When designing a diesel appliance setup for heating, cooking or hot water, the following items should be taken into consideration at design pre installation stages.
Servicing/Maintenance
- All diesel appliances need a service eventually – make sure all diesel appliances can be easily accessed for removal.
- Do not encapsulate or enclose diesel appliances inside cabinets where they cannot be easily accessed or removed.
- Most diesel appliances have lockouts when started too many times and these are mostly re-set by cycling the power. Make sure that the appliance has an inline fuse which is accessible to allow resetting via power cycling.
Prevent hard shutdowns
- All diesel appliances don’t like having the power cut when operating – never install readily accessible master switches which can allow the user to cut the power when a unit is operating.
Prevent voltage drop
- Diesel appliance start with glowplugs and need plenty of power to get going, make sure they are directly connected to the battery via an inline fuse. Never connect to RV style fuse panels, isolation switch banks or existing wiring used for other purposes.
- In boats connection to main breaker panels is acceptable if they have proper bus bars, but avoid accessible master power switches.
- If extending power wiring looms always remove the whole loom and use automotive/maine 6mm twin cable and soldered joints for the whole cable run.
Fuel Supply
- It is ok to pair a diesel air heater and hot water on a single fuel pickup, but never 3 items.
- Wallas cookers and air heaters must have their own fuel line and pickup.
- Keep fuel systems simple, complexity and air leaks are major causes of issues.
Exhaust
- Never NEVER combine exhaust systems
- On hot water and Wallas cookers always fully lag internal exhaust pipes to minimise heat in the cabin and reduce risk of melting things
Heat Dissipation for Wallas Cookers
- Wallas cookers and ovens give off heat and good ventilation is critical, air inlets at the bottom and outlets at the top so convection circulates the air are needed.
- If using a cooker and oven in the same cabinet, forced ventilation is recommended.
- The 87D combined oven and cooker is designed to be free standing, do not enclose.
Dust
- For vehicles going to dusty locations, it is suggested to install dust caps on exhausts and aside from air heaters, combustion air inlets for hot water and cookers should be located inside to prevent dust ingression.
