Sometimes the best way to fix a problem is to spend a cold night proving you’ve got one. That’s roughly what happened here.
We’ve had the Dethleffs for a while now, and the heating in it works. It’ll warm the van up eventually. The problem is eventually. When I’m using the van for work every day back home in Milton Keynes, I don’t want to sit there in my coat for an hour and a half waiting for the wet system to come up to temperature. That just isn’t practical. So I’d been thinking about a diesel blow heater for a while, and I booked in with Autoterm, just over the border into North Wales, to get one fitted.
The night before the appointment, I pulled onto a CL site about two minutes up the road. Very basic, no facilities to speak of, but there’s fresh water and a couple of pitches and it was exactly what I needed. It was also a solo night, which meant heating up a leftover HelloFresh on my own with no microwave. I ended up putting the whole lot into a heatproof glass and shoving it in the oven. Took about 40 minutes. I’m getting a microwave. That’s a firm decision now.
Harry had cooked that HelloFresh the night before, by the way. Made it for Millie’s birthday. Dressed up in a suit. The whole thing. I’m not going to lie, I was proud of the boy. Clearly romantic. Clearly takes after his dad.
Anyway. It got down to 3 degrees overnight and I ran the electric heating off the batteries to stay warm. Got them down to 23%. That’s the problem in a nutshell. Batteries and electric heating, it’ll keep you warm, but it’s not the right tool for the job. Not remotely efficient.
The install itself was brilliant. Jack and Owen at Autoterm really know what they’re doing. The unit goes up into the chassis in a neat little box, they tapped into the diesel tank through an existing access point (no drilling, which matters for warranty reasons), and the ducting runs to two vents inside, one at each end of the van. Within a few minutes of switching it on, you’ve got warm air coming through. That is the point. Not an hour and a half. Minutes.
Owen also showed me something new they’re about to launch: a system that uses a diesel heater to heat your water and circulate warm air through blowers or underfloor heating, all from one unit. They ran a full 125-litre water tank through the prototype and it still came out hot enough for a shower at the end. That’s a properly clever bit of kit, especially if you’re doing a van build from scratch and want one solution for everything. Details on their website at autoterm.store, and our code RR10 gets you 10% off the heater and the install.
One thing Owen did mention: run it for 30 minutes every month even when you don’t need it. Diesel can go stagnant in the pipe, and if it sits there all summer you’ll get diesel bug building up and it’ll clog the pump the moment you fire it up in September. The unit actually tells you when 30 days is up, which is helpful, because I would absolutely forget otherwise.
Owen also took me out to lunch in a 1950 MG YA with suicide doors and no seat belts, which was an experience. We ended up at the Boat Inn on the River Dee, Welsh Angus steak, medium rare. Cracking afternoon. That’s the job, that is.
We’ve had the heater for about a week now, and it’s worked out exactly as I’d hoped. The existing gas and electric system stays in as backup, the air con is there too if needed, so we’ve got three sources of heat going into the summer. But the diesel heater is going to be the primary from October onwards, no question.
If you’ve been thinking about getting one fitted, don’t wait until the cold snap hits and everyone else has the same idea. Get in touch now, get your quote in, and have it done while the diary’s quiet. Link is in the description on the video.
Go and watch the full install below, and we’ll see you on the next one.
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B861zYkjChg