Review of Diesel Heaters: Efficiency and Safety

Alright guys, we've done a few tool reviews and we've been surprised by some of them and we put in the comment section Let us know what else you want to review and it's winter time and we had a lot of requests to Review these little diesel heaters. So we have a 5 kilowatt and an 8 kilowatt Or maybe this is the 5 kilowatt and this is the 8 kilowatt because they look identical But we bought both just to see what the difference is. One is slightly more expensive than the other So we want to make sure we're getting our value and not paying for something that we don't need We're gonna tear right into these see the differences talk about some myths talk about burning used oil See if these are actually worth the money or whether it's gonna burn your shop down. Here we go It's a very simple unit that consists of a diesel burner which just has a glow plug and nothing else and then a fuel tank, a fuel pump and then some electronics to to run it. They need a 12-volt battery to run the diesel pump. and they don't even like being charged. These are meant to be used when you're not moving. Basically what an old Wabasso heater would be like, and they've been around for decades and decades heating the cabs in semis while the truck is off. So it's an inexpensive way to burn a tiny bit of fuel and still get heat into the cabin or even heat the coolant in a diesel engine so that it can start when it's cold. Very simple. It does have better clamps rather than just your typical hose clamps. These are the annoying little tick on a fuel pump that sprays the fuel in there and as you put more Hertz to it, it'll tick faster meaning that it's putting more fuel into the heater. Diesel has a very high flash point but once it hits that glow plug it burns and creates heat that comes out one end. We need an intake and an exhaust so it needs to suck. clean air in and burn that fuel for you. All right, so we'll remove the fuel tank. So this assembly is very, there's nothing bolted. Just a simple plug. So you can see this pump is mounted on an angle and if you were we'll get into different fuels later And and how you can burn different fuels So if you're using different fuel tanks or you're taking this pump out You gotta make sure that this pump is always on kind of a 45 degree angle if you're mounting it to the wall or or something Like that you can buy these units separate outside of the casing as well So just four bolts that hold it to the bottom so 10 mil looks like Give me like an hour. I'll go try and find one. I might have to run to the store and grab six and come home with two I'm gonna look into this. Not even any bolts holding it together. Just one plastic cap at the end, which is why it's only $100. All it basically is is a burn chamber, intake and exhaust coming out and in. We've got our fuel coming in, a little fan to take that heat from these fins and blow it out, and then a little glow plug, which is what lights the fuel. and then a circuit board. Now there are protections on this so that if it does get too hot, it will shut down. You can stretch this out, but then the laws of things like fuel lines, every time you have a sharp 90 in it, it's like adding three feet of hose. You wanna keep as few 90s in there as possible. Let's take a look what's involved in here. Okay, so electronics, the fuel tank, everything is exactly the same. So these bolts weren't really tight. Maybe the kids were at the end of their shift, wanted to go home. I would call this tight, hold on. So that's not great. I think they're the only bolts in the whole thing, right? Yeah. So what's surprising is that the casing around this is plastic. If this fan quits, this though gets hot. You'd think that this would almost melt. I haven't heard of anything happening like that, but I just kind of see that. Now, so far the 8 kilowatt and the 5 kilowatt. Everything looks exactly the same. 12 volt, 22 UL. STD ALT so well that's just a circuit board that's all the same I don't see any physical difference between either one to be honest I would say the only way to make more heat is to burn more fuels maybe it's just a marketing gimmick I'm not sure but I'm thinking that it doesn't matter so far the only difference we've seen is that this plate is blue this one is gray this plug is white this plug is black exactly everything else is exactly the same now the nice thing about these units is that they are completely serviceable you can get new gaskets for them you can get new glow plugs fans basically if it stops working and you have the time and patience to do it or you're running used oil you can take this thing apart and keep going at it over and over and over again all these plugs are all Different so there's no way of getting a backwards. It's all this. Oh a turbo. Yeah, nice big turbo makes turbo noises So this is about to be your intake side and then a nice gasket that we can reuse because we haven't printed this thing. So our fuel is coming in, it's getting atomized and sprayed in, and then it hits the glow plug and creates heat. Very simple setup. I'm pretty sure this was vented by Germans and then the pattens ran out and so it's not that this is a new concept. Relatively safe. You've got to keep in mind that you do need to vent the exhaust out. and that the exhaust does get hot. Make sure that you're not touching insulation or anything like that. What we're gonna do is stick it through a cast iron radiator and try and go to the scrap yard and find one and use the exhaust from this unit going through the