How safe is a petrol night heater?

[Deleted member 4850]

My recently acquired part-converted van came with a Webasto petrol night heater which the previous owner praised as being very efficient. However the other day I had a crawl underneath and saw the long fuel lines running the length of the vehicle - and freaked out.

Does anyone have any experience of these? I had a diesel Eberspacher before which was great but am nervous about the safety of the petrol variety, especially in the event of an accident. My garage, which MOT's many motorhomes, have never come across one before and are willing to take it out if I decide to do that. What do you reckon? Thanks for any advice!

 

[shortcircuit]

Having done a quick search on the www it looks a good bit of kit. If you can find a local installer it would be worth attempting to get the installation checked over and tidied up.

 

[Smaug]

Most cars have fuel tanks under the boot at the rear & fuel pipes full of petrol running the length of the car to the carb (or if injectors, it will have both flow & return pipes). I'm not aware aof petrol driven cars regularly burning or exploding as a result.

In fact, I would guess that most car fires are actually electrical in origin. It might be safer to take the batteries out . . . :idea-007:

 

[Byronic]

I seem to recall that in Germany space heaters as fitted in vehicles have a finite life...... 10 years, they are date of manufacture stamped.. After which they are supposed to be scrapped. Whether this is being overly cautious, who knows.
But it may be the determing factor in your decision to remove or not.
Worth checking to determine if I am correct or not.

 

[witzend]

Have you seen the price of a new one ? I'd consider keeping it as it appears to be a quality item if it ain't broken don't fix it

 

[FULL TIMER]

You won't get much safer if they are installed correctly. I've fitted many hundreds of this type of heater mainly Eberspachers and have never heard of a problem with them at all,

 

[Deleted member 4850]

You won't get much safer if they are installed correctly. I've fitted many hundreds of this type of heater mainly Eberspachers and have never heard of a problem with them at all,

That's very reassuring - thanks. From what I've found on the web they seem to be fairly frugal in their fuel consumption and pretty efficient. In the light of the good advice given here I'm going to try and find a specialist who can check and service it for me. I'm staggered at how much they cost to instal new!

Thanks for all the very useful input, folks!

 

[Viktor]

They are a great piece of kit and I wouldn't be without mine. Just like a home boiler, get it checked by a Webasto agent every year, and yes they are pretty frugal.