Gasmate Portable Diesel Heater GM20-425

Absolutely the best camping accessory I have ever bought! Not wanting to waste the very limited storage space in our camper, I didn't want to install a diesel heater but I did want to be able to warm things up for our occasional winter adventures. I researched available options for a couple of weeks and found this portable heater to be the most suitable contender.

It is not perfect... - The exhaust is to low to the ground so we had to elevate it on bricks to prevent it burning the grass at the camp site - who wants to carry besser bricks when camping??? - The exhaust port needs to be pointed away from your tent or camper and protected from little children's fingers and family pets as it gets very hot. - The hot air duct is way too short to be useful for a camper but it would be fine for a tent - again, besser bricks to the rescue. - The hot air duct also does not attach very well and can fall off quite easily if bumped. - The control panel cannot easily be removed and placed inside the camper which means you control it via a key fob style remote and are unable to see what heat setting you have chosen or any other useful info. - The thermostat control mode does not allow you to select heat setting, which is a bit annoying.

That said ...

This thing is fantastic! It draws around 8A at 14v when the glow plug is on during start up ... but after a minute or so, it drops down to as little as 0.5A on heat setting #1.

It is quiet and heats up our small camper very quickly.

I ran it for 15-30 minutes before bed and 30 minutes in the morning. It made the trip so much more enjoyable to be able to change before and after bed, in a warm camper.

We had one particularly cold night and I decided to let it run all night on the lowest setting.

We slept comfortably and awoke to a warm camper, having used around 1 litre of diesel and very little power. With heater, fridge, lights, charging phones etc. the camper battery was back to 100% by 10am.

Whilst being able to duct exhaust up and away would be nice - (cant do that easily), the hot air hose is easily extended and to be able to leave it at home during warmer months, is great.

Best thing you can buy for winter camping so long as you have a decent battery and a means of protecting the heater from rain as it is not weatherproof and must be outside of your tent or camper.

Update 1 year on:

Heater stalled one night - no error code it was just off when we woke up. On another occasion, power was interrupted during cool down cycle and it was difficult to get it to start again. We kept getting a fan fail error code. So we opened it up and rotated the fan manually a couple of times. It fired up straight away after that.

We have been sure to run the heater on high for 15 minutes each morning after running on low overnight, just to prevent carbon build up. This is apparently important.

It has been fantastic - my only real criticism is the exposed exhaust outlet which can potentially injure a child or animal if they touch it and the stupid way the remote control works (when it does). There is no beep or confirmation of any kind that the button you have pressed has registered - you cannot tell what heat setting you have running unless you go outside in the cold and bend down on potentially wet grass to read the tiny screen under the camper. Now that warranty has expired, I am planning on removing the control panel and installing it inside the camper, so we can actually see it.

A Bluetooth app or remote screen would be a huge and badly needed improvement.

I feel this is still by far the must useful camping accessory I have ever bought.