radiator as a nice muffler and to warm up the radiator. That way when the unit shuts off, you still have all that heat in that cast iron that will heat it long after you leave. So this is a little bit alarming. The glow plug wasn't that tight. That could have definitely been tighter. I just touched it. I want to almost take the other one apart just to see that I'm not crazy, but that was not tight at all. Now this is also replaceable. So this just glows red hot and then your fuel comes on top right here, gets sprayed on that and it lights as soon as it hits it. and then goes into this chamber. So you've got your fuel going through the middle here, all it does is get really hot in here and then warm up all these fins and then the air going over top of it is heats up from these fins, this nice aluminum it's a very good heat transfer and then that's what comes out of here. So a nice simple unit. There's a screen in here that would prevent any hard buildup or particulates. Going into the chamber so if it stops working more than likely It's that screen and the screen is very soft and felt those are also replaceable. Is that copper the green? But that's fine It's it's that solid enough if this were to break and just spray fuel over here Absolutely, nothing would happen because it wouldn't touch the glow plug. It would never burn It would make a giant mess on your floor. But if this was to leak at all it still wouldn't matter now if you start putting gas in there that's a different story so this gasket is replaceable um the screen is replaceable the glow plug is replaceable and basically you just have a housing that really nothing can go wrong your fan might quit after a while um that's you'll hear that right away when your fan's not kicking on then you know that there's a problem so nice simple construction not much to it that's why it's only a hundred dollars um I feel like because we have the gaskets we're in good shape we'll take this one apart just to make sure that the burn chamber is not any different. This was the eight kilowatt and this was the five kilowatt but you know what there's no point. It's in there so even if it's smaller it doesn't do anything because even if this is smaller the burn chamber is physically the same so there is no reason to do that so I think we'll put it back together again. We just want to answer some questions about used oil and used oil burners. Now we had a used oil burner at our last shop and we were able to basically have free heat. We took all the oil from the oil changes we did throughout the year, kept them in a giant tank, and then burned it in a clean burn furnace. Now because it's free, they made laws that you can't use it in different states and provinces. and whatnot so people are hiding it why not get rid of the used oil and turn it into heat again and get the full extent out of your money you want to do an oil change on your vehicles to make sure that they stay in optimum shape but then the oil is not cheap so what we found is that once a year we had to clean out that clean burn furnace and that was meant for used oil and it was right full of ash now the shop is 60 degrees right now And if you guys are thinking about burning these in your shop, the problem is that you want to heat your shop because your shop is cold. And when your shop is cold, the oil is also cold. If you've ever done a service call on a vehicle and changed the oil out on a snow plow, it takes forever to take the oil and pour it out of the pail, which is your first issue with changing your oil. Now, we've got some different fuels here. Now, this is diesel and there's no reason to run Clear diesel. If you're gonna run diesel in here, find a tank that has pink diesel and there are gas stations around, especially in rural farming communities, that have the dyed diesel. Now dyed diesel is dyed so that you don't run it on the road. You're not paying a road tax because you're running it in off-road equipment. That means it's cheaper and throw that into your your diesel burner. I've had issues with some customers who were using that died diesel and ends up being full of water. I replaced an injection pump because it was full of rust and then a year later I had to go back and it was full of rust again. I said where are you getting your fuel? He goes well the gas station but the problem is not enough people were buying that diesel because it was died and it would get condensation in the tanks at the gas station and he had water or he left the jerry cans outside. The nice thing is if you've got shitty diesel it will still burn it. You got a little bit of water in there, a little bit of whatever, it will still burn it. It might be harder to ignite it, but you can still burn it. Now you can see at 60 degrees, this is kind of the consistency. It might as well be water coming out, and this is what you're burning. That's what this unit is designed for. And if you go outside of that design, you're gonna ask for problems. We build custom vehicles here and we get a lot of vehicles in that have a little bit of diesel left in the tank and we have really nice vehicles too and with higher injection pressures and these electronic injectors needing really clean diesel I don't really want to burn that diesel in there for risk of wrecking a CPE pump or wrecking an injector. So I have a tank outside with so so diesel in there do I run into my older equipment do I risk wrecking an injection pump This heater is absolutely perfect for that because even if it has a little bit of water, not a big deal. Put some fresh