the car up (75 litres) at £1.10 / litre

 

Many marinas will only sell at 60/40 split and is around £1 a litre.

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9 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

To be fair, as with webasto if they are fitted correctly ( which  90 percent are not ) They do  a very good job as back up heating.

If I’m on a 0500 start it means there’s a little heat and hot water before I go out.  If  I’m on a 0000 finish it means I can clean properly before bed. It is a good little back up. 

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5 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

To be fair, as with webasto if they are fitted correctly ( which  90 percent are not ) They do  a very good job as back up heating.

 

Indeed, my surveyor told me to always ensure it is run hard by switching it off before it goes to half power and it will rarely need servicing.

 

He was right, the previous owner let it run for hours on end and had to have it serviced annually. Since I have had the boat it has been fault free and has not been serviced since 2013.

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7 hours ago, Hiraeth said:

 

I want to top up my tank for my Eberspatcher, question is, can I just use diesel from a petrol station for the heater? 

 

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Many marinas will only sell at 60/40 split and is around £1 a litre.

 

If this is a dedicated tank for the Eberspacher you can declare 0% propulsion for that tank (if the marina will do that).

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If (and only if) you are intending to burn all the fuel you buy in your eberbasta then you can declare 0%, regardless of whether if goes in the same tank as your propulsion fuel.

N

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2 minutes ago, BEngo said:

If (and only if) you are intending to burn all the fuel you buy in your eberbasta then you can declare 0%, regardless of whether if goes in the same tank as your propulsion fuel.

N

 

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Many marinas will only sell at 60/40 split and is around £1 a litre.

 

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1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

Indeed, my surveyor told me to always ensure it is run hard by switching it off before it goes to half power and it will rarely need servicing.

 

He was right, the previous owner let it run for hours on end and had to have it serviced annually. Since I have had the boat it has been fault free and has not been serviced since 2013.

I have it on thermostat, it comes on for about 40 mins each time, maybe ten times a day if fire not on, is that OK?

Edited by LadyG
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4 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

 

If this is a dedicated tank for the Eberspacher you can declare 0% propulsion for that tank (if the marina will do that).

I do have a separate tank for the heater. That’s good to know, thanks. 

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11 hours ago, LadyG said:

I have it on thermostat, it comes on for about 40 mins each time, maybe ten times a day if fire not on, is that OK?

 

You can hear the heater noise change when it drops to half power, it makes less noise. Mine takes about an hour to drop to half power, so I turn it off before then. However I use mine only to take the chill off the boat before the stove warms up or on chilly autumn and spring mornings and evenings. The stove is my main form of heating.

 

Ideally diesel heaters shouldn't be run on half power as they soot up more quickly. However since gas oil became ultra low sulphur, its quality improved, as it is now road diesel dyed red, so this may no longer be an issue.

 

Certainly @blackrose runs his heater on a thermostat, and thus it will cycle between full and half power, without problems.

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3 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Isn't your the air blower variety?

This one is, but we have treated the (hot water) ones on our NB's the same.

 

The blown air one 'cycles' in just the same way once room temperature is reached.

 

It would seem to be a poor design if you have to switch it off after 20 minutes (before it drops to half power) every time you use it.

I cannot imagine that the commercial users of such heaters do this.

Surely the idea of a thermostat is that it can switch itself on and off as required.

 

From my manual :

 

image.png.43e527ecbc942db0c14278f2de8e8631.png

 

So if the Sun shines, and the cabin warms up then it goes to standby mode, waits for the temperature to drop in the evening and then kicks back in again.

 

Once the temperature drops it restarts in 'High' mode for 80 seconds before dropping back to 'low' mode.

 

That doesn't sound like a heater then requires switching off to avoid short-cycling.

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3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

This one is, but we have treated the (hot water) ones on our NB's the same.

 

The blown air one 'cycles' in just the same way once room temperature is reached.

 

It would seem to be a poor design if you have to switch it off after 20 minutes (before it drops to half power) every time you use it.

I cannot imagine that the commercial users of such heaters do this.

Surely the idea of a thermostat is that it can switch itself on and off as required.

 

From my manual :

 

image.png.43e527ecbc942db0c14278f2de8e8631.png

 

So if the Sun shines, and the cabin warms up then it goes to standby mode, waits for the temperature to drop in the evening and then kicks back in again.

 

Once the temperature drops it restarts in 'High' mode for 80 seconds before dropping back to 'low' mode.

 

That doesn't sound like a heater then requires switching off to avoid short-cycling.

This is a very interesting thread.

We had a webasto blown air heater on our lumpy water bote and used it like Alan says above.

On our canal bote though we have been running our ebersparky like Cuthound does after hearing stories of the thing coking up if run on half power. We therefore tend to just rely on the stove and only use the ebersparky for heating the back of the boat up on cold mornings. It is interesting though that two of the boats not too far from us in the marina run their ebersparkys all the time on the thermostat and you can hear them coming on and off during the day/evening. Surely that is expensive as they use over half a litre of diesel per hour....as well as potentially causing maintenance issues? Both the boats ebersparkys are still working as we approach the end of the winter so it doesnt sound like they are dying. I wonder  just how bad 'continuous' running (ie cycling up and down) is?

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3 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Both the boats ebersparkys are still working as we approach the end of the winter so it doesnt sound like they are dying. I wonder  just how bad 'continuous' running (ie cycling up and down) is?

If something is repeated enough times on the internet it becomes 'Gospel' irrespective of contrary experiences.

6 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

t is interesting though that two of the boats not too far from us in the marina run their ebersparkys all the time on the thermostat and you can hear them coming on and off during the day/evening. Surely that is expensive as they use over half a litre of diesel per hour..

But they only come on if it is cold enough (below the thermostat setting) to require some heat - ours could be 'off' all day and just start up in the evening as the temperature starts to drop.

Guess it just depends if you set the thermostat at 20 degrees or 25 degrees

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