Buying a Portable Diesel Heater; everything you need to know
As the rain falls from the remnants of a tropical cyclone heading south, I’m reminded of how much fun it is to go camping and 4WDing in winter.
The cold weather, the camp fires, the mud, high water levels and raging rivers. At the end of a fun day, you crawl into bed, and hope that you’ve got warm enough clothes on for the night.
Except, we don’t anymore, as our camper is always toasty warm thanks to a Portable Diesel Heater.
We’ve got a comprehensive post on the more popular permanently installed Diesel heater, but this post is purely about the portable diesel heaters, and covers absolutely everything you need to know about them.
What is a Portable Diesel Heater?
If you still haven’t heard of diesel heaters today, you’ve been missing out. From the moment the colder weather hits, its one of the most commonly asked about camping appliances around, and for good reason.
They are cheap, easy to use, safe and a complete game changer when it comes to camping in the cold.
Most people permanently mount their diesel air heaters into a caravan or camper trailer, but there are some portable options out there.
Essentially, a portable diesel heater is a self contained unit that you can pick up, and move around as required.
If you are looking for a camper trailer diesel heater, a portable unit might be the go!
What’s so good about a diesel heater?
Just briefly, diesel heaters are an amazing solution. They are cheap to purchase, easy to use, draw very limited power (meaning you don’t need to be plugged into 240V), are cheap to run in terms of diesel consumption and do a seriously good job at warming anything up you need them to.
Why would you want to get a portable diesel heater?
We love camping. We head away at least once a month, and probably average about 50 – 60 nights a year in our camper trailer.
However, we are also very comfortable when we head away, which makes it more enjoyable. If you have a bad camping experience, I guarantee you won’t want to do it again.
A while back, we picked up a soft floor camper trailer, and Sarah and I would sleep on the queen bed up the top, with our little sons in porta cots down below.
For most of the year, the temperatures are reasonable, and anything down to around 10 degrees at night is fine even with young kids.
However, one weekend we chose to stay down at Nannup in the middle of winter, and it was FREEZING.
I remember our little boys waking up a few times throughout the night, and even with about 8 layers of clothing on our youngest (with 3 sleeping bags), he wasn’t keeping warm.
His hands were like ice blocks, along with his head and face (which you obviously can’t cover). We spent the last few hours of the night together in the one bed, and were still cold.
When I got home, I said no more; lets get something to warm the camper up, and I spent a long time looking for a solution.
Being a soft floor camper trailer, there was no where that I could run the hot air into the camper trailer from the body, and we didn’t like the idea of lugging a diesel heater around all the time, when it probably gets used for 10% of the year.
The solution was simple; get a portable unit that would sit outside the camper trailer, and pipe the hot air in through the canvas door, with the zipper holding the inlet in place.
I picked one up off on eBay for about $280, and it arrived not long after.
Ironically, not long after we picked up our Reconn R2, and never got a chance to use the heater in the old camper trailer. To make it worse, the Reconn has a door, which makes it all but impossible to run the hot air into the camper without drilling holes.
I spent ages again, trying to find a solution, and then it hit me. Remove one of the storage pockets from inside the camper, and run it in through the kitchen storage hatch!
I knocked something up in a few hours, and picked up a length of 100mm flexible ducting from Bunnings.
This now lives in our camper, and we just drop it down and slide it over the heater outlet when we want to use it.
Where can you get them from?
There are lots of places you can get Diesel Heaters from. There are the originals (Eberspacher, Webasto etc), and then there are the Chinese copies, which are being installed by the thousands all over the world.
There is a significant difference in pricing, and probably in quality too, but the Chinese units are extremely common.
I actually purchased two portable diesel heaters, as the first one arrived damaged. When I opened it, I could see it was mangled, and had been damaged in transit. I repaired some of the damage, and fired it up, but the fan wouldn’t spin properly.
I contacted the seller, who offered me a 30% refund (Yeah, right!), and then refused to answer any further communications after I agreed to send it back. I simply submitted a claim through eBay and Paypal, and got a full refund, including the postage costs to return it.
The second unit that arrived was in good condition, and has been used for around 40 nights, without any issues (and has since been installed permanently and done many more nights in that configuration).
Advantages of a portable diesel heater
There are some obvious, and less obvious benefits of a portable diesel heater over a fixed one.
