heater set Autoterm Air2D/12V DELUXE URAL EDITION Landrover Defender TD5

This heater is equipped with an automatic high altitude kit. That means, that the heater will automatically adjust the fuel injection quantities to the lower oxygen levels as air pressure decreases with altitude. The sooting of the burn chamber can therefore be drastically minimized. Note: Of course the maximum achievable power reduces proportionally to the amount of oxygen in the air. The algorithm employed is a little more sophisticated, but roughly speaking, you loose about 5% of power for every 500 meters above 2000m.

Our own tests up to 3440m went flawlessly, we think up to 4000m no major problems should occur. The software itself calculates injection quantities even in 5000m altitude, but this setting has only been tested at lower altitudes. So while in theory a consistent burn should be achievable, we have no real world feedback on this. Yet.

Important: Running a heater at high altitudes requires very well running fans. That means, best there are no hot air ducts connected to the heater, exhaust and burn chamber inlet need to be as short as possible. The least resistance on all these ducts, the more freely the fan can spin, the more air it can shovel into the burn chamber. Please keep that in mind!

In any case, please note: High altitudes will always be met with a technical compromise of some sort. For longer periods of time (e.g. weeks vs. days) you will need to care for getting the burn chamber up to temperature. If that is not possible, sooting in burn chamber will slowly occur anyway - just as with heaters that are being used only on lowest power setting even at zero altitude. So whatever you do, just as has been the case until now: No warranty for sooted up burn chambers. There never was and there will never be, not even with high altitude kit.

Therefore please let the heater regularly burn at highest power setting, preferably at low altitudes. Generally, for all use cases, that means at least every 1-2 weeks for half an hour on full power, to get rid of any carbon buildup that might have occurred. That is about all you have to do in terms of service to a Diesel heater.

For those very rare special special cases with weeks long stays at altitudes above 4000 meters we guess a burn chamber clean up should be feasible when problems start to occur.