Maintaining my heater systems

WilliamA

As I've written elsewhere (ad nauseum) on this forum about my dual heat systems, I won't revisit those articles at the readers expense. They're still here somewhere on the forum. I know I promised to collate my various threads on my diesel heater installation but that hasn't yet happened. Oops... or should I say....I'll get to it....no, really I will!
In any case, I just finished some superficial maintenance tasks and tests of both my electric furnace and my diesel heater.
The electric furnace has only two moving parts; the blower motor and the line voltage thermostat, so there's not much to report there. The biggest maintenance item for that was to weasel a dentist's mirror up into the housing (disconnect power first! Live 110v inside!) And see if it needed a cleaning. It didn't. It's been quietly humming away for going on five years now and just works. Other than replacing the line voltage thermostat with a more robust model, I've never done anything to it. As I write this, the outside temp is in the 20 degree range. I set my thermostat in the trailer at 45 and forget it. I keep my trailer plugged in to house power 100% of the time while at home so the electric furnace just keeps the trailer at 40-ish all wi ter. That's warm enough to keep the snow and ice from building up and also keeps mold and mildew at 0%. I have no idea how many hours the furnace has run over the years but expect it to outlast the trailer.
I don't run my diesel heater in hot (>60 degrees) weather, but first fall day when the temp gets down to 40 or so, I'll start it up and let it run for a few hours. Then every 2 or 3 weeks (read: when I think of it) I'll crank it up and let it run for a bit. I last did that yesterday. It's working fine, but as I've reported before, is too much heater for such a small space. In my opinion, that's a fine problem to have. After an hour or so, when I stick my head in there, it's around 75-80 degrees in there. As the temp climbs, it seems to level off a bit but short of shutting it off, there's just no way to get it to burn any cooler. When I'm out and about and using the diesel heater, I just open the roof vent. Problem solved.
Some of you may remember my lengthy experiments early-on trying to modify the fuel/air ratio to calm it down some. While that took a bit of time to work out, I'm cautiously pleased to report that it seemed to be successful. I've not fiddled with it in a year and it's still working pretty seamlessly now. I did a bunch of experiments with different diameter exhausts and, while the new and improved exhaust system I ultimately settled upon is marginally noisier, it burns much cleaner and I've not had any problems with combustion chamber shooting. I'd like to take it apart and inspect the internals, but....well....it's cold out and I'm not up to crawling under there and removing it. I DID (finally!) get around to ordering a spare parts kit. I now have a spare glow plug, atomizer screen, gasket set and combustion air filter on hand. All of that set me back about $23 bucks or so. Should the need arise, I'll be able to replace those things in "the field".
I was showing my DW ( she was SUPER excited about it!) A short video about a new-ish product called the "Afterburner", that's essentially a new user interface for diesel heaters. In addition to turning it on and off, it offers a range of other things such as adjusting the fuel/air ratio live during heater operation. There are also 3 temperature probe inputs and the option to chain other devices (think: auxiliary fan, etc) to come on and off based upon output temp. I think I'll order one of those and get it installed.
I've not played around with different fuel mixes. The internet is crawling with crazies trying to burn all manner of fuel types, but so far, I've just put diesel in it. In the winter, I'll mix 25% DF-1, but nothing else. Just straight diesel.
The diesel heater project was a bit of a challenge. 90% of the work was spent fiddling with the fuel/air ratio to get it to burn properly. The actual installation was complicated, but paled in comparison to fuel balance foibles.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. In fact....I'm thinking about adding a water heater add-on to it.
That'll be a bit ticklish though....Can't wait....
WilliamA