Weight and space savings when not in use
If you keep these portable, for the large chunk of the year that you don’t need it, you just leave it at home. That means your weight is reduced, and you have more room for other gear.
They are quieter
Diesel heaters by nature aren’t the quietest units around. This is mainly on start-up, but you will hear the fan and the ticking from a reasonable distance away, and if it is attached to your van, you’ll hear the noise more.
You can install them in a variety of ways to reduce this, but a portable unit can be further away, and by just sitting on the ground, you’ll hear less.
The noise comes from the fuel pump working, and pushing the needed fuel into the diesel heater.
They create less moisture in the air
Normally, a diesel heater will re-circulate the warm air that they create. If you have a portable unit though, it just takes the air from outside, warms it up and sends it inside.
For one reason or another, this reduces the condensation and moisture issues that you can experience inside a caravan, but more likely in a pop top and camper trailer.
Recirculation of the air inside (like most permanent solutions) will create more condensation inside.
You can use them for multiple solutions
Being portable, you can use these for camping, but also for anything else you may have in mind. You wouldn’t be the first person to keep a house warm using one, or a garage, or shed.
In between your camping trips a portable diesel heater can be re-purposed, and that’s pretty nifty.
If it all goes wrong, the unit is away from you
There have been failures of diesel heaters before, and I kind of like the idea of having it all outside, away from where we are sleeping. If a hose lets go, or something fails, its not mounted underneath my bed!
Disadvantages of a portable diesel heater
There is no free lunch here. Being portable means you do have some disadvantages, and some of them I never really thought about.
Continuous setup and pack away
By nature, these are portable. However, they still need setting up. You need to store them somewhere safely, pull them out, plug the power in, hook the hot air lines up, make sure its safe and then when you are done, do it all in reverse.
Doing this a few times isn’t an issue, but if you are moving regularly it wears thin pretty quickly. Ask me how; I’ve done it for weeks on end, and you get to a point where you say ‘It won’t be cold enough tonight to need it’, and then when it is, you regret not putting the effort in.
A permanently mounted unit can be turned on and off super easily, and its always ready to roll.
They are less efficient
I mentioned above that a portable unit normally doesn’t recirculate the warm air. That means that all of the air going through your camper trailer has to be taken from ambient temperature, to what ever temperature you have it set to.
This is opposed to having the the caravan or camper trailer warm up using the heater, and stay warm just by re-heating the warm air. Once its been running for some time, you might be taking 15 degree air and turning it back into 20 degree air if it recirculates.
If it doesn’t though, you can be trying to turn 0 degree air (or what ever the ambient is) into 20 degree air, and that means you use more fuel.
The other point of difference is how you plumb the hot air into the van or camper trailer. On a permanent install, the outlet is right next to the heater (and the heater is inside) so there is no heat loss.
On a portable install, especially like ours, the air has to travel a greater distance outside, in the cold air, and you lose heat before it even gets into the camper trailer.
To give you an idea, we can run our diesel heater all night on low, and it maintains a comfortable temperature inside our tiny hybrid.
Our friends have the exact same unit, but have split it and mounted it permanently, and in a van that has probably 10 times the volume of air inside. They can’t run their unit on low for more than an hour, or it starts to roast inside.
Our Reconn R2 does not have good insulation, and that’s simply because of the PVC popup section. To keep it warm inside, we have to use more energy; its as simple as that.
However, if we were to mount the unit inside, and it was to recirculate the hot air (and not have the losses from being outside) I think it’d struggle to keep the temperature reasonable without turning on and off.
Weather issues
One of the things I didn’t really think about with a portable diesel setup is that the unit has to sit outside, and in winter its not uncommon to have rain.
I’ve managed to have ours set up under the camper trailer so it doesn’t get wet, but I imagine these wouldn’t last very long with regular showers. It’s also annoying to slide the unit under the camper, and you have to be sure the exhaust isn’t going the wrong way where it can do damage, or start a fire.
Another interesting thought is that you are susceptible to wind outside blowing the exhaust gasses towards the inlet of the heater.
If it was bad, and you set it up poorly, you could easily end up with exhaust gas getting sucked up and sent into the camper trailer!
They can be easily stolen
Anything portable is more likely to grow legs. Portable solar panels get taken far more often than fixed ones. Good luck stealing a permanently mounted diesel heater, but a portable one is easy as.
