peter lambert Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Has anyone got a Rapido motorhome with the Truma C6002EH heating unit fitted under the hob, behind the cupboards?? We have had the cupboard side insulated by our dealer on a recall, and yet the cupboard gets so hot that we cannot use it to store anything remotely perishable. Even the metal Hob unit gets hot to the touch when the heater is heating up the hot water. It seems that there is little or no ventilation for the Truma unit, and I was wondering whether to try and provide some sort of vents to the outside of the van. I could even consider fitting a small 12v dc fan. Any suggestions, anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Peter I think you need someone like Derek for this kind of thing . Sounds a trifle worrying . I hope you get it sorted . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 peter lambert - 2008-01-02 5:35 PM Has anyone got a Rapido motorhome with the Truma C6002EH heating unit fitted under the hob, behind the cupboards?? We have had the cupboard side insulated by our dealer on a recall, and yet the cupboard gets so hot that we cannot use it to store anything remotely perishable. Even the metal Hob unit gets hot to the touch when the heater is heating up the hot water. It seems that there is little or no ventilation for the Truma unit, and I was wondering whether to try and provide some sort of vents to the outside of the van. I could even consider fitting a small 12v dc fan. Any suggestions, anyone? Yes, ours gets hot as well (but yours sounds excessive). Whilst you mention only water heating, I would suggest that you check that the blown air ducting is firmly located in the output port. Ours is not particularly solidly located, and has been known to spring out, leaving the blown air to blow into the boiler space. Incidentally, the rear of the panel on our cupboard is factory insulated with 'loft insulation' coated with a reflective foil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 We have 1998 Rapido 740F and although our Truma is located elsewhere we have the fridge under the sink at the side of the hob and the sink and the adjoining cupboard get very warm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
empress Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 We too, like Randonneur, seem to get a lot of heat from the fridge. I wondered whether one could warm nighties in the sink on cold nights! I did mention this excessive heat to a dealer who seemed unconerned - so decided we would be also. Empress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Never thought of that, what a good idea. We started putting the butter tub in the sink en-route so that it would be spreadable when we arrived, but big mistake, it turned into liquid, so it now goes into an eyelevel cupboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Peter: This was touched on in a previous forum thread: http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=6185&posts=14 A Truma C-series appliance is designed to suck air from a leisure-vehicle's living space, heat it, then circulate the warmed air back into the living space via an electric fan and flexible ducts. To allow the air to be circulated efficiently, Truma advise that there should be an aperture of at least 150cm² (or apertures totalling a surface area of 150cm²) between the living space and wherever the heater has been installed. Obviously this requirement is not easy to achieve if a motorhome designer perversely decides that a C-Series heater should be shoe-horned into the corner of a kitchen furniture-unit. A C-Series heater (whatever the model) becomes pretty hot when in water-heating mode as there's no air flowing through the thing's internals to carry the heat away. Fully encapsulating the appliance (as opposed to, say, sticking it nakedly under a bed) compels that heat to soak into the enclosure's surrounding structure. Adding some token insulation to parts of the structure may help matters, but it's common sense that, if 2kW of heat is being produced for a half-hour inside a tight-fitting 'box', the box itself will warm up. Venting your heater's enclosure to the vehicle's exterior would result in the heater sucking in air from outside when in blown-air mode, contradicting its circulatory design purpose. If it's freezing outside, you'll hardly want the heater to inhale arctic air and then blow it around inside your motorhome. I think you'd need a powerful 12V fan-unit to transfer sufficient air from the heater enclosure to drop the temperature appreciably and I'm doubtful that, even then, you could lower the temperature enough to keep perishable food in the adjacent cupboard. I guess you might try 'double-walling' the heater enclosure and blowing air between the walls, but I've no idea if that's practicable. It's easy to see why Rapido's designer has positioned the heater within the kitchen-unit - it's tidy and saves space. It's also easy to see the inevitable drawbacks - it will be a beggar to carry out even minor work on the appliance and the surrounding structure is bound to get hot. I'm not sure there is any real solution to this - it's just one of those exasperating design features to which motorhomes are prone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ord Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 I own a 2005 Rapido 924F which had the hot cupboard syndrome. I had a Rapido insulation kit fitted FOC by Brownhills which has part cured the problem but it's true that I cannot keep any perishables in that pull out cupboard. It is a design fault pure and simple. It will influence my choice of 'van next purchase as think it really is a problem which could have been avoided. Truth is the Tuma Combi where ever it is installed give off a lot of heat in use so it will always need careful siting. Bill Ord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 I agree Bill, our Truma Combi is under the double bed so keeps us nice and warm on cold nights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huckleberry Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Had the same problem with my 7087F. Brownhills did the insulation fix but it was not over successful. I used the cupboard for kitchen utensils and kept food elsewhere. The new models have two small vents cut out at the back of the worktop but have not yet used mine to see how effective it is at keeping down the heat. Huckleberry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
empress Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Our heater is at the back under one of the single beds - mine but am keeping quiet about this in case one of the others wants to change with me. Lovely in cold winter nights. Empress :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 empress - 2008-01-03 8:22 PM Our heater is at the back under one of the single beds - mine but am keeping quiet about this in case one of the others wants to change with me. Lovely in cold winter nights. Empress :-) I'm sure it is lovely on cold winter nights but it was a complete bugger to get at during the hab inspection :-S D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 Truma's new 'horizontal' combination air/water heater (now officially called "Combi" just to confuse matters) is much more compact than the outgoing C-Series model. This will, of course, provide motorhome designers with increased opportunity to install the appliance in even more irrational spaces within the vehicle. The dreaded traditional electrical safety/drain valve has been replaced for New Combi with a valve that requires no 12V power. For frost protection this valve opens at around 3°C, but can't be closed until the temperature at the valve is around 7°C. As this clearly presents a problem if, say, you want to fill your Combi with water when the temperature in the motorhome is below 7°C, Truma offer an electrical heating element as an accessory that heats the valve to around 10°C. So we've now got a non-electrical drain valve that needs an optional electric heater to allow it to be closed when the weather's cold! (I notice the Geist test in the CC's Jan 08 magazine mentions a "yellow tap beside the Combi boiler", which suggests that a manual drain-valve had been chosen instead. Perhaps a wise move...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
empress Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 Oh! Dave we are sorry. If we can ever afford another van we'll make sure it is Dave Newell friendly. Don't know how to do this quote business and Angela who does is out. Empress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 Not a problem ladies and certainly nothing you need to apologise for. I thought motor vehicle designers were a twisted and warped breed till I saw some of the wondrous design conclusions motorhome designers have come up with. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curly Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 Strange very strange we have the Truma C6002EH in the same position in Rapido 997M and our pull out cupboard has the bread basket in it and yes it gets only warm nowhere near hot and slightly warm on the work top area but I did notice the padding/insulation in the compartment area and it looks quite substantial, :-> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul M Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 Hi We have a Rapido 7087F same set up as yours, everthing got very but was cured by securely fixing the bown air piping behind the boiler. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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