Caravan Heating - Am I going wrong somewhere?

Three vans ago we had a Compass Rallye van with a Truma Electric/gas blown air heating system.  It was very efficient and the electric system heated the van up with energy to spare.

We then moved on to a Compass Magnum 544 also with a similar blown air system but this struggled to achieve a comfortable temperature and the trunking system hardly provided any heat at all.  I know that this was a larger van but not that much larger!

This year we swapped the Compass for a new Swift Challenger Sport, again with a Truma blown air heating system but this is similar to the Compass in poor efficiency.  I know that switching to gas does produce the required temperatures but why doen't it on the electric side?  Matters are not helped by Swift putting the heating controls in such a position that you cannot read them!  However, I have tried every different combination I can think of including the recommended ones but still no joy.

Can anyone enlighten me further?  Is there any other system that can be installed that would be more efficient?

 

Sometimes it's the position of the thermostat that causes the problem. You can buy a seperate thermocouple (about £30) that simply plugs into the box at the back of the heater and the best place to put it is to tie it to the gas probe at the bottom of the heater case. If the heater is working correctly then it should do the job. 

Don't think you are on your own GentleEnglishman. We have a 2009 Bailey Pageant and the electric blown air heating is ... adequate at best sometimes. Whack it onto 2000 watts and set thermostat to full and it heats ok and cuts off when it gets warm. However it doesn't seem to cut back in fast enough when the van starts to cool down. I then resort to the fan heater!

We had a Swift for seven years and generally found the same. Also I never could work out the various positions on the heater control e.g. auto, and, yes, the thermostat and controls are in a daft position. It worked well on gas though. Nowadays we have an Alde system - what a revelation. The death of blown air systems I feel.

We have the blown air system and it seems  to heat up slower than the last van. Having said that once it is up to heat it seems to be OK.

Three vans ago we had a Compass Rallye van with a Truma Electric/gas blown air heating system.  It was very efficient and the electric system heated the van up with energy to spare.

We then moved on to a Compass Magnum 544 also with a similar blown air system but this struggled to achieve a comfortable temperature and the trunking system hardly provided any heat at all.  I know that this was a larger van but not that much larger!

This year we swapped the Compass for a new Swift Challenger Sport, again with a Truma blown air heating system but this is similar to the Compass in poor efficiency.  I know that switching to gas does produce the required temperatures but why doen't it on the electric side?  Matters are not helped by Swift putting the heating controls in such a position that you cannot read them!  However, I have tried every different combination I can think of including the recommended ones but still no joy.

Can anyone enlighten me further?  Is there any other system that can be installed that would be more efficient?

 

Yeah do what i do and get yourself a fan heater.It will warm your van up ten times faster than any truma system and costs pennies too buy.I,ve had half a dozen new vans all with the truma blown air system and none of them were any good.Its a system that takes far too long too heat up and is not very well designed from the outset with a poorly sited thermostst and ducting that goes outside the van with no lagging.

peter.

I have read on another caravan forum that lagging the hot air pipes as they are laid out underneath the caravan helps retain the heat. It seems you lose a lot of heat when the pipe or pipes are exposed to the cold air.

Bob.

Here's a link to the type of covering:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200579245847?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_2566wt_906

We found our heating okay, quite cosy, however knowing that it takes a little while to get to the proper temperature we put it on a bit earlier, say,  when the sun starts to go down.

There has been discussions about this on other forums and I think the best advice was to get a remote sensor and attach it to where the gas temperature controller is at the bottom of fire.  I think cheaper options than £30 are available but I would suggest that you search other sites particularly for posts by Arc Systems.

I think it also depend when you need the heating.  Because if the Van has spent weeks at below freezing then it is take ages to warm the fabric of the van up (no I don't just mean the cushion covers)  We have certainly had tea on a first night in our coats.  Also use your gas as a boost the 2kW heating is described as suplemental so sticking the gas on for an hour makes a difference it turns a 2kW heater into normally a 5kw system or in our case 7kW.

Out of interest how long are the unlagged pipes running in the outside of peoples van?

Our last van had no hot air ducts running outside of the van.  Our current van has about 1m which looks lagged running under the shower