Truma water heater not heating
we have a Bailey 2022 caravan, this trip the water heater isn’t getting the water very hot, whereas it’s normally like lava… fuses all good and no error codes on the panel.
any thoughts on what this might be?
Or is it just so cold at the moment it’s struggling?
Thank you
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@TheCaravanningMummy - is your boiler the Truma Combi 6e? I assume it will be. Unfortunately, I have 6 years worth of experience of this bit of kit!! Two quick checks - are you certain it's switched to Elec 2 for your source of power? It it isn't - and you're running on Elec 1 - that will mean that only one element is being used and it will take a lot, lot longer to heat up the water.
Have you tried running it on gas? If you do - and it gets hot - then unfortunately it means that one of the heating elements has failed. It won't be both of them because if that were the case, your water wouldn't be getting warm at all on electricity.
If the van's had a normal to heavy amount of use, the elements will only last for about two years or so.
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thank you for this @richardandros this is helpful, we are on electric 2, but have always wondered the difference so have learnt something new today! 👍🏻
Heading out shortly so will try the gas when we get back later.
Much appreciated! 😁
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@TheCaravanningMummy If you keep the caravan at home, or are able to get it there and have a smart, meter you could check how many watts it is using. One of our elements failed after four years and it was easy to see it was only using 900 watts even when set to electric 2. Unfortunately it’s not just a case of having an element replaced, Truma only supply the full electric heating unit. Our combi is shoehorned under the dinette seating and had to come out. It was therefore rather expensive. I’m not sure I would have it done again if the same happened. We have refillable gas and would probably just use that to supplement the one element. When in France it rarely gets off of electric 1 anyway.
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If it's working on gas then it could be the overheat trip switch has tripped out. This has happened to us twice. Look in the instructions to find where it is.
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can’t get the caravan home unfortunately. Thank you for the info, it will go to the dealership if we can’t work it out.
so we shall see, hopefully not an expensive fix however as the tow car just did us the dirty on the MOT 😱😭😂0 -
Oooh thanks for this info. We will check later about this once we’ve tested on gas. 👍🏻☺️
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thanks everyone, we have hot water on gas… the rest as to why is unknown for the moment so shall leave the rest to my dealer as the caravan is due in for service soon anyways!
Muchly appreciate the help from everyone.0 -
@TheCaravanningMummy - so the fact that it's working on gas and there isn't an error message says to me that, unfortunately, it's a heating element that's gone. As @SteveL says, upthread, I'm afraid it's a big and expensive job. Since I have a power meter installed in the van, I am able to get an instant indication because instead of pulling the correct 7.5A on EL2 (for both elements) it drops to just over 3A when one has gone.
It will mean taking the boiler out of the van and it means a new heat exchanger. Up to about 3 years ago, it was possible just to change the element. However, because the element has to be crimped into the cooling fins - and this wasn't being done properly by dealers - leading to premature failure - Truma adopted a policy of only supplying the complete heat exchanger with both the elements already installed. Last time I had this done - just over two years ago - it cost me £750!!
When the boiler packed up again, just before last Christmas - and we were due to go away - the error code told me and the dealer nothing and their diagnostic laptop when plugged in - didn't give any further information as to what was wrong (but it wasn't the elements, this time). It would have meant sending the boiler back to Truma with no guarantee they could fix it and certainly not before we went away. I got them to change the complete boiler which arrived within two days and was fitted in two hours - but at a cost of over £1600. At least this one has another two year guarantee.
There is a slight possibility that, as Corners says, that it's an overheat switch that's tripped - but since the water is warming somewhat, indicating that one element is still working, I think this is unlikely. If it had tripped, neither of them would work.
Sorry to be the bearer of not-so-good news, but I was just trying to brace you for worst case scenario😥. I hope I'm wrong😀.
For all of that, I still think the Truma is a good heating system - it's just that they've made it overly complicated. One final tip - although the instructions say you can run the boiler dry (for heating only) - I am convinced that's what led to our last failure and now only run the heating with water in the boiler.
Let us know how you get on.
Richard
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