Cheap/Alternative/Offgrid Heating - Keeping warm for cheap during the apocalypse

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Grub

Grub

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Jul 2, 2021
I looked through the subforum and didn't see anything about this topic. I know there's the general HVAC thread but I was hoping to focus more cheap alternative/DIY kind of heating appliances rather than just general heating stuff. The kind of thing you might actually end up using in a shit hits the fan kind of situation.

I've been living in a trailer for the last couple years because of reasons and circumstances and generally it kind of sucks. Especially as winter comes around and it gets cold. My furnace was fucking around and even though I've got the parts to fix it I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to rip the whole fucking thing out in order to get the fucked up part out and if there's one thing about trailers, nothing is easy to work on and do.

So, I figured I needed to get something else. I have to pay for hydro so I wasn't going to go electric, that shit would get expensive fast. We have a dog and a cat so I didn't want anything with an open flame and those mini wood stoves are kind of shit and you can't fit enough wood in them to keep them burning all night. I had the option of installing an 18k btu minisplit heat pump but again, the electricity also, even though it should be more than enough to heat a trailer, it's not. The way heat pumps work just doesn't really work well for a structure with shitty styrofoam insulation. After doing some research and trying to be as frugal as possible I settled on a Chinese diesel heater. Like this one:

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Those things are fucking awesome. I can't believe how well they work. It cost me $129 leafbucks after shipping for a kit pretty much identical to that. The install took a bit of planning and drilling some holes through the wall of my trailer and I'm not totally 100% happy with how I did everything but it works really well. All they need to run is a 12v battery and a jug of diesel. The initial priming takes a bit of fucking around and if you ever let it start sucking air into the line you have to go through the bullshit process again. I ended up learning what diesel tastes like, not great, but not actually as bad as you might think.

The heaters themselves are stupidly simple.
Heater.png
It's just a fan, the combustion chamber, a heat exchanger, the glow plug, a sensor and the control board. From what I learned the control board is the most important thing and there's several different kinds around with controllers that all look almost identical but the way they function is totally different. The controller that shipped with my heater was the shittiest piece of janky Chinese shit. I was able to get my hands on a non-working heater with a working board with a different janky Chinese controller that works far better and has been hacked


So it can be manipulated with an arduino and connected to a real thermostat or whatever you want.

Honestly, for the price and efficiency, diesel is a very energy dense fuel, they really are great. The little heaters themselves put out a lot of heat. If you stuck one of the 8kW(~27,000 btu) ones in a bigger box with a bigger fan and a bigger supply and return outlet you could probably keep a moderately sized space warm with one of them.

A friend of mine in a similar living situation, but with an abundance of firewood decided to go a different route to save money on his heating. He got an old wood stove and stuck it inside a metal box then stuck that into a rockwool insulated metal shed

Something similar to these(sorry I'm not going to dox my buddy's hillbilly fire shed):

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He has a fan drawing in air through the fireplace and pushing it through the top of the shed above the fireplace and out a duct ran into his trailer. He says he gets about 500°F in the box above the fireplace and just the little fan is enough to keep his place warm overnight at the current temperatures. He has a duct booster fan he plans on installing inline on the supply side and hooking it up to a thermostat for when winter comes to pull more air in when it's cold.

When I was doing research on different methods of heating one I was considering was an oil burning heater. Of the different ones I looked at I liked this guy's design.


Though, I wouldn't use gutter pipe for ducts. Those metals aren't rated for heat and can offgas toxic fumes depending on what kind of metal it is if they get too hot. I also feel like a small computer fan probably wouldn't be able to heat a poorly insulated space very effectively.

While that type of design looks fairly safe, I think I'd be worried about leaving something like that burning while I'm sleeping or not at home.

What other kinds of smaller, alternative, cheap, offgrid or diy heating projects have you guys come across?
 
Those Chinese diesel heaters are the tits but the control boards are prone to going to shit. But at least they're cheap enough to replace. Or if you're autistic, set up an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi to control it instead. If you've done so already, share your code with the rest of the class.

Also, get a bunch of spare fuel filters, we had one fail in the middle of winter on a trip, had to cut it out and run the whole thing without a filter.
 
