Blown-air heating
I may be starting a new discussion on an old subject, but I have searched the Club Together and I’m unable to find an answer to my question.
My question is, when a caravan has Blown-air heating does it keep the caravan cosy? I have Alde heating at the moment, but am thinking of changing to a caravan with blown-air. Your advice would be welcome.
Peter
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We went from a caravan with Alde to a MH with blown air. Really liked the Alde, kept us toasty warm even when the beast from the east was in full voice, but the MH we liked wasn't available with it.
So far we have found it keeps the van cosy. Although have not used it in anything more than a degree or so below zero yet. I believe some of the problems with blown air can arise because of the length of tube work, some of which is outside. In our van the tubes are sandwiched within a double floor so this problem doesn't arise. I think you might need to specify the caravan model to get a true view.
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We have Truma heating, either via convector or blown air. No problems at all with it, it can be started on gas, then switched to electric. What is very useful is that there is a blown air vent into the bathroom. If we close other vents, but leave bathroom open, it gives us a very efficient drying room! We had Alde heating in our (very) old caravan, radiator pipes all the way round under the beds, into bathroom, etc... It always seemed to be very slow heating up the van, and we usually supplemented it at first with a little fan heater. I do stress it was an old Alde system though, they are no doubt more efficient nowadays. Of the two, we prefer the Truma.
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have a 2008 Coachman with blown air heating Truma gas or electric , no problems, if it is really cold then i boost the heat using gas & electric as the electric takes a bit to get going but once it is up to speed electric is ok, I have 3 settings on electric 1kw,2kw or 3kw. If it is going to be cold overnight we leave fan on auto and use 1kw setting, just keeps the chill off, dont like overly hot caravan during the night, much prefer good snuggle duvet. Seldom use the gas and would not leave gas on during night or if we were going out. It may be dated but it works and is maintenance free except for annual service checks.
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Our Coachman had a Truma system. More than up to the job and very quite. Our current Elddis has the Whale blown air system. IMO, no where near as good as Truma and dam noisy, especially if you want it on during the night. My advice would be avoid the Whale system.
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I have never had a van with the Alde heating system so can't comment on the relative merits compared to the blown air system. Having said that we find the blown air system works well. Our new motorhome has the Truma Heating with the electronic control panel and we find this better as you can more precisely set the temperature especially if you want to run it through the night and you can set the timer which you can probably also do with the Alde system. Running it on both gas and electric will really quickly heat the van up. Its usually quiet as well unless its running in boost mode which is only used at the start of the heating process.
David
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I believe some of the problems with blown air can arise because of the length of tube work, some of which is outside.
dont have this problem, tubes run under bunks or through backs of cupboards, none outside, not much outside on a coachman, other than waste pipes and some short electrical runs, for mover, ATC etc.
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Not known anything but blown air and we have been toasty warm with it down to about -4C last late October.
Once warmed up we find the 0.9Kw settng on electric keeps things warm enough. Yes the ducting does go outside for the rear of the caravan but I just lagged with DIY large sticky tape stuff from B&Q.
maybe useful video here
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Our van has a Truma combi boiler giving blown air heating but no convection heating. Having had an Alde system and then blown air with convection, it was with some trepidation that we tried out the combi boiler but we have been pleasantly surprised.
Given that a blown air system will not maintain as constant a temperature as Alde does, or such an even spread of warmth, it still keeps the van warm and comfortable. The washroom can become extremely warm, as others describe, and even the notoriously cold area of the cab is helped by having a vent close by. We ran the heating day and night in Shetland where it was cold even in June and it kept us warm.
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We have the Truma Combi in our Knaus caravan, and can not fault it. The hot and cold water system is probably the best we have had. Our last van had Alde which was OK, but noisy at night because of were Elddis had put the header tank and pump.
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We have the Truma blown system in our pegasus and keeps our caravan toasty but not noisy and we use our C/van all year round, one advantage with the blown air system is in hot weather it can also be used on fan only to help keep the van cool
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A word of warning if anybody has chest problems as whenever I went in my sisters van with blown air heating, It triggered my COPD of something terrible and struggled to breath but mine with Aldi heating never a problem. It won't affect all chest problem but just be cautious.