fuel in it once in a while just to clean everything out and there you go. Now this is hydraulic oil and this as your second, I would choose hydraulic oil because it's thinner and it doesn't have the combustion cycle going through it as engine oil would. Now what happens is... When you're running an engine, what happens is you're lighting a fuel mixture on top of that, whether that's gas or diesel, and that combustion seeps past the compression rings, especially on older diesels, and that oil gets contaminated with a carbon buildup. And that carbon buildup is what gunks up and can't burn in here. On top of that... There's additives now to the oil. It's not straight up oil. It's the additives that they add in there. It's not meant to burn. It's meant to lubricate and stay strong, especially your synthetic oils in that. After that combustion cycle, this is what your oil looks like. It's a little bit thicker, a little bit dirtier. It's got that carbon in there and it's just black. It doesn't look great. But the best way to do it, honestly, is just take the two. and mix them together. Now you've got a little bit of diesel if you're going to run oil. Now it's a lot thinner and it's got that diesel in there that's able to make that combustion happen. It's not as thin as the diesel obviously but it's thinner than the oil was. Another way to help if you do want to burn your used oil is to have the used oil Nice and warm. The warmer that the oil gets, the thinner that it gets. What happens is, one, it's not great for your fuel pump. So your fuel pump, you'll wear that fuel pump out quicker, and that's in our unit there. Because it's meant to run on diesel. And the cost of that, whatever that may be, you've got to factor that in eventually. That little screen is going to get clogged up with whatever deposits are left in that oil. from your catch cans, from your... drain pans all of that is going to get caught in here you can reduce that risk by running it through a filter but now things are starting to get expensive because you got to take your oil you have to filter it before it gets into this and then this screen gets clogged quickly and you won't get the heat out of it that you want on top of that this is gonna get carboned up this is gonna get dirty and it's not going to have the exposure to burn the fuel as best as it can and you'll have much more difficulty in initially lighting your heater to get it to function in the right in the first place. If you run enough oil your exhaust is not that big and you're gonna start getting carbon deposits on this as well. Now if you have this in a sharp 90 because you're sitting it on a pallet or something on the floor, heat rises so you want this thing nice and low. If it's in your shop you've got this 90 on here. Now you're risking clogging this as well with all the crap that you're burning coming coming out of there. Look at your dryer vent. When was the last time you emptied your dryer vent? Go there right now pull that dryer vent out and see what's actually in there and actually you're gonna get much drier clothes if you clean that out once every couple years. Now what I don't have on me is used vegetable oil. Now that's when I say used vegetable oil it's the grease that any local kitchen uses to... burn your fries and make your chicken whatever else. Now that does not have the additives or the carbon that our other used oils have but it has leftover french fries and chicken batter in there so that is also a very good alternative but you have to clean that very very well you have to run that through pumps and filters let it settle let all the bits settle to the bottom. And then same thing we want to warm that oil up to get a really good burn. So we're going to put these things back together again and we're going to put our radiator together show you guys how to burn these oils the best way possible or if by now you just want to run on diesel and it's a decent heater but I would still take it apart make sure everything's tight and all the components are where they're supposed to be before I put this thing in the shop. So here we go. Okay so this is my 20-foot shipping container and I just have some tools on the wall and kind of hang hung up there and some nails and some random construction tools in here but this is the perfect spot for my little heater because if I need to do something in the winter fire it up at least I'm not cold on my mechanic shop or inside my shop all the construction tools are locked in a container outside. That's not a muffler. That's a muffler. I'm not a drug dealer but I think this is like 150 grams. This... This thing here, that's at least 150 pounds. This is meant for water. So water goes in, goes around, comes back, and warms up all this. So we're just going to run the exhaust for this. There's very little resistance. You can see how big these pipes are. Hopefully this becomes a giant heat sink, warms up, and keeps the thing warm even after the thing shuts off. So we're going to move that into the corner, drill some holes. We have to drill through the side, but we'll get her. Okay, so there it is. I'm gonna drill a hole underneath right here for the intake. The exhaust is gonna come right here, but I gotta run to town and just grab a 90 and a piece of pipe to go outside. Nice thing about this type of heater as well, you can lay all your boots on there, you can lay your gloves on there, everything's nice and warm. Put your tools on there and everything radiates nice and warm. Actually, I should put the... Oh you know what I should have