Pc Plod Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 I would welcome some advise about my vans heating system. I have timberland endeavour with the rear lounge layout. The heating system is an airtronic d2 heater which only has one outlet in the rear lounge. This heats up the lounge quickly but the rest of the van is cold,especially the toilet compartment. What i would like to know is it possible to add other outlets to this system and is it a diy job. Has anyone added extra heating outlets to their outfits and if so can you give me any advise. Kind regards Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirage Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Easiest way is to carry a small fan heater and place at front (assuming you connect up) we found you can get van very warm like that. Not sure whether splitting output would be warm enough on a cold night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 It should be easy enough to cut the ducting and install a "Y" piece and some ducting to a suitable outlet. You would have to balance the outputs by restricting one outlet or the other. Phone CAKTANKS (Google) they should have the parts, the website they have is a joke. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Hi Harry It should be a reasonably easy DIY job. Much will depend on position of the Heater & the route you want to take. Googling "Eberspacher Heater Ducting" brings up this on e-Bay:- http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=eberspacher+ducting&_frs=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m359 Alternatively here's a link to the Truma equivelant::- http://www.magnummotorhomes.co.uk/view_category.asp?catID=33 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Harry There are some (marine) installation instructions for an Airtronic D2 heater that may be helpful on this file: http://www.eberspacher.com/downloads/technical-documents/marine_installation_22278.pdf In principle there should be little difficulty adding extra heat-outlets: in practice it may be quite another matter. Looking at a rear-lounge Endeavour's layout, I'm asking myself how you'd lead a duct from the heater (which I assume is housed in one of the rear-lounge seat-boxes) past the fridge to reach the bathroom. I have seen the odd installation where (insulated) warm-air ducting has been routed below the motorhome's floor to reach from the heater to an otherwise inaccessible place, but that's not likely to be a viable option for a panel-van conversion (PVC). It's easy to understand why you might want to do this, but PVCs' bathroms are usually pretty constricted and (if comments in motorhome magazines are a true guide) aren't normally used for regular showering. If you don't use the bathroom for extended periods of time and regularly, will the pain be worth the gain? If it turns out to be impracticable to lead a warm-air duct to the bathroom, you might consider stringing a dividing curtain across the vehicle's interior just beyond the bathroom-door and leaving the bathroom-door open for a while before the bathroom is used for showering. This would (in theory!) convert the lounge and bathroom into one big warm 'room' and the bathroom should stay warm enough for a reasonably comfortable shower if you didn't hang about. Another possibility might be to fit a 12V heater in the bathroom. Powerful 12V heaters can be obtained, but this type should be sufficient to take the chill off and is cheap enough: http://www.passionauto.co.uk/products/12v-150w-car-heater-fan-and-defroster.html The heater advertised above draws about 13A, so you'd need suitably sturdy cabling and - if you planned to heat the bathroom a lot - good leisure-battery capacity. Just a thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pc Plod Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Derek, Thankyou for your reply, You have assumed correctly that the boiler is fitted underneath the offside rear seat, and adjacent to the seat is the refrigerator then the shower. There is a 6inch void below the refrigerator and i wondered if i could just take a ducting pipe under the refrigerator and drill a hole in the shower wall for the outlet fitting! You are correct that to install a fitting on the nearside at the front i would have to go under the van. Lokking at a autosleeper yesterday at Lowdhams they had run a pipe underneath and put some special insulation around it. The reason that i am wanting to do this is because i am doing guard duty outside different premises and Friday night was very cold,using the loo in the early hours of the morning is not to be recommended,even though i had left the heating on in the van. I do not believe that this van was insulated for winter use. Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pc Plod Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Hi, Thankyou for your reply. Interesting to see the difference in price between eberspacher and truma parts. I will put on a post when i have concluded the work and report on the final result. Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ips Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Its an easy job and i am sure there Will be a way to route the ducting. I fitted one in the garage and found it a very simple job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayjsj Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 I have an Eberspacher Combitronic, which is an Airtronic and a Hydronic 'stitched' together, we find the output when either on EHU only, or using diesel only,more than adequate to heat a 'just over' 6metre van including the end shower/cassette room. 'Our' ducting is all internal but pretty 'simple' push together fittings which are widely available and not unique to 'Eberspacher' whose parts are a trifle 'pricey'. I would think your unit capable of giving good heating to your van, just need imagination in the routing of the ducting. good luck ! Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Pc Plod - 2012-01-15 10:26 AM ...There is a 6inch void below the refrigerator and i wondered if i could just take a ducting pipe under the refrigerator and drill a hole in the shower wall for the outlet fitting... Sounds OK to me - I had to re-route the warm-air ducting on my own motorhome when it turned out that the Hobby factory had badly screwed up the heating-system installation, and that exercise involved running extra ducting in voids beneath (in my case) the gas-locker and kitchen furniture. It would be worth insulating the ducting as much as practicable, as there's no point heating the void area if you can avoid it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I've been having a look at some websites showing an Endeavour and found the following: http://users.autoexposure.co.uk/vehicle.cfm?Account=SHD1515015&Style=2&Id=AETV58357540&Make=TIMBERLAND&Model=ENDEAVOUR&City=Nottingham Photo 8 shows a view of rear to front with the fridge and washroom on the right, and Photo 9 shows the washroom. I would suggest: - Washroom - putting the washroom outlet into the side wall as near to the door as you can if possible, if you then left the door ajar this would allow some heat to permeate into the front/centre of the van - Centre of van - you could fit another outlet below the fridge itself so some heat comes out into the centre part of the 'van though if you do this I'd suggest you extend it out a little so that the heat doesn't just heat up the bottom of the fridge door! An alternative would be to get some matching 'fake' timber boarding and instead build out the area below the fridge to bring it in line with the edge of the washroom compartment and lounge seat into which you could put the heating tube with an outlet for the central area. - Front of the van - this is more difficult! The 'easiest' although not necessarily the most 'aesthetic' solution might to be fit a second outlet under the fridge and then connect a piece of heater tube to it and run it to the front of the van when you want to direct heat there. Obviously you could remove this easily when you need to. If I could see the van in the flesh I might come up with other suggestions. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Mel B Good photos and ideas... Photo 9 suggests that the bathroom's intrinsic design may inhibit adding extra ducting (and might explain why Timberland chose not to install bathroom heating). It's evident from Photo 8 that the fridge is well above floor-level, producing (as Harry says) an under-fridge void through which a warm-air duct might be led forwards towards the bathroom. If we assume a void height of 150mm (6") and a duct diameter of a minimum of 60mm, the highest that the underside of the duct can be from the floor would be 90mm. Endeavour's bathroom includes a moulded plastic shower-tray with a raised surround to contain water and prevent it overflowing through the bathroom door. I'm doubtful that a closable warm-air outlet fitted to a 60mm duct set 90mm above the floor within the under-fridge void would clear the shower-tray's surround. While this may not be a show-stopper, it's something that needs careful consideration (and measurement) before going ahead with the plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Derek Uzzell - 2012-01-17 9:29 AM Mel B Good photos and ideas... Photo 9 suggests that the bathroom's intrinsic design may inhibit adding extra ducting (and might explain why Timberland chose not to install bathroom heating). It's evident from Photo 8 that the fridge is well above floor-level, producing (as Harry says) an under-fridge void through which a warm-air duct might be led forwards towards the bathroom. If we assume a void height of 150mm (6") and a duct diameter of a minimum of 60mm, the highest that the underside of the duct can be from the floor would be 90mm. Endeavour's bathroom includes a moulded plastic shower-tray with a raised surround to contain water and prevent it overflowing through the bathroom door. I'm doubtful that a closable warm-air