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We've not had an Alde heated van but we have sat in one with the heating on. The heat seems to more constant, my feet didn't get cold in just socks like they normally do.
Our new caravan has the Truma 6 heating system which is very good and efficient at heating the van even on the lower setting, all apart from the bathroom which doesn't seem to get even warm unless I leave the door open then its fine. Our previous van had the Truma 4, we thought that was good at that time but the Truma 6 is better.
The thing with Alde I believe is the length of time it takes to get the van heated, I believe some use a fan heater initially to get it 'going'
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There is no doubt that the Alde system gives the most even heating and all the surfaces in the van are at the same temperature. The main problem is the time taken to heat up and in that sense it is just like a domestic central heating system with radiators so you need to set the timer to ensure the heat is there when you need it. If you can live with that it is far superior to blown air (but of course costs quite a bit more to provide).
Blown air is quick and efficient but more difficult to balance as you have to adjust the butterfly flaps which is not an accurate method. Works better on smaller vans and small motorhomes.
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We have the Truma blown air system in our 2018 Lunar Cosmos and like it all our vans have had a blown air system so can’t comment on Alde. We use our current van all year round and the truma system keeps the van nice and warm we have been away in the snow and never had any trouble in face sometimes it’s gets too warm and we need to turn it down.
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Nice to hear DD, just going on what some 'Caravan' owners have said about Alde being slow to heat up on arrival at site.
Agree about putting it on gas/electric to start with makes a huge difference even with the blow air heating.
Our new one which is a Truma 6 has 2 fan settings as well so takes very little time to get the van cosy.
Of course I much prefer to be where heating isn't needed, but that's another story
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Nice to hear DD, just going on what some 'Caravan' owners have said about Alde being slow to heat up on arrival at site.
When it has been really cold on arrival and we are not just pitching up and going out I simply plug in a fan heater whilst the Alde runs at 1kw I have fan heater on 2kw. For us the Alde has always seemed far more cosy. We always carry the small fan heater anyway as back up but rarely used.
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Previous van had blown air, current one has Alde, but being over 11 years old only has the 2kw on electricity version, though 6kw on gas.
Some vans not being available with the Alde is another, of many, reason we are keeping this van.
For a quicker warm up we put it on gas only on arrival on site, and also use our little fan heater on 2kw for instant heat if it is very cold.
The trick is to get and keep the fabric of the van warmed up, so before we set out from home at this time of year we put on the heating at about 15 degrees a couple of days before setting off, moving it up to 18 degrees the day before. We also use the timer to have the overnight temperature no lower than 13 degrees at the same time.
A similar regime can be followed with blown air.
When we had blown air, we found it fine, but would not willingly go back to it now.
PS........glad to hear your toes were cosy TG!
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We've never had Alde heating but seem to have managed ok with various versions of blown air and convection. Our previous caravans always took longer to warm up. It's difficult to compare on this thread because motorhomes are already warm (well ours is!) when you arrive on a site.
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I went through the same thought process as the OP when we changed our Barcelona (with Alde heating) for a new Knaus Starclass (with Truma blown air) last December.
We use our van all year round, so I now have a bit of experience of both systems. The Alde gives a more 'all round' heat but on the other hand, the Truma system warms the van from cold, much more quickly - especially if the heat source is gas and electricity together.
If on boost, the Truma system is slightly noisy, whereas the Alde system is virtually silent. That said, I have found that if heating from cold it only has to be on boost for about 10 minutes and when set to 'Eco' it's almost inaudible.
With the Alde system. I noticed cold spots around the floor - coming from air drawn in through the floor vents whereas this is not noticeable with our Starclass - but it does have underfloor heating as well.
Some heat is lost as the air travels around the Truma pipework and our bathroom isn't heated that well - but the van is over 8m long. We get round that by putting a fan heater in there just before using the shower, in winter. I have to say that the heating in the bathroom in the Barcelona wasn't brilliant either, due to the small size of the radiator.
I also suspect that the level of insulation in the Knaus is higher than the Bailey - it certainly has a much thicker roof.
All in all, I wouldn't worry about it. Both systems have their pros and cons - work in different ways - but both are good. Plus you don't have to think about changing the fluid as in the Alde system.
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