epossum
Active member
Forced Air Kerosene Heaters, aka "salamanders" or "torpedo heaters".
I have an old one, a Craftsman 50,000 BTU made around 1973. I'm posting this because I want to share some of the info I've found about these heaters.
First off, most of these heaters were made by DESA. If you have one of the old kerosene heaters I'm betting you'll find it was a DESA product. Now for the bad news - DESA went bankrupt around 2009. No more DESA manufacturing of heaters, and even worse, no more parts. The good news is many of the newer heaters use parts of the same design as the old DESA parts and thus some parts are easy to get. That includes spark plugs, ignitors, nozzles, air pump parts, filters and many others. Most of the old DESA parts seem to have part numbers starting with letter "M" followed by several numbers. Searching for these parts using the DESA number will often pay off. Many of the old part numbers have changed to numbers starting with the letters "PP".
Next, If you are diligent in searching for info on your older heater you will find that there is at least one website where you can get service, parts, and owner's manuals. I was amazed to find an actual PDF copy of the original owner's manual for my Craftsman heater. I'm not going to list a bunch of websites as I think you will find everything you need at DESATECH.com, but I will give one shortcut that takes you to a copy of the DESA service manual for spark ignition heaters: http://www.desatech.com/techDocs/DESA SPARK PLUG IGNITION SERVICE MANUAL.pdf
They have another service manual for Hot Surface Ignition heaters as well as other helpful info. I got my owner's manual from the DESATECH website. And BTW, the manual and most of the heater parts are NOT available from Sears Parts.
My old Craftsman heater needs a combustion chamber, the large sheet metal cylinder at the front of the heater. The burner mounts to the back end and the flame shoots through the cylinder until it hits the nose cone at the front of the chamber. The inner nose cone in the combustion chamber is disintegrating in my heater. I mean actually coming out in small pieces. It must have been some kind of cast metal. It turns out combustion chambers are one of the parts that are "no longer available". I can't find one anywhere. There are actually some other combustion chambers available and I was thinking I could make one work in my heater. The problem I'm having is none of the available chambers include a listing of their actual dimensions. I haven't found an easy way to get the actual dimensions so far. I might try sending an email request to the parts supplier to see if someone will take some measurements. I have a feeling that isn't going to work as it looks like almost every supplier has to order the chamber from a manufacturer/supplier. Just in case anyone has a combustion chamber laying around mine measures 7" OD by 13" long. It has a flat back end (no fins) where the burner body mounts. I could also use just the nose cone assembly if cut loose from an old combustion chamber. It's just spot-welded to the chamber housing and wouldn't be hard to cut loose. EDIT: The combustion chamber is actually a cylinder inside a cylinder. You could say a can within a can. The inner can is the one with a closed back end and the nose cone mounted the front end. The back of the inner can has 4 tabs that are riveted to the outer can. The front of the inner can also has 4 tabs that appear to be spot welded to the outer can.
Even though my old heater has the combustion chamber problem it still fires up and runs great. I'm trying to restore as much as I can. The biggest problem I've found besides the combustion chamber is dust and dirt everywhere inside the heater. It was so bad the fuel line filter was completely stopped up. I had no idea it was that bad as the heater still ran. I should mention one nice thing about this (and many of the old DESA heaters) is they used copper fuel inlet lines and aluminum tubing for the air pump line. No rubber to worry about.
I have an old one, a Craftsman 50,000 BTU made around 1973. I'm posting this because I want to share some of the info I've found about these heaters.
First off, most of these heaters were made by DESA. If you have one of the old kerosene heaters I'm betting you'll find it was a DESA product. Now for the bad news - DESA went bankrupt around 2009. No more DESA manufacturing of heaters, and even worse, no more parts. The good news is many of the newer heaters use parts of the same design as the old DESA parts and thus some parts are easy to get. That includes spark plugs, ignitors, nozzles, air pump parts, filters and many others. Most of the old DESA parts seem to have part numbers starting with letter "M" followed by several numbers. Searching for these parts using the DESA number will often pay off. Many of the old part numbers have changed to numbers starting with the letters "PP".
Next, If you are diligent in searching for info on your older heater you will find that there is at least one website where you can get service, parts, and owner's manuals. I was amazed to find an actual PDF copy of the original owner's manual for my Craftsman heater. I'm not going to list a bunch of websites as I think you will find everything you need at DESATECH.com, but I will give one shortcut that takes you to a copy of the DESA service manual for spark ignition heaters: http://www.desatech.com/techDocs/DESA SPARK PLUG IGNITION SERVICE MANUAL.pdf
They have another service manual for Hot Surface Ignition heaters as well as other helpful info. I got my owner's manual from the DESATECH website. And BTW, the manual and most of the heater parts are NOT available from Sears Parts.
My old Craftsman heater needs a combustion chamber, the large sheet metal cylinder at the front of the heater. The burner mounts to the back end and the flame shoots through the cylinder until it hits the nose cone at the front of the chamber. The inner nose cone in the combustion chamber is disintegrating in my heater. I mean actually coming out in small pieces. It must have been some kind of cast metal. It turns out combustion chambers are one of the parts that are "no longer available". I can't find one anywhere. There are actually some other combustion chambers available and I was thinking I could make one work in my heater. The problem I'm having is none of the available chambers include a listing of their actual dimensions. I haven't found an easy way to get the actual dimensions so far. I might try sending an email request to the parts supplier to see if someone will take some measurements. I have a feeling that isn't going to work as it looks like almost every supplier has to order the chamber from a manufacturer/supplier. Just in case anyone has a combustion chamber laying around mine measures 7" OD by 13" long. It has a flat back end (no fins) where the burner body mounts. I could also use just the nose cone assembly if cut loose from an old combustion chamber. It's just spot-welded to the chamber housing and wouldn't be hard to cut loose. EDIT: The combustion chamber is actually a cylinder inside a cylinder. You could say a can within a can. The inner can is the one with a closed back end and the nose cone mounted the front end. The back of the inner can has 4 tabs that are riveted to the outer can. The front of the inner can also has 4 tabs that appear to be spot welded to the outer can.
Even though my old heater has the combustion chamber problem it still fires up and runs great. I'm trying to restore as much as I can. The biggest problem I've found besides the combustion chamber is dust and dirt everywhere inside the heater. It was so bad the fuel line filter was completely stopped up. I had no idea it was that bad as the heater still ran. I should mention one nice thing about this (and many of the old DESA heaters) is they used copper fuel inlet lines and aluminum tubing for the air pump line. No rubber to worry about.
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