outlet fitted to a 60mm duct set 90mm above the floor within the under-fridge void would clear the shower-tray's surround. While this may not be a show-stopper, it's something that needs careful consideration (and measurement) before going ahead with the plan. I'd be wary of running a full 60mm duct into such a small bathroom (at least without some significant constraint on flow). Given the issues, I'd be more inclined to take a Truma 22mm "bleed" branch and duct, insert in the existing duct, and seal the 22mm leg into the bathroom wall from under the fridge (there are not, AFAIK, any 22mm outlets available). I'd then protect the outlet in the bathroom with a small plastic "box" with the bottom cut out (or perhaps a co-ax cable blow-out cover as per the attached picture - perhaps with the outlet widened a little) to avoid any water seepage. The restricted diameter will reduce the heat outlet into the bathroom, and also make mounting off the floor easier. It should provide enough heat to "air" the small room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pc Plod Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 Thankyou all for your thoughts and detailed replies. I am moving down south for the next week and hopefully will be able to do the work needed to give me a more comfortable pvc during the next cold spell. Interesting, when i contacted an eberspacher dealer for the parts he told me that the Truma ducting was not able to withstand the heat output from an airtronic heater and that the ducting size was incompatable! Any thoughts on this,is he telling porkies! Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Pc Plod - 2012-01-18 1:52 PM Thankyou all for your thoughts and detailed replies. I am moving down south for the next week and hopefully will be able to do the work needed to give me a more comfortable pvc during the next cold spell. Interesting, when i contacted an eberspacher dealer for the parts he told me that the Truma ducting was not able to withstand the heat output from an airtronic heater and that the ducting size was incompatable! Any thoughts on this,is he telling porkies! Harry I don't know about Truma ducting being unable to tolerate an Airtronic's heat output (It wouldn't surprise me, though), but Truma's own product literature quotes their ducting as having a 65mm diameter while the Eberspacher (and Webasto) equivalent is quoted as 60mm diameter. So Truma ducting/fittings may well not marry happily with Eberspacher stuff. You'll need to be careful about modifying your system, as it will be easy to draw a diagram that looks OK in principle and then find that it won't function properly in practice. My own (often bitter) experience of messing about with motorhome blown-air systems tells me that you should aim to maximise the volume of air that can be delivered to the bathroom and then apply an adjustable restriction (eg. a flap-valve) at the bathroom outlet. If you choose to limit the air-flow into the bathroom by restricting the duct-diameter, there's every chance that warm air will only enter the bathroom when the heater is running at high output. When the heater is running slowly (eg. during the night) and the pressure in the main air-ducting is low, it's probable that no air will flow into the narrow ducting and no heat will reach the bathroom. A variant of this happened with my motorhome, where Hobby had accidentally badly crushed the air-duct leading from the Truma heater (mounted beneath the rear bed) to the vehicle's front lounge. When the heater was flat out (and that's a 6kW-output heater incidentally) hot air blasted out from the air-ducts at the back of the motorhome, but just a pathetic gentle breeze came from the front air-duct. And, when the heater was on minimum setting (which is still not much lower than your D2's maximum), no air came from the front air-duct as the warmed air was all dispersing through the rear outlets. Caveat DIYer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 You could use one of these self contained and cheap. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-small-gas-heater-ceramic-camping-van-boat-BBQ-/140476588466?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item20b50ea1b2 Or one of these, http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cabin-heaters/mailspeed-marine/royal-gas-heater.bhtml Or these,that are catalytic (no flame or fumes) but need installing as it use onbord supply. http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/therm_x.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayjsj Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Pc Plod - 2012-01-18 1:52 PM Thankyou all for your thoughts and detailed replies. I am moving down south for the next week and hopefully will be able to do the work needed to give me a more comfortable pvc during the next cold spell. Interesting, when i contacted an eberspacher dealer for the parts he told me that the Truma ducting was not able to withstand the heat output from an airtronic heater and that the ducting size was incompatable! Any thoughts on this,is he telling porkies! Harry Definately telling porkies ! ALL of the ducting attached to my Eberspacher 'Hydronic' is 'Truma/Carver type , as are all the connectors and Outlets, never had any problems with them. The only part that receives ;excessive' heat is the Exhaust pipe, that HAS to be S/Steel and routed away from bodywork. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Rayjsj - 2012-01-18 11:58 PM Pc Plod - 2012-01-18 1:52 PM Thankyou all for your thoughts and detailed replies. I am moving down south for the next week and hopefully will be able to do the work needed to give me a more comfortable pvc during the next cold spell. Interesting, when i contacted an eberspacher dealer for the parts he told me that the Truma ducting was not able to withstand the heat output from an airtronic heater and that the ducting size was incompatable! Any thoughts on this,is he telling porkies! Harry Definately telling porkies ! ALL of the ducting attached to my Eberspacher 'Hydronic' is 'Truma/Carver type , as are all the connectors and Outlets, never had any problems with them. The only part that receives ;excessive' heat is the Exhaust pipe, that HAS to be S/Steel and routed away from bodywork. Ray Not necessarily. As I said before, although the "Eberspacher Heater Ducting" ebay link flicka provided earlier refers to 60mm diameter ducting (which is what Eberspacher's own literature also specifies), the Magnum Motorhomes link to '60mm-diameter' Truma equivalent products conflicts with Truma's own product specifications that are based around 65mm-diameter trunking/fittings. (Of course, it MIGHT be the case that Eberspacher refers to a 60mm inside diameter, whereas Truma's 65mm figure MIGHT be for outside diameter, and the two manufacturers' ducting is actually the same stuff. But I wouldn't want to spend money confirming that experimentally if I could help it.) There's also the matter of the maximum heat outputs of the various Eberspacher/Truma heaters and the trunking diameter advised by the respective manufacturers. For example, while Eberspacher allows a trunking diameter of 60mm to be attached to the hot-air outlet of their Airtronic D2, Truma insists on 80mm diameter ducting for the outlet of their only slightly more powerful E-2400 appliance. Just because your Autocruise's Combitronic system has "Truma/Carver type" ducting/fittings (Not really sure what that means - either your ducting/fittings were sourced from the Truma/Carver parts list or they were not) and you've had no problems, doesn't prove that that the system complies with Eberspacher's recommendations. It could as easily mean that Autocruise has just chosen to use Truma bits and pieces throughout their range of motorhomes for convenience. As Harry is considering extending an existing installation, it could be an expensive mistake to obtain ducting/fittings that are not compatible with what's already there. I don't think (potentially) inferior heat resistance would be a problem with extending the present layout using Truma ducting, as it's likely that the extra ducting would be some way from the D2 heater. But it should be easy enough for Harry to obtain authorative advice about this as there's a downloadable list of UK agents on the Eberspacher website together with HQ contact details. Eberspächer (UK) Ltd Headlands Business Park Salisbury Road, Ringwood Hampshire BH24 3PB Tel: 01425 480151 Fax: 01425 480152 www.eberspacher.com enquiries@eberspaecher.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest machra Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I have a Timberland Destiny rear lounge with a Truma Combi 4 fitted, I did want the D2 heater they offered. I asked Timberland to put in two outlets in the o/s seat locker, one at the front and one at the rear. These are pointed towards the front and rear respectively. I also asked for an outlet in the toilet. My thinking here was that as well as warming the toilet compartment we could always leave the door open and that would help in warming the front of the van up. We were away last weekend in the freezing weather and although the front is warmed by the heat transfer from the toilet and the outlets in the rear of the van, the front is still COLD. If I could ask again I would have them split the one in the toilet into two. I woud then have the outlet in the toilet as we have now and bring the new outlet round the back of the toilet compartment, against the van wall, behind the toilet casing and put an outlet into the toilet compartment wall adjacent to the van sliding door. This would then blow directly into the front of the van. I hope this makes sense, but will draw a diagram if required. I seem to remember reading that someone had encased their underfloor water tanks in a wooden box and had then run an outlet through this on the underside of the van and back up through the floor into the front. This gave heat into the front and stopped the water tanks freezing up. Possibly a DIY project of the future!