put it underneath the workbench because then it's out of the way and then when it heats up it heats up all of my tools but I do like storing all my tools here too oh dilemmas dilemmas well I'm over probably still fit good thing I didn't drill anything yet all right this is how jobs take way longer than they should Okay now there it is I've got the exhaust coming out going into there going that out with a slight downhill slide that way the water doesn't get in even though silicone from the outside you wanted that to kind of slope down then we got this underneath decided to go underneath the bench here so I didn't waste all this space. We'll fire this thing up we have to manually pump this thing because there's air in the system so we have to manually pump it before the fire. I just got a little battery they recommend not having a charger on it so we're not we'll see how long this lasts but let's see what happens here we go Okay, so, um, it said I had to bleed it somehow, but it was not letting me manually do it, but I just turned it on and I'm getting heat out of it now. This is nice and warm, so maybe we'll, uh, oh, just set a timer. There's 12, 18, that one has a clock on it, and Bluetooth, we'll take that off. We'll keep an eye on it, we'll see how cold it is outside. This is a pretty decent day here, but that's nice and warm. We can put the, Put the hose pointing at you right up nicely onto the workbench. And it's nicely tucked out of the way and we still got lots of room here. So, so far so good. See how long it takes to heat this place up. Inside it is 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Just under freezing. Why is it so... Oh, look at that. It's already getting warm up there because the heat is going up. Crazy. Floor is... 31, the outside is... Yeah about 29 why is that one? Oh because the sun the sun is warming that thing up and the ground I love this thing let's close the door and see how warm she gets inside here 220 no 91 degrees well that varies great 229 Exhaust, let's see what exhaust is doing. It's got exhaust as well. So that is 163. Look at the... Sting. It's literally been on for two minutes. So that is still 25, 26, that's not doing anything. Coming out of there, 171 going in. 67 coming up. I think it's gonna work. Nice! I'm not gonna lie, that's already warm. That's disappointing. It's not really going anywhere. Oh yeah. Two hours later. Okay. So, um, we've got 300 degrees coming out. It is now about Now we open the door, we lose all our heat right away when we open the door. Well, if I close it, we can't see. No, I know. Okay, so we got about 300 coming out. Leaving the exhaust is about 70. So we got 300 coming in. It is taking a while to warm up this heater. You can see the first one is really hot, and then it's kind of just going over. And it gets cool as it goes. So the theory with the water is that the hot water rises, kind of gets stuck and then it sinks back down and goes goes back out again. This one is definitely nice and warm. So this is the most efficient way I think to heat a small space. We're capturing all the exhaust plus we're getting the hot air coming out here I was very comfortable in a 20-foot seat container was not freezing cold yet outside in Canada I think absolutely this little heater is worth it I think there's newer models that don't have that ticking sound that the fuel pump that does it Because that does get annoying other than that. It's just a fan but it's very nice and comfortable in here now. All right, if I was to burn used oil, and I'm not saying burn it because it clearly says in the manual it's only meant for diesel, what I would do is take your heat sink like this and put your used oil and your 50-50 diesel mix right on top of it. That way that oil gets nice and warm, nice and thin. There's nothing wrong with putting it right on top of here in like a steel container. And then I would start my heater on straight diesel, what it was meant for, and run it for about 15 minutes. Let that diesel heater get nice and warm, and then just switch over to your 50-50 mix. While I'd be working, I would burn all that, but about 15 minutes to 30 minutes before I'd leave, I'd switch back to straight diesel. That way you burn that little bit of carbon off, you're able to push that out of the exhaust, you don't have massive buildup. but keep in mind that if you do have a heat sink now you're putting all of that through your heat sink too eventually you'll probably clog your heat sink as well i think rather than burn the used oil i would just go with the heat sink because now this entire thing is going to warm up while you're using it all day and then after the heater shuts off it still has that potential energy in there it's going to take a while for that to cool down for about five bucks you can heat this thing for eight hours Now there are lots of videos on making used oil burners, but none of those are very safe. If you ever had a fire, whether it was the heater or not, better check with insurance whether they would cover your stuff or not. This is a safe, proven way to heat your workspace, and I think it's well worth $100. So, thank you guys for watching. I appreciate every one of you guys. Check out the link. because it's Christmas time you might as well treat yourself because you're probably just going to get socks and socks are nice but a warm workspace is much better. So thanks for watching, check out the Africa videos, check out all the other builds happening on the channel as well and we'll see you on the next video. There we go.

