Alde heating problem
Comments
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Have you checked that the heater elements are working? You could be running on only 1kw?
You can also check the effectiveness of the pump by monitoring the current, current is at its lowest on speed 1, and highest at speed five.
If the current does increase then i would say the pump is working normally.
Regarding the bleeding its not required to tilt the caravan IME, and the bleed points will hold some air without affecting the fluid flow, its a series piped system so if there is no flow not all the heaters will work.
After a fluid change its normal for the fluid itself to hold air, but this will find it way out at the top up tank, and result in a drop in level, if i remember correctly i had to top up with around half a litre.
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Boff and xtrailman - thank you for your suggestions and I have it in mind to ring Alde to get their opinion before Friday. As far as the 'whoosh' bit - it's a bit difficult to describe - but before the fluid was changed - and accepting that it does take some time for the heat to circulate - once it did, you could really feel the hot air rising against your hand when placed above the seat backs. Now - it just seems to trickle out - that's the best way I can describe it. The set temperature is achieved eventually but it now takes much, much longer to get there.
As far as the heating elements are concerned, I believe they are working correctly because when set to hot water boost (which I know cuts out the heating), it heats the hot water in about 20 minutes which is the same as before. I also experience the same characteristics when set to gas, so I think that discounts that possibility.
The pump is also responding to the various settings on the dial as evidenced by the corresponding increase in noise as it is turned up and down - so that aspect seems to be OK.
What bothers me is that I anticipate the technician at YC will simply say it is working OK, since there is some heat coming out - without having the experience of knowing what it was like before. Nevertheless, I know I am right in my belief and it is interesting that an earlier post on here came from someone who had also experienced exactly the same problem.
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Is it possible that one of the flexible pipes has become crushed? Some one,I know had a similar problem with his Bailey after a fluid change. This not much help but I know that he fixed it but this was after his dealer and and a mobile engineer failing to. He button holed Alde at the NEC and actually booked it in at Alde, but with their advice and a lot of time, he managed to sort it which saved him something like a 240 round trip, but it took him a lot of time to sort the fault. This was recent he was on a week’s rally with no ehu for a week at the end of October, last year and he wasn’t a happy camper.
In our van the heat up is so even you can hardly feel the temperature difference. Just a very gentle heat coming from the back of seats and bed, but it is hardly noticeable but very effective.
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I don't know, but assume, that, if it is the later system with 3 kw available, that should be obvious. That is because I assume there to be a 1kw and a 2 kw element. So on one kw the system uses just that element, on 2kw uses the other element and on 3 kw uses both. That would mean if an element had failed the system would remain cold on either the 1 kw or 2 kw selection.
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In our van the heat up is so even you can hardly feel the temperature difference. Just a very gentle heat coming from the back of seats and bed, but it is hardly noticeable but very effective.
In our Unicorn, that is the case initially, particularly in cold weather. I assume because much of the heat is going into warming the fabric of the van around the pipes. During this phase the fluid also does not get ever so hot in the bathroom radiator, again I assume it has lost much of its heat by the time it gets there. However, once that has been overcome the heat rising up the seat backs is very noticeable, particularly if 3 kw is used, and the bathroom radiator is extremely hot. Once the van is at temperature, with the heating clicking on and off, the rising heat does become much less noticeable, whatever setting it is on.
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The lack of obvious hot spots was meant as praise not as a criticism. In our van the washroom is perhaps a couple of degrees cooler but nothing major. The main part of the van the temperature distribution feels absolutely even.
Our van came with underfloor heating, I thought that this was a bit of a gimmick. But I get the feeling that this makes a tremendous difference. Because it is a large surface area to radiate heat. Most of the time ours is in run on gas and that definitely makes a diffence to heat up rate imho.
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Steve - you have described what was my previous experience, exactly! It should be the same now - but it isn't. It's as if it never gets beyond that initial stage you have described.
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Are you allowing for the lower outside temperatures at this time of the year?
Perhaps try using both gas and electric together to see if this makes a difference? This should give you over 8KW to the boiler.
