dmorgan27 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 We have an autocruise starblazer which has deisel powered blown air heating. We have noticed when skiing, and not hooked up, that the blown air heating tends to use up the van battery quite quickly. Does anybody have any experience of how long the battery will last whilst using the diesel powered heating system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 If my memory is correct, Autocruise fitted the Esbacher heater to the Starblazer. There was a previous thread regarding these being particularly power hungry on start-up. (But I can't find it now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Do you mean Eberspacher? http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21831&posts=11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thanks Mel, my memory for names was never very good, but the thread I was trying to find was regarding battery power being hit each time the heater starts up & giving usage in Amps ?nb Not sure what happened with the text on my previous post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 The Eberspacher will knock out a good 110 ah battery in probably less than one very cold weekend as it takes a huge current (20 amp I think?) surge for a few seconds just to fire it up each time the stat calls for more heat. A second battery will extend the life but probably not double it but it does give us 4 to 5 days without running the engine depending on use. This is the only downside of diesel heating - apart from finding a competent service engineer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Does anyone know what the difference in fuel consumption would be for a comparison between a gas powered heater and a diesel heater? With diesel now being twice the price of gas, does it give twice the output? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Mel B - 2011-01-22 6:40 PM Does anyone know what the difference in fuel consumption would be for a comparison between a gas powered heater and a diesel heater? With diesel now being twice the price of gas, does it give twice the output? Not an entirely easy comparison to do, as a large number of assumptions need to be made.But... :-) (a quick back of fag packet)An Eberspacher 3.5Kw combitronic at max output would cost around 81p per hour at UK diesel prices.A Truma Combi4 at max output would cost around 60p per hour at 13kg Calor refill prices. (more at 6kg refill prices, and obviously less with cheaper brands or refillables).Done very quickly with round numbers E&OE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Thanks, so with Gaslow refil prices even cheaper ... oh well, never mind, at least we can run the diesel heater on the move. :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Mel B - 2011-01-22 7:08 PM Thanks, so with Gaslow refil prices even cheaper ... oh well, never mind, at least we can run the diesel heater on the move. :-S ....BUT (well I did say it was difficult ;-) ), the other side of the coin is that (on quoted figures) the Eberspacher appears to be relatively much more efficient on lower settings (or, possibly more correctly, it looks like it is capable of varying the heat output to a greater degree than - and lower than - the Truma - the figure for this implying only two levels of gas heating).All in all, I suspect you would have to compare the profiles of heating over a lengthy period to get real results, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was not a lot of difference in the final cost figures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody. Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Mel B - 2011-01-22 7:08 PM Thanks, so with Gaslow refil prices even cheaper ... oh well, never mind, at least we can run the diesel heater on the move. :-S Ive got a Bolero 600 with the truma combi 4 and it can be run whilst on the move also , but dont really know what it costs to run . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmorgan27 Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 Many thanks for this advise, we will consider a second battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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