UKH

A friend of mine wants to install a heater in their van. Normally I'd recommend a Webasto, but it's a petrol Bongo. What are the options? Is there such a thing as a petrol heater? Or is there a gas one that can be installed without too much hassle? Budget is quite tight.

An old brass primus stove and a carbon monoxide meter. Yeah it might make a roaring noise, but it'll put out some heat and yes it's paraffin not petrol, but that's safer anyway 

Sounds like a death trap. Surely any heater for inside a van needs to be indirect? Just burning stuff indoors until the CO alarm goes off is not a solution.

I put a reconditioned external vented gas heater powered off a safefill , about £550 all in, last winter in my van conversion.

Need the gas for the hob anyway and cheap to run. 

A traditional  6kg , about 12 litres gas , steel cylinder refill cost me £34 recently. Autogas lpg is about 90p litre so I can get the same amount of gas (propane) for about £11. 

Safefill do 5, 7.5 and 10kg versions, other brands available. Also good about the safefill is its translucent composite stuff, so very light and you can see how much is in it.

So light that the first time you pick up one up you need convincing theres any gas in!

That sounds more like it. Where did you get your heater?

Webasto have always made petrol heaters as do Ebersbacher and probably everyone else. My wife's car has a Webasto as standard fitment.

Well known auction site.

Chinese diesel heater with its own tank, cheap, cheerful and lots of online support available for them. Lots of people even with diesel vans run off a separate tank

I hadn't thought of that. Just had a look on eBay and they are about £90. Are they actually any good at that price? If so, it's worth the hassle of the separate diesel tank.

Mine cost about that, it has been in the van for the last 2 years and it hasn't missed a beat when we have needed it. We get away atleast one night a month including in the depth of winter. Really simple technology without much to go wrong. Uses next to no fuel, but I can't personally say about the hassle of a separate tank as mine is connected to my main tank.

I'll definitely look into that a bit more. I had no idea they were that cheap. My van came with a Webasto installed from new. I think the previous owner paid over £1k for it!

It won’t be quite the same as an Eberspacher, but an electric oil-filled radiator of the correct current should work on hook-up. Mine does anyway. 

Yes, they're excellent value for money. I fitted mine 4 years ago and it's still working fine. I did "bench test" it out of the van first to ensure I didn't start cutting holes and fitting something that didn't work, as QC isn't as good as the German models. Having said that, most problems with these are due to installation errors. 

You can get petrol Eberspachers but you'd be looking at 10x the cost. 

Went from an eberspacher to a chinese copy as the cost of servicing the eberspacher when it broke down was significantly more than just fitting a new copy heater. It was pretty good

I have a Vevor brand Chinese diesel heater too, mounted externally, running off vehicle tank. The kit came with a stand-alone diesel tank - a flat panel shaped tank.

My Mate uses Gas heater for his van, can't remember name, but it is essentially two separate loops one internal for hot air and one external for, gas exhaust and intake.

He seems to think it is safer than diesel, it was pretty warm, but not the scorching temperature I can quickly get with my Diesel Eberspacher

If you have a little bit more to spend then look up Lavaner diesel heaters. Significantly better quality than the cheaper chinese heaters i have previosuly used, the pipes and accessories are much improved as well (it comes with a 10 litre seperate tank as standard). They are CE marked have a UK rep and have UK installers if you don't want to DIY the install. About £200 for a 2kW from Aliexpress and personally i would say the extra money worth it. 

I Googled Vevor and this was the first result. https://www.gov.uk/product-safety-alerts-reports-recalls/product-recall-vev...

Maybe not...

Vevor are good. Don't worry about the recall, if you read through the 'risk of fire' is because the installation instuctions are rubbish and doesn't come with 4 pages of warnings

Hazard

The product is supplied with inadequate installation instructions and warnings. There are no warnings advising the user to place the exhaust pipe away from any combustible/poisonous materials. If the user is not experienced with this type of product, and the instruction manual is used which is not adequate, then it is likely the exhaust pipe will not be installed correctly and poisonous gases can escape the product and poison the user. The ignition source can cause a fire resulting in injury by flame.

The product does not meet the requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008.

P.S. You can download the installation instructions from webasto and Eber which are both pretty detailed

I had two Lavaner heaters and after hours of troubleshooting, both turned out to be faulty. Replaced with a cheaper Vevor which has been brilliant from day one.

The Lavener heater and it's parts where better quality than the Vevor and their customer service was great but obviously, like most of the cheaper heaters, can suffer in quality control. Probably just bad luck having two duds.

https://www.vanlifeuksurvivorsguide.co.uk/post/tried-and-tested-diesel-heat...

Read this. It is the best overview I have seen.

Not all Chinese heaters are equal.

I've just bought a Lavaner Pro for fitting soon. I will be tapping into the diesel tank, but it comes with an external tank. It is an awkward shape, but I am sure a suitably shaped tank could be sourced for any space you have.

Ours runs of gas so can’t really comment, but the only thing I’ve heard about for separate diesel tanks is being really careful not to spill. A friend had one and a bit of spill when filling it can make a right stink!

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about the different types, you could go down a rabbit hole with all the info online and end up being sent something completely different anyway. Get the cheapest you can from eBay, the units are all basically the same with different accessories. I have installed two now (one with the dreaded green fuel line), both are absolutely fine 2 and 3 years later. I have 2 colleagues who have installed the same and also had no problems. Just make sure you install them properly with the fuel pump in the correctly location and angle, fuel lines away from the exhaust, use a CO detector and make sure you site the exhaust well so you don't burn your van down or smoke yourself out.