Still, at under $300 its not much more than a good solar panel, and everyone leaves them out. We tuck ours under the camper, and run the risk.
The temperature settings won’t work
With the heater outside, the temperature that it measures is always going to be the ambient, which makes it impossible to set a temperature that you want it to heat to, and maintain.
A permanent setup recirculates the air, and if you set the heater to 20 degrees, it will just maintain that temperature.
A portable unit just needs to be controlled off the pump speed, which means if it changes temperature dramatically overnight, you may need to adjust the settings.
It also means that you really need a remote to control the unit, or you’ll be getting up to turn it on and off, and adjust the settings. The good news is that a lot of the portable camping heaters come with this as standard.
Get a Carbon Monoxide monitor
If you are getting a diesel heater, you MUST get a gas monitor. This is not negotiable. The combustion process of a diesel heater creates CO, or carbon monoxide.
If something goes wrong, and you get CO into your van or camper, it has the potential to hurt, or kill you and your family. This (very sadly) has happened many times with fridges, gas heaters and probably even diesel heaters.
You cannot smell or see CO, and unless you are awake and start to feel unwell you will simply pass away in your sleep, if the levels are high enough.
A CO monitor can be purchased for $30 – $50, and will go off if anything is unsafe. I make sure mine is working every night before going to bed. It’s just not worth it.
How much fuel and power does a diesel heater use?
Diesel heaters are extremely frugal when it comes to both diesel fuel consumption, and power use. We can run our 5kW unit all night on low, and barely chew through 2 litres of fuel.
Sure, that’s a couple of bucks a night, but you save that by not having to camp in a caravan park and its totally worth it.
In terms of power, they draw about 10 amp hour on start-up (for a couple of minutes), and then it drops down to less than 1 amp hour when running.
Call it under 25 amps overnight, meaning you can run them off a fairly small system. This is a lot less power than a 12V heater, which is virtually impossible for off grid work.
I’ve done rough figures, and I reckon running a diesel heater in Perth would be a similar cost to using a fan heater at home, which is pretty amazing as you can’t take a fan heater into the middle of the bush and turn it on!
How should you size a diesel heater?
This is where things get interesting. If you lose a lot of heat (like a canvas camper trailer, or a pop top caravan) you will need a larger system than someone in a full size, walled and insulated van.
A diesel tent heater can be much smaller than one for a huge motorhome or caravan. Be aware that the diesel heaters sold are sometimes identical, and just labelled differently.
Ideally you don’t get a unit that is too large, as running it on low for extended periods can make it cake up with carbon. Of course, the temperatures that you camp in will hugely vary the amount of heat you need.
If you are camping where it snows, or regularly hits zero or below you will need more energy than someone who doesn’t see sub 10 degree temperatures very often.
Ours is a 5kW unit (although the packaging says 1 – 8kW?!), and on the lowest setting, keeps our small hybrid warm unless it gets below about 5 degrees, and then you just bump it up a few notches.
Alternative heating options
There isn’t too many other options for heating when you can camp.
You can use a reverse cycle camping air conditioner (but you need 240V power unless you have a crazy power setup), or a normal fan heater (you’ll definitely need 240V power), or a gas heater (expensive to purchase and install, and they use a lot of gas).
Electric blankets are a pretty good option too, as are hot water bottles. There really isn’t much else to compete with the diesel heaters though, which is why they’ve become so popular.
Our Portable Diesel Heater Review
We’ve had this diesel heater for several years now, and despite pulling it apart and permanently installing it, its still original, and we’re really happy with it. We’ve had no issues with it, and would happily recommend getting one.
I cannot possibly explain the joy that exists when you can press a button and have heat pumping out a few moments later, when its cold and miserable weather, and that’s without having kids that absolutely love it.
Should you get a portable diesel heater?
It is next level amazing to wake up on a freezing winters morning in a camper trailer or caravan that is a comfortable temperature, and with everyone having had a good nights sleep because of it.
If you are aware of the above items, and you still want a portable unit, get one.
They are awesome. If your kids are older, and don’t mind the colder weather you don’t really need one, but they make camping with young kids much easier, and it is quite luxurious! In terms of diesel heater reviews, we are super happy with our setup.
A diesel camping heater is one of 14 ways to keep warm when camping, and its not suitable for everyone. We are happy with ours overall, and would recommend one if you are looking for a better way to keep warm!