Badungus Kabungus said:
Those Chinese diesel heaters are the tits but the control boards are prone to going to shit. But at least they're cheap enough to replace. Or if you're autistic, set up an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi to control it instead. If you've done so already, share your code with the rest of the class.
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Now that I've got my controller swapped I'm probably going to use this with it


Basically, it will run the unit like a furnace. It'll will come on and run full tap until the temperature's satisfied then call for the shutdown procedure instead of running the unit on low continuously.

The controllers and ECUs on those things are complete garbage though. Definitely the worst part of the heaters. I'm surprised that there seems to be only one aftermarket controller available made by the dude who posted the hacking guide to GitHub. It seems like a simple enough thing to make for cheap.
Badungus Kabungus said:
Also, get a bunch of spare fuel filters, we had one fail in the middle of winter on a trip, had to cut it out and run the whole thing without a filter.
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I have one spare filter but yeah the one I have isn't very good. It was leaking air into the line until I cranked the top down as hard as I could. I also swapped the shitty green tubing for some of the hard line after the pump but I need to get more to go from the pump to the diesel tank. Changing the line on the inside made a big difference though. I constantly had an air pocket right after the pump before I changed the line.
 
Grub said:
Now that I've got my controller swapped I'm probably going to use this with it


Basically, it will run the unit like a furnace. It'll will come on and run full tap until the temperature's satisfied then call for the shutdown procedure instead of running the unit on low continuously.

The controllers and ECUs on those things are complete garbage though. Definitely the worst part of the heaters. I'm surprised that there seems to be only one aftermarket controller available made by the dude who posted the hacking guide to GitHub. It seems like a simple enough thing to make for cheap.
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Not bad, will look at that Afterburner controller, may be able to replicate some of that functionality on an Arduino if I can't find one to buy. Besides, I don't really need wifi, the 433mhz remote control is fine.
 
Badungus Kabungus said:
Not bad, will look at that Afterburner controller, may be able to replicate some of that functionality on an Arduino if I can't find one to buy. Besides, I don't really need wifi, the 433mhz remote control is fine.
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The Afterburner's a bit overpriced. It costs more than my heater did. Most of the functionality can be replicated with an arduino.
 
Grub said:
The Afterburner's a bit overpriced. It costs more than my heater did. Most of the functionality can be replicated with an arduino.
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Seems simple enough. What's the deal with the Vevor diesel heater recall? Is it really just due to the instructions neglecting to say "DO NOT BREATHE THE EXHAUST, STUPID"?
 
Badungus Kabungus said:
Seems simple enough. What's the deal with the Vevor diesel heater recall? Is it really just due to the instructions neglecting to say "DO NOT BREATHE THE EXHAUST, STUPID"?
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Sounds like it's just that yeah. I have to admit the instruction manual that came with the thing is absolutely terrible. I actually ended up fucking up and reversing the fresh air and exhaust lines when I first installed it because they had two diagrams showing the same thing but they were mislabelled. Went to fire it up and smoke started pouring out of the cabinet as the paint on the shitty little 1" air pipe started burning off. The manual I have does have warnings about the exhaust gasses though.
 
Grub said:
Sounds like it's just that yeah. I have to admit the instruction manual that came with the thing is absolutely terrible. I actually ended up fucking up and reversing the fresh air and exhaust lines when I first installed it because they had two diagrams showing the same thing but they were mislabelled. Went to fire it up and smoke started pouring out of the cabinet as the paint on the shitty little 1" air pipe started burning off. The manual I have does have warnings about the exhaust gasses though.
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Those manuals are crap, yeah. Better to watch a youtube vid or have someone experienced help out. The exhaust thing is just common sense, same rules as with using a generator, point it away from people and don't let it touch anything flammable.