Here we go It's a very simple unit that consists of a diesel burner which just has a glow plug and nothing else and then a fuel tank, a fuel pump and then some electronics to to run it. They need a 12-volt battery to run the diesel pump. and they don't even like being charged. These are meant to be used when you're not moving. Basically what an old Wabasso heater would be like, and they've been around for decades and decades heating the cabs in semis while the truck is off.

So it's an inexpensive way to burn a tiny bit of fuel and still get heat into the cabin or even heat the coolant in a diesel engine so that it can start when it's cold. Very simple. It does have better clamps rather than just your typical hose clamps. These are the annoying little tick on a fuel pump that sprays the fuel in there and as you put more Hertz to it, it'll tick faster meaning that it's putting more fuel into the heater.

Diesel has a very high flash point but once it hits that glow plug it burns and creates heat that comes out one end. We need an intake and an exhaust so it needs to suck. clean air in and burn that fuel for you.

All right, so we'll remove the fuel tank. So this assembly is very, there's nothing bolted. Just a simple plug.

So you can see this pump is mounted on an angle and if you were we'll get into different fuels later And and how you can burn different fuels So if you're using different fuel tanks or you're taking this pump out You gotta make sure that this pump is always on kind of a 45 degree angle if you're mounting it to the wall or or something Like that you can buy these units separate outside of the casing as well So just four bolts that hold it to the bottom so 10 mil looks like Give me like an hour. I'll go try and find one. I might have to run to the store and grab six and come home with two I'm gonna look into this. Not even any bolts holding it together.

Just one plastic cap at the end, which is why it's only $100. All it basically is is a burn chamber, intake and exhaust coming out and in. We've got our fuel coming in, a little fan to take that heat from these fins and blow it out, and then a little glow plug, which is what lights the fuel. and then a circuit board. Now there are protections on this so that if it does get too hot, it will shut down.

You can stretch this out, but then the laws of things like fuel lines, every time you have a sharp 90 in it, it's like adding three feet of hose. You wanna keep as few 90s in there as possible. Let's take a look what's involved in here. Okay, so electronics, the fuel tank, everything is exactly the same. So these bolts weren't really tight.

Maybe the kids were at the end of their shift, wanted to go home. I would call this tight, hold on. So that's not great. I think they're the only bolts in the whole thing, right? Yeah.

So what's surprising is that the casing around this is plastic. If this fan quits, this though gets hot. You'd think that this would almost melt.

I haven't heard of anything happening like that, but I just kind of see that. Now, so far the 8 kilowatt and the 5 kilowatt. Everything looks exactly the same.

12 volt, 22 UL. STD ALT so well that's just a circuit board that's all the same I don't see any physical difference between either one to be honest I would say the only way to make more heat is to burn more fuels maybe it's just a marketing gimmick I'm not sure but I'm thinking that it doesn't matter so far the only difference we've seen is that this plate is blue this one is gray this plug is white this plug is black exactly everything else is exactly the same now the nice thing about these units is that they are completely serviceable you can get new gaskets for them you can get new glow plugs fans basically if it stops working and you have the time and patience to do it or you're running used oil you can take this thing apart and keep going at it over and over and over again all these plugs are all Different so there's no way of getting a backwards. It's all this. Oh a turbo. Yeah, nice big turbo makes turbo noises So this is about to be your intake side and then a nice gasket that we can reuse because we haven't printed this thing.

So our fuel is coming in, it's getting atomized and sprayed in, and then it hits the glow plug and creates heat. Very simple setup. I'm pretty sure this was vented by Germans and then the pattens ran out and so it's not that this is a new concept.

Relatively safe. You've got to keep in mind that you do need to vent the exhaust out. and that the exhaust does get hot.

Make sure that you're not touching insulation or anything like that. What we're gonna do is stick it through a cast iron radiator and try and go to the scrap yard and find one and use the exhaust from this unit going through the radiator as a nice muffler and to warm up the radiator. That way when the unit shuts off, you still have all that heat in that cast iron that will heat it long after you leave. So this is a little bit alarming. The glow plug wasn't that tight.