If you decide down the track that you want to install it permanently, you can easily pull them apart and do this.
You might need some extra fuel line, a base plate for the mounting and some duct work, but its all pretty straight forward. You can read more about this at Diesel Heater Installation.
What do you use? Are you happy with it?
Hey Ian,
The ones that are permanently mounted suck their air from the internal space, and thus work a lot more efficiently. This portable unit of ours was dismantled and installed by myself before we left, and it now pulls air from inside our camper, and warms it, and sends it back out. All things being equal, the air gets warmer in time and the heater slows down to maintain the temperature.
I have seen these units installed on the inside of various setups, with the exhaust going through a hole, and outside (for obvious reasons). I don’t like this, as the diesel tank is then inside, which smells, and can easily leak (our lid recently stopped screwing on tight), and whilst we used to transport it inside the canopy, I made sure it didn’t have much fuel inside as it was always a risk.
I wasn’t keen on installing the diesel heater before we left, but I’m very glad we did. It’s so much nicer than having to lug a portable unit around, and its always ready to go when you want it.
All the best
Aaron
I wonder, can ducting be connected to the intake, to allow for reusing the already-warmed air from within the living space? Or would that double ducting setup introduce too much airflow drag for the fan to cope with?
Also, are they useful for a camper van? I guess the warm air ducting could be poked through a window, with some foam filling the gap in the rest of the window. But what about transporting them inside when they’re not in use – can they lie on their side, and would the diesel tank be smelly/prone to leakage?
Hey John,
We ran ours for a long time off a standard Anderson outlet on the van. If its a cigarette lighter plug you might run into issues, but as long as the line is fused, and the cable sizes are adequate it should be fine. It doesn’t pull the 8 – 12 amps for very long.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron
I purchased Portable diesel heater to take with us in our hybrid caravan. Can I run it just from one of my 12v sockets or do I need a dedicated fused line? I understand that it will draw 10 to 12 amps for a shot time
Appreciate your opinion
John
Hi David,
Good to hear mate
Take care
Aaron
Just purchased and installed the same model in my workshop. Very good price from [link removed]
Hey David,
You’re very welcome. Any of the eBay portable units can be ducted inside. You just have to extend the outlet to feed in somewhere suitable. Get one with a single outlet though, rather than the 4 that some sell.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
Excellent informative article greatly appreciated by my partner and I. We are going portable because we will upgrade our RV in the medium term. I have searched long and hard for a heater that is definitely portable and can vent into a camper. Nothing I have seen online is that explicit. Don’t want to order one that doesn’t duct heat in from outside our camper. Please let me know a model that definitely caters for a set up of heater outside and duct the heat inside.? Will get a CO2 Monitor as you suggested.
Thanks for your help.
David
Hey Fred,
You aren’t wrong there. We sold our camper before getting to do that but saw it done by mates many times.
All the best
Aaron
I have also found heaters incredibly useful to dry canvas before it is packed away. this allows an early start.
Hey Ross,
Thanks for the feedback, and all the best with your new heater. They are incredible!
Aaron
A very good article to explain the pro’s and con’s of these heaters. I have one due to arrive next week and this is great in site on how I will be approaching the use of it.
Regard’s, Ross Hardman.
Cheers Keith,
Have a great day
Aaron
Another awesome article Aaron, well done!
Hey Jim,
I have to agree that storing them is a pain. I’ve bent our exhaust around so it sends the fumes well away from the air intake, and just leave it attached like that, propped up on the timber that is screwed to the heater, so its well off the ground.
I’ve had minor weeps from the fuel cap, but am never too worried about them leaking as its in a sealed canopy. With a wagon it becomes a bit more important!
You’d be able to get flexible exhaust pipes, but you might find you can also bend that one to suit.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron – great article. We have exactly the same heater as yours – and it works a treat. My main problem is storage (we have Prado and soft-top CT) especially since the exhaust sticks out quite a bit.
Do you disconnect exhaust when you are putting it away – or are you worried about leakage, as the outlet and inlets in these units are quite close together.
Or might it be possible to source a flexible exhaust ‘hose’ which might be a bit less of a pain to stow?
Thanks for you article, btw. Great work.