When i did my fluid change i thought the warm up time was taking longer, i used a 50/50 mix, perhaps it did but i soon got use to it, or it was my imagination.
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Everyone can workout the output of the boiler, the limiting factor most time must be the number of convectors fitted. That said trip before last tried just running on ehu and subjectively it seemed slower. The last trip no ehu, I forgot to switch the gas back on and started to panic when the temperature was still 5C.
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Xtrailman - tried it yesterday when it was quite mild here (hence the thick fog, I suppose!). Put it on both gas and electricity and left it for an hour. When I went back in, the van was quite warm but still not up to the 20 degrees I has set it to whereas previously I know it would have achieved that temperature in much less time than that, I was also beginning to think that it was all in my head but now I'm convinced it isn't as it used to be.
Interesting you should mention the composition of the mix of fluid / water - when I spoke to Alde, yesterday, that was the one positive suggestion they made in respect of what the technician should check on Friday.
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Noting that trial was with it set to 20C, have you tried with seeing where it gets up to with the setting quite a bit higher?
The comment is made in a belief that the boiler/system backs down the heat being generated as it "approaches" the set point.
Here looking to see if it sails well above the 20 C so proving one way or other that the heat output ability is there, and if so hinting the system is doing any limitation. Assuming again it is using both gas and full electrical power so no physically restricted by the available power to get hot.
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Just run my final test before finally deciding I am going all the way back to the dealers with it. Started with an ambient temperature in the van of 13.5 degrees (it's quite mild here plus I leave the heating set to 12). Ran on 2kw electricity plus gas for one hour with the setting at 25 degrees and the ambient temperature rose to 19 degrees - and gas, pump etc were still running correctly.
Before the fluid change, it was my experience that after running on both gas and electric for ten to fifteen minutes in the morning, I had to turn the gas off because the van was too hot! Although the van is getting warm, the 'force' (if that's the best way to describe it) of the hot air coming up the back of the seats, is nothing like it used to be.
So - off to Bawtry in the morning and I'm sure that after they fiddled about and scratched their heads - the verdict will be that they can't find anything wrong with it and it's working normally!
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Are you aware how the system works when you allow it both gas and electricity?
The system will only use the gas if it decides it needs it, it will always use electricity by preference.
If it does use both, it will step down the gas first, then stop using it, then step down the electricity.
We have found that for the fastest warm up we need to use gas alone.
The sort of time and temperature increase you are getting now sounds fairly normal to me, and what you say you got before does not agree with what we usually get.
When we arrive on a site, if it is very cold,we set the Alde on gas only and use our back up electric fan heater on 2kw for some instant heat.
Doing that, we can usually turn off the fan heater and turn the Alde to 2kw, our max, after about 30 -45 minutes.
Our van is older, so not as well insulated as new vans.
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I find in some van that I have been in that the controls for the heating are quite high up and that's where the thermostat is. so when you put heating on the thermostat is knocking if of before your feet are warm as heat rises so the top foot of the van is warm and the bottom still chilly. I would have the blown air heating but find they dry my chest out and bring on an asthma attack. each to there own as they say.
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Kj - I don't know which system you have but ours doesn't work like that. If you switch on both gas and electricity, it runs on both together and boosts the heat output, admittedly that the gas keeps cutting in and out. When I went back in the van after an hour the gas was still running in conjunction, presumably, with the electricity and the temperature had only risen by 5.5 degrees which is not how it was before. I can't get away from the fact that whereas, previously, you could really feel the heat hitting the back of your hand when placing it over the seat backs, now it is a mere 'trickle'. Something's changed.
When I bled the system, the fluid coming out did seem a lot thicker than I expected and I am wondering whether or not it is too concentrated - which is what Alde seemed to be suggesting. I will see what happens today at YC.
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We have the 3010, if we allow it both fuels it will decide what it needs to use. It always uses electricity by preference.
You must have the 3020 . Have you selected which fuel should have priority when both are used together?
