Chinese Diesel Heaters - Part 6 - Combustion Air Inlet

This is a video on the combustion air inlet for 5 KW Chinese Diesel Air Heaters.

It is so important to do all you can to allow easy and adequate air flow into the combustion chamber of these heaters.

The combustion chamber is sealed, so if you restrict flow out of the exhaust you also restrict air flow into the combustion chamber. If the exhaust gas does not go out, inlet air can not come in.

If you restrict air flow into the combustion chamber you will have poor combustion and excessive Carbon Monoxide gas (CO) and soot production.

In my personal opinion, if your air intake hose is greater than about 500mm, or you have a number of bends, or you have an intake air silencer, you need to increase the size of the air intake hose. The 25 mm diameter supplied intake hose is just too small for longer runs.

You also need to restrict to a minimum the number of bends and twists in the intake hose. Each bend and twist creates airflow restrictions resulting in lack of adequate air (read oxygen) into the combustion chamber and hence poor combustion.

The reason to take these steps is the air is drawn into the combustion chamber on these heaters by just a small combustion fan, spinning at a maximum speed of 4,000 rpm to 4,500 rpm. It is a world away from an internal combustion engine with both positive displacement pistons and a turbo spinning at 200,000 rpm, both sucking and forcing combustion air into the combustion chamber.

It is important to install an intake air filter in most applications to keep out bugs, lizards etc from being ingested into the heater.use a mesh filter in a clean environment or a foam filter if the intake is in a dirty environment such as dust etc.

One eBay source for mesh filters is below.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25mm-Air-...

I hope this information can help you in your planning and instillation considerations for these Chinese Diesel Air Heaters.

Disclaimer. The opinions and suggestions expressed by me are my own opinions, from my own experience, testing and research. You must do your own research and come to your own conclusions as to whether or not my opinions and suggestions will suit you and your particular requirements. J.