Pro-tip: If you have a cargo trailer/toy hauler you can install the heater into the trailer tongue box and point the heat outlet inside the trailer and route the exhaust somewhere outside. The only caveat is that the box has to be slightly open for the air intake. There should be enough room inside for the heater, a can of diesel, and various odds and ends. Bonus points if you make the box removable, then you can take it inside the tent.
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I might come back and give more fleshed out better advice later but right now all I can say is if you have a fireplace or a wood burning stove you can find toks of free firewood all over the place and especially in towns or cities. whats more is if you live where theres pine trees like I do you keep on look for dead pine trees where the wood has an alcohol smell to it, thats called "lighter pine" and is extremely flamable and great for starting fires. also if there are any pallet factories near you they fan have wood blocks they put out in giant scrap piles for people to grab outside, those are good for fires too, although I wouldnt cook over them as they might be treated.
 
Badungus Kabungus said:
Those manuals are crap, yeah. Better to watch a youtube vid or have someone experienced help out. The exhaust thing is just common sense, same rules as with using a generator, point it away from people and don't let it touch anything flammable.
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Any gas fired appliance has an exhaust. I mostly just used the manual to double check everything. It's basically the same as installing a furnace. Only smaller. I even ducted my with a little mini-plenum on the supply side and tapped my branches off of it. I was actually pretty paranoid about the exhaust because I have mine mounted so the exhaust and air intake run horizontally out the side wall. I have it surrounded by firebricks and rockwool insulation. I'm actually pretty happy with the way that all turned out. I kind of regret using 3" aluminum exhaust fan ducting for my supply branches though. That shit gets hot as fuck. It runs through a cupboard where I store my garbage bags before I take them to the dump and it's way too hot. It'll definitely melt the bags. I need to get more insulation to put around that pipe.

Badungus Kabungus said:
Pro-tip: If you have a cargo trailer/toy hauler you can install the heater into the trailer tongue box and point the heat outlet inside the trailer and route the exhaust somewhere outside. The only caveat is that the box has to be slightly open for the air intake. There should be enough room inside for the heater, a can of diesel, and various odds and ends. Bonus points if you make the box removable, then you can take it inside the tent.
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I have everything except the diesel can inside a cabinet. The way the inside of my trailer's laid out it was the easiest way to reach the electrical, get ducting to everywhere and keep everything concealed and neat.
 
Been using wood stoves for a long time, installed 2, they are really great. There are a lot of different styles, I prefer closed cast iron ones. You have to do some maintenance that can be dangerous depending on the pitch of your roof, and there is a bit of a learning curve for operating it safely. I have accidentally let mine get so hot they were glowing once or twice. In the U.S most counties run a small firewood operation utilizing labor from people that have community service sentences and they have good prices in my experience. You can always get a permit and cut yourself if you are more hands on, and like mentioned the local classified almost always have someone looking to get rid of rounds for free.

Wood will heat you many times, when you cut it, when you split it, when you stack it and finally when you burn it.

I'm just getting started on splitting some insanely knotty black walnut by hand, 18inch rounds and over 50 inches in diameter. Took an hour and a half to take one down. Will report back on what worked best, just starting with a sledge hammer and some shitty harbor freight wedges but have nicer ones on the way.

When my dad would install them he would set up where the stove was going to be and then strap a level to his .22 rifle with pipe clamps, then shoot a hole through the ceiling and roof to use as a guide hole for the chimney placement lol.
 
The heating here is very expensive to run, one way that helps to keep costs down though (and I am enjoying right now actually) is making a hot water bottle to sit with, and before bed to take the chill off. It’s a good option if you, or your wife/girlfriend wants to paint her toenails and wait for them to dry in the depths of winter too.

It might seem obvious but on the off chance someone takes my advice: Make sure if you buy one that it’s of decent quality, fill it 2/3 of the way and allow the water to come off the boil first, also be sure to let all of the air out by laying it down before you close it so it doesn’t burst!
 
Indelable said:
The rundown this guy does is top notch. But his idea of a coil made me cringe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tiSEGO6pYI
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The water bucket idea is retarded and will definitely fuck up the heater. Why wouldn't he coil the exhaust around the bucket? Even the coiled exhaust is a bad idea. The heaters are tuned for a certain amount of exhaust back pressure on the exhaust and don't really like it when you fuck with them too much. You can shorten them a bit and you can add a bit of length, but that coil shit will lead to problems.