– Jim
Hey Ziggy,
They are quite noisy on startup, and then they quieten down once running especially when on low. I’ve never measured how loud they are, but I would probably not fire one up when camped close to anyone else. If you are 20 + metres away you’d hardly hear it, and we have used ours at national parks without any issues. I don’t think ours is any noisier than an aircon on a caravan.
I guess the idea of them is that you can heat off grid; if you are in a caravan park you may as well use power, and an electric heater.
All the best
Aaron
Thanks Aaron. It’s very useful to hear about your experiences.
I’ve been thinking about heating and this is clearly a contender. However I recently camped in a CP and the guy a few plots away fired up his diesel heater at 4 in the morning and that was the end of sleep for all those within about 15-20 metres.
What’s the db on yours?
Cheers,
Ziggy
Hey David,
Congrats on the new R2. I’m sure you’ll have fun with it, when it arrives. If you aren’t already, join the R2 and R4 owners page on Facebook, and you’ll see a number of other installations. I will be putting the heater itself next to the hot water unit, and installing a big enough hole that you can seal and insulate without any heat transfer. The only dangerously hot part is the exhaust, which is easy to manage.
The fuel tank will probably end up in the very front hatch, and the rest of it should be fairly easy.
I would consider a smaller heater, depending on where you are camping; ours runs on low and gets quite warm. You are better off running a smaller heater at a higher level, but either will work.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron, nice review thanks, we are waiting the arrival of our Reconn 2 sometime in August.
You’ve confirmed my thoughts on getting a 5kW heater and it’s my intention to mount within the camper. I would be very interested in your progress to do same. Without full inspection of van my thoughts were to mount heater and fuel carrier behind pull out fridge, this would mean drilling through chequer plate (maybe a timber lining under heater) then bring heater pipe through seat box or maybe mount heater in seat box and fuel carrier behind fridge we will have to see. Of course I then need to get battery direct cables to heater. All doable I’m sure.
Hey Aaron,
Did you have to mod yours at all? I’ve been checking these out and watching youtube videos on them… some people have been putting fuel filters in and adding 25mm elbows to mount the intake and exhaust pipes. I can’t see the intake pipe in any of your pics… I’m definitely interested in one of these… how do you think it’d fare with an Oztent RV5? I’m just about to pull the trigger on an ebay job.
Cheers,
Brian
Hey Danny,
The diesel heaters run off diesel primarily, and need 12V power to run the fan and to get them started. Even if you have 240V power, you need a 12V supply to run the diesel heater. They draw a bit of current on startup for the first couple of minutes, and then very little just running the fan for the duration its on.
We ran the pipe through a hatch and into the camper trailer, but I’ve seen people cut holes into their floor. In general though, caravans mostly mount permanent diesel heaters.
Yes, ours is just a Chinese import off eBay. I can’t give you any specific recommendations as ours was bought a long time ago, but they all seem to be much of a muchness in terms of imported units.
If you want to get a premium brand then there are options out there too, but at about 5 – 10 times the price
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron. Thanks for the article. I’m new to all this . If we were away from 240v access what powers the portable diesel heater ?? We’ve just bought a van so, does the pipe coming from the unit go in through the door or window or whatever ?? Do you have one of the Chinese versions or can you recommend a simple effective reliable inexpensive brand ?? Thanks Danny.
Hey Nick,
Yep, it is, and no, I haven’t. The exhaust points as far away as possible from the intake, and I run a CO monitor inside the van and have never, ever picked anything up with it. With the amount of air that gets moved around outside I have very limited concerns.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
Is your exhaust pipe the short one that comes with the system? have you had any drama’s or worries with exhaust gas?
Hey Dean,
Yep, they are pretty amazing.
All the best
Aaron
I have a 40 ft diesel pusher. I have been using a 5kw permanent mounted in under living area compartment. I love it. Dry even heat. It is barely audible.
Hey Daniel,
We also find storage a pain. I keep it in the canopy, so a bit of diesel spilled and the extra room isn’t such a problem. I think we will probably permanently mount ours eventually, if I can find some time to get it done. I would imagine you could do the same, although having it portable has its own benefits
All the best mate
Aaron
I have the same unit, have found it very handy for our forward fold camper. Only issue is I am struggling with is storage ideas. I don’t really want to travel with it in the car. What do you guys do or what have you seen?
Hi Bruce,
I do not. I suspect any of the red portable units are all the same anyway, but the link would have long expired.
All the best
Aaron
Do you have a link to the heater you purchased?