That could have definitely been tighter. I just touched it. I want to almost take the other one apart just to see that I'm not crazy, but that was not tight at all. Now this is also replaceable.

So this just glows red hot and then your fuel comes on top right here, gets sprayed on that and it lights as soon as it hits it. and then goes into this chamber. So you've got your fuel going through the middle here, all it does is get really hot in here and then warm up all these fins and then the air going over top of it is heats up from these fins, this nice aluminum it's a very good heat transfer and then that's what comes out of here.

So a nice simple unit. There's a screen in here that would prevent any hard buildup or particulates. Going into the chamber so if it stops working more than likely It's that screen and the screen is very soft and felt those are also replaceable.

Is that copper the green? But that's fine It's it's that solid enough if this were to break and just spray fuel over here Absolutely, nothing would happen because it wouldn't touch the glow plug. It would never burn It would make a giant mess on your floor. But if this was to leak at all it still wouldn't matter now if you start putting gas in there that's a different story so this gasket is replaceable um the screen is replaceable the glow plug is replaceable and basically you just have a housing that really nothing can go wrong your fan might quit after a while um that's you'll hear that right away when your fan's not kicking on then you know that there's a problem so nice simple construction not much to it that's why it's only a hundred dollars um I feel like because we have the gaskets we're in good shape we'll take this one apart just to make sure that the burn chamber is not any different.

This was the eight kilowatt and this was the five kilowatt but you know what there's no point. It's in there so even if it's smaller it doesn't do anything because even if this is smaller the burn chamber is physically the same so there is no reason to do that so I think we'll put it back together again. We just want to answer some questions about used oil and used oil burners. Now we had a used oil burner at our last shop and we were able to basically have free heat.

We took all the oil from the oil changes we did throughout the year, kept them in a giant tank, and then burned it in a clean burn furnace. Now because it's free, they made laws that you can't use it in different states and provinces. and whatnot so people are hiding it why not get rid of the used oil and turn it into heat again and get the full extent out of your money you want to do an oil change on your vehicles to make sure that they stay in optimum shape but then the oil is not cheap so what we found is that once a year we had to clean out that clean burn furnace and that was meant for used oil and it was right full of ash now the shop is 60 degrees right now And if you guys are thinking about burning these in your shop, the problem is that you want to heat your shop because your shop is cold. And when your shop is cold, the oil is also cold. If you've ever done a service call on a vehicle and changed the oil out on a snow plow, it takes forever to take the oil and pour it out of the pail, which is your first issue with changing your oil.

Now, we've got some different fuels here. Now, this is diesel and there's no reason to run Clear diesel. If you're gonna run diesel in here, find a tank that has pink diesel and there are gas stations around, especially in rural farming communities, that have the dyed diesel.

Now dyed diesel is dyed so that you don't run it on the road. You're not paying a road tax because you're running it in off-road equipment. That means it's cheaper and throw that into your your diesel burner.

I've had issues with some customers who were using that died diesel and ends up being full of water. I replaced an injection pump because it was full of rust and then a year later I had to go back and it was full of rust again. I said where are you getting your fuel? He goes well the gas station but the problem is not enough people were buying that diesel because it was died and it would get condensation in the tanks at the gas station and he had water or he left the jerry cans outside. The nice thing is if you've got shitty diesel it will still burn it.

You got a little bit of water in there, a little bit of whatever, it will still burn it. It might be harder to ignite it, but you can still burn it. Now you can see at 60 degrees, this is kind of the consistency.

It might as well be water coming out, and this is what you're burning. That's what this unit is designed for. And if you go outside of that design, you're gonna ask for problems.

We build custom vehicles here and we get a lot of vehicles in that have a little bit of diesel left in the tank and we have really nice vehicles too and with higher injection pressures and these electronic injectors needing really clean diesel I don't really want to burn that diesel in there for risk of wrecking a CPE pump or wrecking an injector. So I have a tank outside with so so diesel in there do I run into my older equipment do I risk wrecking an injection pump This heater is absolutely perfect for that because even if it has a little bit of water, not a big deal. Put some fresh fuel in it once in a while just to clean everything out and there you go.

Now this is hydraulic oil and this as your second, I would choose hydraulic oil because it's thinner and it doesn't have the combustion cycle going through it as engine oil would. Now what happens is... When you're running an engine, what happens is you're lighting a fuel mixture on top of that, whether that's gas or diesel, and that combustion seeps past the compression rings, especially on older diesels, and that oil gets contaminated with a carbon buildup. And that carbon buildup is what gunks up and can't burn in here. On top of that...