Burning waste vegetable oil in those heaters is also dumb and will kill them pretty quickly. I've been reading a lot about these heaters over the last couple months and I'm in a few different groups and people trying to burn retarded shit or pretty much anything other than diesel or kerosene is basically a meme at this point. They're not made for that shit. They're cheap as fuck and anything that gunks up the atomizer screen, so basically anything that's not diesel or kerosene, will kill the heater fairly quickly.

It always seems to be britbongs trying to do retarded shit like that. I don't get why either, as far as I know Diesel's expensive there but kerosene is cheap and works just as well. Otherwise, if you live in north America, diesel is cheap enough that there's no reason to do dumb shit like burn filtered vegetable oil in those things.
 
In my old workshop I cobbled together a nice cooling soloution - I got 3 cheap floor fans, the bigger 20in ones mounted them onto a frame made from some 3/4 ply an some 3x1 in batons, and an old extension lead to plug them into.

I mounted them into the frame with holes cut out an the floor stands removed and I pointed them blowing OUT the shop in the hot area, with the door open at the other end, one bit of the shop got really stupidly hot as in full direct sun from first thing in the morning till the sun was down an the other end was in shade (it was a L shaped building) it was about 5 - 10 degrees cooler inside the shop at full tilt and a good 6 than the inside of the house.

This was Granite built building with slate roofs and insulation in the "What's that?" category, and we painted the outside in a paint sold as a ego heat reflecting paint formula in White, that helped a lot BUT it also helped with some Veg growing tubs we had along that wall, gave us longer growing seasons, in the Winter I took the fan's out the frame an put them in a triangle around the largest room to get the heat circulating from the Forge.

The new shop is fucking massive, 36ft wide an about 100 long an my Forge is right in the middle of the first half and it has a old Herdsmans stay and a storage area, and this is my first winter in here and it's not that bad when the forge is lit but damps an issue but now that I have space I'm likely going to invest in something more professional an build out from there - biggest issue is Damp I've got a few of those industrial dehumidifiers in there at the moment but they are only just about keeping things going, the priority's have been the house and my Mrs Practice then my shop - Her place is getting HVAC medical grade because she's dealing with Animals so I won't have anything to do with that.
 
Phalanges Mycologist said:
This was Granite built building with slate roofs and insulation in the "What's that?" category, and we painted the outside in a paint sold as a ego heat reflecting paint formula in White, that helped a lot BUT it also helped with some Veg growing tubs we had along that wall, gave us longer growing seasons, in the Winter I took the fan's out the frame an put them in a triangle around the largest room to get the heat circulating from the Forge.

The new shop is fucking massive, 36ft wide an about 100 long an my Forge is right in the middle of the first half and it has a old Herdsmans stay and a storage area, and this is my first winter in here and it's not that bad when the forge is lit but damps an issue but now that I have space I'm likely going to invest in something more professional an build out from there - biggest issue is Damp I've got a few of those industrial dehumidifiers in there at the moment but they are only just about keeping things going, the priority's have been the house and my Mrs Practice then my shop - Her place is getting HVAC medical grade because she's dealing with Animals so I won't have anything to do with that.
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Are they stone walls? Is there any framing or are they bare walls? Sprayfoaming or putting up some kind of vapor barrier foam boards would help a lot with the dampness. A ceiling fan would help push the heat down and circulate the air as well. It sounds like maybe an HRV would also probably help. Honestly though, insulation can make a massive difference. If you're going to do anything, I'd start with that. Any kind of heating or dehumidifying system isn't going to work as well without insulation and you'll just be paying out the ass in energy costs.
 
I have been thinking of getting a Intercooler out of a wreck and hooking it up to the excaust to reclame the heat.Has anyone tryed this yet?
 
Indelable said:
I have been thinking of getting a Intercooler out of a wreck and hooking it up to the excaust to reclame the heat.Has anyone tryed this yet?
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I've never seen anyone use one of those but I've seen a few people use those electric oil heaters and pipe the exhaust through one of those. I don't know how well it works. You're going to need to drain the condensate somehow.
 
Indelable said:
A very cheap thermostat controler
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Oh. That's super cool. I never thought of soldering something directly onto the on off switch. Any kind of PID temperature controller would probably work with that. But I like that one he made. My arduino setups been working well but, I still have my old controller kicking around I might try making something up like that as a backup.
 
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