Show us a picture of your Home made pre Heater

[Redbud40]

Finally winter in Texas. Anyone care to show off their pre heat units they made. I tried using a cheap floor heater with some tubing to stick in inlets and exhaust area but it doesn’t quite work like I thought. Looking for ideas.
Thanks.
Red

[MiserBird]

Easy to use, timer turns it on a few hours before start.

[bobnoffs]

put your heat in low, let it rise up and out.

[BH1166]

Timer setup night before or get to hangar before flight and turn on. I live in GA, plane in insulated hangar, never 40 degrees or below in hangar. Shove end of flex pipe over Left exhaust pipe.

[MacCool]

Originally Posted by BH1166

Timer setup night before or get to hangar before flight and turn on. I live in GA, plane in insulated hangar, never 40 degrees or below in hangar. Shove end of flex pipe over Left exhaust pipe.

I've seen all varieties of that kind of milkhouse-heater modification, and I'm sure its value as an engine preheater will substantially depend on where and how the plane is hangared. In this climate, it seems to be more applicable to cockpit heating and that's what I use mine for. It was -30F over the weekend here, so adequate pre-heating of the engine means 8+ hours means a substantially more robust effort with an all-out Rieff preheater.

[wawrzynskivp]

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catal...umpheaters.php

Attach to a solenoid driven by a cheap cell phone switch. H2O wireless will sell you a sim card and service for $3.00/mo. Call it up to switch on or off however long you need before your preflight.

For me it's four hours prior at 15F

Advantage of the adhered heaters over a hangar-based heater is the portability.

Amazon has a switch for $139 (Not my sale, just showing theirs): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[MacCool]

Cheapest cell phone switch I could find was Switcheon at $249 for two plugs, and free cell service for one year. Subsequent years cost $4.00 per day ($50/year). No sim, just a nice app using IoT G5 or LTE with actual feed back as to whether or not the switch actually turned on. Great device, has never failed me and I use it a lot. I have the cockpit heater on the other circuit so I can turn on both devices separately or together

[TigerMan92]

Remote on/off switch and a Reiff Heating System is the great solution. I turn it on the night before and it keeps the oil at 90 degrees and cylinder heads at 75 degrees. I have been using Reiff systems for 20 years on all three of my planes. Never had any problems.

http://www.reiffpreheat.com/product....ndard%20System

[bobnoffs]

i don't think i would risk an unattended heater with an electric motor and a heating element that glows red unattended, let alone in a hangar that is already 40 deg.

[MacCool]

Originally Posted by bobnoffs

i don't think i would risk an unattended heater with an electric motor and a heating element that glows red unattended, let alone in a hangar that is already 40 deg.

I agree. I just bought one of these heaters for the cockpit and plan to plug it into the other outlet on my Switcheon. It looks like I'll be a lot more comfortable than using the milkhouse heater with a bunch of aluminum foil. I'll turn it on as the same time as the Rieff preheater in hopes that my cockpit will be as toasty as the engine when I come out to do a little Minnesota winter flying.

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catal...s_08-12224.php