There's additives now to the oil. It's not straight up oil. It's the additives that they add in there. It's not meant to burn. It's meant to lubricate and stay strong, especially your synthetic oils in that.

After that combustion cycle, this is what your oil looks like. It's a little bit thicker, a little bit dirtier. It's got that carbon in there and it's just black.

It doesn't look great. But the best way to do it, honestly, is just take the two. and mix them together.

Now you've got a little bit of diesel if you're going to run oil. Now it's a lot thinner and it's got that diesel in there that's able to make that combustion happen. It's not as thin as the diesel obviously but it's thinner than the oil was. Another way to help if you do want to burn your used oil is to have the used oil Nice and warm. The warmer that the oil gets, the thinner that it gets.

What happens is, one, it's not great for your fuel pump. So your fuel pump, you'll wear that fuel pump out quicker, and that's in our unit there. Because it's meant to run on diesel.

And the cost of that, whatever that may be, you've got to factor that in eventually. That little screen is going to get clogged up with whatever deposits are left in that oil. from your catch cans, from your... drain pans all of that is going to get caught in here you can reduce that risk by running it through a filter but now things are starting to get expensive because you got to take your oil you have to filter it before it gets into this and then this screen gets clogged quickly and you won't get the heat out of it that you want on top of that this is gonna get carboned up this is gonna get dirty and it's not going to have the exposure to burn the fuel as best as it can and you'll have much more difficulty in initially lighting your heater to get it to function in the right in the first place.

If you run enough oil your exhaust is not that big and you're gonna start getting carbon deposits on this as well. Now if you have this in a sharp 90 because you're sitting it on a pallet or something on the floor, heat rises so you want this thing nice and low. If it's in your shop you've got this 90 on here. Now you're risking clogging this as well with all the crap that you're burning coming coming out of there.

Look at your dryer vent. When was the last time you emptied your dryer vent? Go there right now pull that dryer vent out and see what's actually in there and actually you're gonna get much drier clothes if you clean that out once every couple years. Now what I don't have on me is used vegetable oil. Now that's when I say used vegetable oil it's the grease that any local kitchen uses to...

burn your fries and make your chicken whatever else. Now that does not have the additives or the carbon that our other used oils have but it has leftover french fries and chicken batter in there so that is also a very good alternative but you have to clean that very very well you have to run that through pumps and filters let it settle let all the bits settle to the bottom. And then same thing we want to warm that oil up to get a really good burn. So we're going to put these things back together again and we're going to put our radiator together show you guys how to burn these oils the best way possible or if by now you just want to run on diesel and it's a decent heater but I would still take it apart make sure everything's tight and all the components are where they're supposed to be before I put this thing in the shop.

So here we go. Okay so this is my 20-foot shipping container and I just have some tools on the wall and kind of hang hung up there and some nails and some random construction tools in here but this is the perfect spot for my little heater because if I need to do something in the winter fire it up at least I'm not cold on my mechanic shop or inside my shop all the construction tools are locked in a container outside. That's not a muffler. That's a muffler. I'm not a drug dealer but I think this is like 150 grams.

This... This thing here, that's at least 150 pounds. This is meant for water. So water goes in, goes around, comes back, and warms up all this.

So we're just going to run the exhaust for this. There's very little resistance. You can see how big these pipes are.

Hopefully this becomes a giant heat sink, warms up, and keeps the thing warm even after the thing shuts off. So we're going to move that into the corner, drill some holes. We have to drill through the side, but we'll get her.

Okay, so there it is. I'm gonna drill a hole underneath right here for the intake. The exhaust is gonna come right here, but I gotta run to town and just grab a 90 and a piece of pipe to go outside. Nice thing about this type of heater as well, you can lay all your boots on there, you can lay your gloves on there, everything's nice and warm. Put your tools on there and everything radiates nice and warm.

Actually, I should put the... Oh you know what I should have put it underneath the workbench because then it's out of the way and then when it heats up it heats up all of my tools but I do like storing all my tools here too oh dilemmas dilemmas well I'm over probably still fit good thing I didn't drill anything yet all right this is how jobs take way longer than they should Okay now there it is I've got the exhaust coming out going into there going that out with a slight downhill slide that way the water doesn't get in even though silicone from the outside you wanted that to kind of slope down then we got this underneath decided to go underneath the bench here so I didn't waste all this space. We'll fire this thing up we have to manually pump this thing because there's air in the system so we have to manually pump it before the fire.

