Diesel Heaters

This week’s challenge was to fit a diesel heater to a client’s older Winnebago motor home. These present both some challenges to fitting as well as some different opportunities.

The challenges are that the flooring has storage compartments beneath part of it, but the compartments are on 2 levels. Add to that the tightness of floorspace for locating the heater outlet and it made for a challenging install.

The most important part of any diesel heater installation is choosing the optimum location for the heater unit. After some discussion with the owner we decided that the larger storage compartment on the driver’s side was going to allow enough space for installation as well as enabling ducting to run up through the floor to the underside of the couch.

We chose to run with a smaller more stable 5l fuel tank held in place by some small brackets.

All cables were run across the inside of the storage compartment to the batteries located on the opposite side and then the heater outlet was set into the couch front panelling.

Because the heater kits don’t come with any joiners for the ducting I created my own out of some HD poly fittings that allowed for the securing of the ducting. I’m not sure of the heat resistant properties of these fittings but with nothing else to use it was the only option

The floor of the winnebago is about 60mm thick – both ply and foam so I had to use an elbow and joiner to get the distance needed.

At the end of the day everything was fitted and the heater worked perfectly meaning the owners can now enjoy their winter break in Tasmania! To install a diesel heater in a caravan or motorhome usually takes half a day depending on the complexity of the install. This one was 3 1/2 hrs with the first half hour being given solely to considering different installation options.