As far as I can see, the operating instructions do not make it clear whether selecting the priority is compulsory, or, if not, what happens if you do not make any selection.
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As far as I know. You can select gas, electric as single fuels. Or run it in dual fuel with either fuel set as a priority. This is what I do have electricity as the priority fuel and gas as the secondary. This is despite mainly being off ehu, when it runs seemlessly off gas.
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I can now report on what happened at Yorkshire Caravans, yesterday. I have to say that my fears of being fobbed off were totally unfounded. Everyone was most apologetic about the inconvenience I had experienced and the technician spent a total of three hours ensuring that everything was done to rectify the problem.
The system was drained and re-filled again and the first thing he noticed that when set to 3kw, the system was only drawing 0.2 amps - quick factory reset on the control panel fixed this but whilst parts of the system were getting hot - others weren't and there was quite a problem clearing all the air out of the system. The main issue was behind the nearside front seat but eventually he managed to clear it. After a fairly short period, the pipework was so hot, it was impossible to hold onto it without burning your fingers!
I can confirm that as a matter of routine, he also checked the specific gravity of the fluid - so that negated my concern that that may have been incorrect.
All in all - although it was a long day - and driving in foggy conditions for some of the day, didn't help - I have to say I was delighted with the way Yorkshire Caravans responded to my complaint and sorted the problem.
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I'm not sure exactly what they did then?
What was the current when 2kw was selected?
What made them drain and refill the system?
If they had the alde equipment to change the fluid why did they encounter a problem with bleeding?
Did hey check the SG before draining or after refilling again?
Did they reuse the same fluid?
Sorry for all the questions but its useful for future fluid changes, as i intend to do my own again.
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xtm - in answer to your questions - no neither am I and I can only assume that his approach was to start from scratch and go through the whole process again. He had already re-filled the system when he invited me into the workshop to have a look. I believe that when he showed me the SG test - it was on the old fluid since it was in a bucket by the side of the van and `I am also assuming that the new fluid was mixed by the same amount and whilst I can't be absolutely certain on that - I can't see any reason why it shouldn't have been. On the other hand - that fluid in the bucket might have been what he was using. What mattered to me was that he was aware of the SG being a potential issue.
In terms of current draw, it was running on 3kw and if I remember correctly it was 7.8 amps, Re Boff's question - I don't know what caused the low current draw to happen but he simply pressed the reset button on the control panel and that cured it. I agree that a problem with the current draw wouldn't affect performance on gas but at that point he was just testing it on electricity. He tested on both gas and leccy together, subsequently.
I'm afraid I haven't a clue why there was a problem with getting the air out - just that there was and it seemed to accumulate around the radiator behind the nearside front seat. He did eventually clear it though. What I did find interesting was that the van was perfectly level whilst he was doing all of this and there was no attempt to elevate the van one way or the other. The other thing I'm thinking is that, contrary to the Alde instructions, the bleeding process took place whilst the pump was running and not switched off as Alde advise.
Sorry if I can't give definitive answers - with the benefit of hindsight, probably I should have been asking him the same whilst I was there!
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The very question I asked. However, in fairness to them, it did seem to be working OK when I got it home after the service when I gave it a cursory check. It was only when we were away over Christmas and spending a lot more time in the van that I realised that the heat wasn't coming through as it previously had. Added to which, I am trying to be realistic and fair - there is nothing to say that either the two hour trip back from Bawtry after the service - or the trip at Christmas went we went away - didn't cause an air bubble to be trapped somewhere when it previously wasn't causing a problem.
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Bleeding the air with the pump running seems like common sense. Except, that in this case common sens3 is wrong. A lesson I learnt years ago with our domestic system. The more I bled it the colder the radiatior got, until I switched the system off.
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Boff, the reason your you radiator got colder is due to the fact that your pump was on the return and not the flow. Technically your system sucked instead of blowed.
Originally, heating pumps were on the colder return sides of the boiler because they couldn’t handle the heat.
As to deciding wether to vent a heating system with the pump running, is really decided by the heating system design and the position on the air.
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