I just got a little battery they recommend not having a charger on it so we're not we'll see how long this lasts but let's see what happens here we go Okay, so, um, it said I had to bleed it somehow, but it was not letting me manually do it, but I just turned it on and I'm getting heat out of it now. This is nice and warm, so maybe we'll, uh, oh, just set a timer. There's 12, 18, that one has a clock on it, and Bluetooth, we'll take that off. We'll keep an eye on it, we'll see how cold it is outside. This is a pretty decent day here, but that's nice and warm.

We can put the, Put the hose pointing at you right up nicely onto the workbench. And it's nicely tucked out of the way and we still got lots of room here. So, so far so good. See how long it takes to heat this place up. Inside it is 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

Just under freezing. Why is it so... Oh, look at that. It's already getting warm up there because the heat is going up.

Crazy. Floor is... 31, the outside is...

Yeah about 29 why is that one? Oh because the sun the sun is warming that thing up and the ground I love this thing let's close the door and see how warm she gets inside here 220 no 91 degrees well that varies great 229 Exhaust, let's see what exhaust is doing. It's got exhaust as well. So that is 163. Look at the...

Sting. It's literally been on for two minutes. So that is still 25, 26, that's not doing anything. Coming out of there, 171 going in.

67 coming up. I think it's gonna work. Nice!

I'm not gonna lie, that's already warm. That's disappointing. It's not really going anywhere. Oh yeah. Two hours later.

Okay. So, um, we've got 300 degrees coming out. It is now about Now we open the door, we lose all our heat right away when we open the door.

Well, if I close it, we can't see. No, I know. Okay, so we got about 300 coming out.

Leaving the exhaust is about 70. So we got 300 coming in. It is taking a while to warm up this heater. You can see the first one is really hot, and then it's kind of just going over. And it gets cool as it goes. So the theory with the water is that the hot water rises, kind of gets stuck and then it sinks back down and goes goes back out again.

This one is definitely nice and warm. So this is the most efficient way I think to heat a small space. We're capturing all the exhaust plus we're getting the hot air coming out here I was very comfortable in a 20-foot seat container was not freezing cold yet outside in Canada I think absolutely this little heater is worth it I think there's newer models that don't have that ticking sound that the fuel pump that does it Because that does get annoying other than that. It's just a fan but it's very nice and comfortable in here now. All right, if I was to burn used oil, and I'm not saying burn it because it clearly says in the manual it's only meant for diesel, what I would do is take your heat sink like this and put your used oil and your 50-50 diesel mix right on top of it.

That way that oil gets nice and warm, nice and thin. There's nothing wrong with putting it right on top of here in like a steel container. And then I would start my heater on straight diesel, what it was meant for, and run it for about 15 minutes.

Let that diesel heater get nice and warm, and then just switch over to your 50-50 mix. While I'd be working, I would burn all that, but about 15 minutes to 30 minutes before I'd leave, I'd switch back to straight diesel. That way you burn that little bit of carbon off, you're able to push that out of the exhaust, you don't have massive buildup. but keep in mind that if you do have a heat sink now you're putting all of that through your heat sink too eventually you'll probably clog your heat sink as well i think rather than burn the used oil i would just go with the heat sink because now this entire thing is going to warm up while you're using it all day and then after the heater shuts off it still has that potential energy in there it's going to take a while for that to cool down for about five bucks you can heat this thing for eight hours Now there are lots of videos on making used oil burners, but none of those are very safe.

If you ever had a fire, whether it was the heater or not, better check with insurance whether they would cover your stuff or not. This is a safe, proven way to heat your workspace, and I think it's well worth $100. So, thank you guys for watching.

I appreciate every one of you guys. Check out the link. because it's Christmas time you might as well treat yourself because you're probably just going to get socks and socks are nice but a warm workspace is much better. So thanks for watching, check out the Africa videos, check out all the other builds happening on the channel as well and we'll see you on the next video. There we go.

Transcript for:Review of Diesel Heaters: Efficiency and Safety

Transcript for:
Review of Diesel Heaters: Efficiency and Safety