Just been looking into which heater to fit myself. I was planning on a diesel (Planer 2K).
Then I read the story on the BBC this morning about the UK trying for carbon neutral by 2050 and wondered what our carbon footprint was (fulltime in van). So I did a few calculations. It worked out that if I use 200 litres of diesel per year to heat the van, this would produce 0.58 metric tons of CO2e.
So I wondered what the difference would be with gas. To work this out I needed to know how much fuel a diesel or gas heater burns. I picked two and these are the manufacturers figures:
Propex HS2000 - Average consumption 142 grams per hour (works out to be roughly 280ml)
Webesto 2000 - Average consumption 200ml per hour
We have a 38ltr underslung gas tank already fitted, so would run the Propex off LPG. These are the figures I got:
Cost for 200Ltr's Diesel (@£1.47 per litre) = £294 with a carbon footprint of 0.58 metric tons.
Cost for 280Ltr's LPG (@£0.62 per litre) = £174 with a carbon footprint of 0.42 metric tons.
So for us, it looks like the Propex is the sensible choice.