Diesel heater - home installation

[Strettyp]

With my gas bill coming in at an eye-watering amount last week, I am looking at ways to reduce the cost of heating the house, have got a newish energy efficient boiler, have dropped the temp on it to 17.5 and reduced the time slot it's on for etc

Has anyone attempted to do this at home, mainly to heat the kitchen diner which we spend most time in

If so, any recommendations on diesel heaters that are reliable, or reasons why this is not a good idea (excluding running the exhaust outside/carbon monoxide monitor etc)

cheers

 

[drinfinity]

Lots of people do exactly this on the Chinese Diesel Heater forum, with varying degrees of elegance/lash up.

I’m not convinced it would be more economical/efficient to buy your energy as red diesel for a cheap heater with a very hot exhaust, compared to an efficient combi. I think the better option is to control each room separately so you only heat what you need, and lots of insulation.

I am not a heating engineer, so hopefully someone will be along soon with the actual data.

 

[Strettyp]

Ah ok - I've seen a few guys on YouTube doing in and they were raving about them (heat / cost) but as with everything on YouTube they're looking for likes and shares so might be saying they're better than reality to drive views

I'll have a search on here for more

 

[drinfinity]

There is some discussion of cost over here, but generally it boils down to mains gas is still a fairly cheap way per KWH to buy your energy.

Diesel Heater, emergency use & costs vs gas combi boiler + electric supply for it?

Hi. I'm really thinking of every option at the minute.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com

 

[Salty Spuds]

A litre of diesel contains around 9.5kwh of energy, call it 10 for round numbers. Red diesel is around £1.20/litre.
Heating oil (kerosene) contains a similar amount of energy as diesel/volume.
I’m not 100% sure of the price of gas/kWh, but I think it’s around 15p/kWh
We are on oil heating & it costs around £1-1.2k/year for a well insulated 3 bed stone cottage. Most of our heat comes from a log burner & we have a 4kW solar PV installation which provides our hot water in summer. So the £1k of oil is basically a top up.
I’ll let you do the maths.

 

[rod_vw]

Chinese diesel heaters are well discussed on this Facebook Group maybe there is something there that will help you make the decision.

 

[Howzat]

There's a guy in a bungalow near me that has 4 of them running in a filing cabinet outside with the ducts running into each room. It's a mess with holes in the house and ducting everywhere and an extension lead to the filing cabinet to run the stepdown transformers. And it stinks outside. No idea how he controls them as the timers are pants and I bet refilling them every couple of days must be a mare. It just isn't practical. Maybe OK runnning one for a workshop/garage but that's about it.

A game changer for me this year was getting a new thermostat for the boiler that's controled by alexa and linked to a hue motion sensor and an echo dot.
The echo dot can sense when there is no movement in the house after 20 minutes so turns the boiler down a few degrees and the hue motion sensor turns it back up immediately once movement is detected. Alexa controls the all the timer functions with the bonus of voice control to manually change the temperature setting if desired.

No more worrying about the boiler running when not required. It just works now when it needs to.

 

[Strettyp]

It's looking like a marginal argument as (excluding the cost of the heater) my gas is 10p per kWh, which is just less than the cost of my gas, but my gas boiler has to heat water and then pump that around the house to the radiators to heat those up and they eventually put out the heat - good for the whole house but we generally spend the evening in one large room

Having had a diesel heater in the van and enjoyed the benefits it made me think of this

 

[russ_e]

We have invested in a Smart Radiator Thermostat System by Tado that allows you to heat individual rooms.

Costs approx £50 per radiator.

 

[Dave Mac]

Even the Chinese supplier state not for use as home heating and red diesel is not to be sold for any type of heating if caught doing so its a very heavy fine and criminal conviction.

 

[Salty Spuds]

Even the Chinese supplier state not for use as home heating and red diesel is not to be sold for any type of heating if caught doing so it’s a very heavy fine and criminal conviction.

It’s not illegal to use red diesel for home heating, though why you’d want to, when heating oil is much cheaper, is another question.

 

[Dave Mac]

It’s not illegal to use red diesel for home heating, though why you’d want to, when heating oil is much cheaper, is another question.

If you now try to buy red diesel the retailer/garage will ask many questions .
Not to be used for heating is one of them.
One of the few allowed uses is for a generator.
You cannot buy for cash, may be asked for proof of address and vehicle registration.
These are all in place after the change of red diesel taxation and permitted uses put in place about 2 years ago.
Please don’t shoot the messenger, I used to use about 50 galls a month until the new rules were implemented and it was a big hike in costs at the time.

 

[Strettyp]

Could you use heating oil in a diesel heater though?

 

[Salty Spuds]

If you now try to buy red diesel the retailer/garage will ask many questions .
Not to be used for heating is one of them.
One of the few allowed uses is for a generator.
You cannot buy for cash, may be asked for proof of address and vehicle registration.
These are all in place after the change of red diesel taxation and permitted uses put in place about 2 years ago.
Please don’t shoot the messenger, I used to use about 50 galls a month until the new rules were implemented and it was a big hike in costs at the time.

The reason for not using for heating is that if the same garage sells petrol, there’s a theoretical danger that the diesel could be contaminated with petrol & if you put this into an oil boiler it could go bang. There’s no legal reason why you can’t use red for heating. Red diesel is used for heating house boats/canal boats/yachts etc.

“At Budget 2020 the government announced that it was removing entitlement to use red diesel from most sectors, except for agriculture (as well as horticulture, forestry and fish farming), rail and non-commercial heating, from 1 April 2022.”

Reform of red diesel and other rebated fuels entitlement

www.gov.uk

 

[Salty Spuds]

Could you use heating oil in a diesel heater though?

Depends on the heater. Heating oil has a higher sulphur content than diesel, if the heater can handle the sulphur then yes.

 

[Dave Mac]

The reason for not using for heating is that if the same garage sells petrol, there’s a theoretical danger that the diesel could be contaminated with petrol & if you put this into an oil boiler it could go bang. There’s no legal reason why you can’t use red for heating. Red diesel is used for heating house boats/canal boats/yachts etc.

My purchase were from eves of Whitby 500 galls at a time for a forklift truck, heating and some on site plant non of these are permitted use under the recent legislation changes according to my wholesale supplier and the would not supply red diesel only regular white due to excise duty and vat legislation changes.
Heating oil has more duty than red diesel.

 

[Salty Spuds]

My purchase were from eves of Whitby 500 galls at a time for a forklift truck, heating and some on site plant non of these are permitted use under the recent legislation changes according to my wholesale supplier and the would not supply red diesel only regular white due to excise duty and vat legislation changes.
Heating oil has more duty than red diesel.

I suggest you read through the link I posted above.

Heating oil has more duty than red diesel.

On the contrary. Red diesel for heating has 11.14p duty, Heating oil (kerosene) is zero rated. That’s why heating oil is considerably cheaper than red diesel.