Propane Block heater recommendations

Anyone using one on their smaller diesel equipment?
I'm thinking of getting one or making one to help with my older naturally aspirated diesels. 6 cylinder(kubota) and 8 cylinder(International) -- both terrible starters when its below freezing. 12V or 120VAC are not an option.
They are but not practical.

Look for a recommendation manufacturer etc. Glow plugs and controller function in both. Additional batteries may be an option.

I've installed several over the years but they are extremely exspensive. If fact, today you can probably buy a diesel-fired block heater for the same cost. And, since you've already got diesel fuel in the tractor, no extra fuel tank is needed.

Remember when air-cooled Volkswagens had gasoline powered heaters? Same companies that made them also make diesel versions. Used for engine block heaters and larger versions to heat cabs in trucks. Espar is one and Westabo (or something like that) is the other. They are becoming more mainstream now due to engine-idling laws for big-rigs.

I've got a diesel-fired heater in my diesel mini-motorhome and love it. Last I heard, Ford now offers it as a cold-weather option in their diesel pickups.

By the way, a cheap 120 VAC tank heater and a small 1000 watt powered electric generator is a good alternative. I use that setup often for tractors parked away from electricity.

Propane here:
http://www.enviroharvest.ca/block_heater.htm

Diesel here:
http://www.espar.com/html/applications/truck.html

The proper spelling just came to me. But, the company seems to be concentrating more on bigger heaters now. They did (and maybe still do) make small units for block heating only. Some info:

A device that many North American commercial truck owners have adopted (and many automobile owners in Europe as well) is the Fuel Operated Heater (FOH). The Webasto FOH, or BlueHeat®, is the best known and most efficient solution to date used to remotely create and maintain a warm vehicle cabin without idling the engine and is available for light-duty applications. Independent of the vehicle engine, the system heats the vehicle's coolant and circulates it to the vehicle's regular heater system to pre-heat the passenger cabin, simultaneously defrosting windows. It burns eight times less fuel that an idling engine would, simultaneously emitting only 1/20th of the emissions and producing heat significantly faster.


Webasto Product North America, Inc., based in Fenton, Michigan, provides products for the light vehicle, heavy-duty truck, bus, military, off-highway and marine markets. For additional information visit www.webasto.us or call (800) 215-7010.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to visit www.webasto.us next.

I've considered leaving a gas powered pickup truck on-site as well. Sharing the engine coolant.

The generator I have.
The current in block heating elements take a long time to heat the block but I am going to revisit that and see if their is something that will give me a quicker start time.

Makes sense to use the fuel on hand. Diesel that is.

If you want a cheaper way to heat up an engine and don't have electricity, why not just get a propane tank, a short piece of pipe about 3 ft. and a tiger torch/weed burner. Put the torch in the end of the pipe to contain the flame and just let the heat coming out the other end warm your engines. You could even put an elbow on the pipe to direct the heat up. How do you think all the construction and forsetry equipment is started in remote locations? You have to use some common sense using a big torch to warm an engine, but it's not rocket science. Thought this could be another option for you. Dave

We had a lot of logger customers that used the coolant quick-couplers from their pickup trucks to heat their diesels.

If you install a tank heater, 750 - 1000 watt and use a small genset, it is by far the cheapest way to go. If you're only using a frost-plug heater, it takes too long.

The bigger the watt, the more generator you need, but also the faster it will heat up. On most of my diesels, a use my little 40 lb. 1000 watt generator hooked to a 750 watt tan heater, and in an hour it's will start in zero weather. And, if your're willing to drag a heavier generator around, you can install a 2000 watt heater that will work faster.

when i was growing up and lived in colo. dad bought a 2010 diesel with a jd 52 hay stacker on it, in the winter used it to feed with didn't have any ele, where he feed for years. when its cold in the mountain even the team didn;t want to start, local black smith built a block heater for it, burner out of a gas stove 4 inch pipe about 15 inches tall tapered to 2 inch out let with burner on bottom. then a line coming from top front or engine ,to bottom of 4 inch pipe then came back out cloes to top went in to the drain on block, use a half inch metal tubing through 4inch stand pipe,, would take about hr on real cold day but most day about 30 minties, we also had a propane tourch that we heated branding iron with weed burner that just before we would crank the tractor on real cold day he would heat oil pan with, the tractor had a good battery hand priner for injuction fuel into manifold glow plugs and would dicconect for hyd pump also.