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankkia Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Many years ago we had an Autocruise Impala. The blown air heater was situated approx amidships and had 1 duct going forward to the lounge and another which 1st dropped through the floor and across to the other side of the 'van coming up behind the kitchen units. It then had a 'Y' piece fitted and one arm dropped again through the floor and under the shower to come up again in the bathroom. The other arm fed a single outlet in the kitchen. As you can probably imagine the outlet in the bathroom was like a dying breath. Solution was to box the 1st under floor tube in ply then fill the space around the tube (in the box) with expanding foam. Then remove the tube that dropped under the floor from the kitchen to the bathroom and fit another tube through the kitchen / shower wall and onwards through the shower / bathroom wall. an outlet was installed in the shower and the pipe connected to the original outlet in the bathroom. The pipework through the shower was boxed with Upvc board to make it waterproof and wipeable. Result warmth to rear of the 'van and bathroom. But what a lot of messing about to cure what should have been an obvious design fault in the 1st place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 We had the same unit in a previous van, but found the heat output was being lost through the blow heating ducting, one would assume it would find it's way into the van in any event, this simply was not the case. So my advice would be if extending the ducting, insulate both that, and the existing ducting to get heat where it's needed i.e the outlets, not just trapped under cupboards etc, made a real difference to ours. Of course the less hassle option is leave the bathroom door open all the time, or a fan heater as suggested ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesFrance Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 peter - 2012-01-19 12:29 AM You could use one of these self contained and cheap. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-small-gas-heater-ceramic-camping-van-boat-BBQ-/140476588466?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item20b50ea1b2 Or one of these, http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cabin-heaters/mailspeed-marine/royal-gas-heater.bhtml Or these,that are catalytic (no flame or fumes) but need installing as it use onbord supply. http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/therm_x.htm It could be very dangerous to use any unflued heater in the small volume of a panel van conversion! The catalytic heaters used to be fitted in yachts as they are only meant to produce water as a product of combustion, however they were withdrawn some years ago, presumably for safety reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 JamesFrance - 2012-01-19 8:53 PM peter - 2012-01-19 12:29 AM You could use one of these self contained and cheap. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-small-gas-heater-ceramic-camping-van-boat-BBQ-/140476588466?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item20b50ea1b2 Or one of these, http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cabin-heaters/mailspeed-marine/royal-gas-heater.bhtml Or these,that are catalytic (no flame or fumes) but need installing as it use onbord supply. http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/therm_x.htm It could be very dangerous to use any unflued heater in the small volume of a panel van conversion! The catalytic heaters used to be fitted in yachts as they are only meant to produce water as a product of combustion, however they were withdrawn some years ago, presumably for safety reasons.What do you mean? like a gas hob or oven?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I don't recall any withdrawwl of Catalytic Heaters There still available, but maybe went out of favour due to cost. Amongst others from a quick google search http://www.busyoutdoors.com/mini-catalytic-caravan-or-boat-heater/p406 http://www.jacksons-camping.co.uk/heaters/gas-fuel-heaters.htm http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cabin-heaters/route-2000/catalytic-heater-3082-308489.bhtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesFrance Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 From Peter's last link: Not available - Long discontinued by the manufacturer - But click here to see our Propex Heaters ! All new build caravan & motorhome heaters must now by law have an external flue so all wall heaters like these are now discontinued. But click here to see our Propex Heaters page http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/therm_x.htm Heaters are likely to be left on when the occupants are asleep, whereas it would be a very foolish person who did the same with a cooker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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