My new Trigano Trident has diesel blown air system which is the next best thing to useless. Please can you recommend what to buy or how I can heat the place up on sites where we do not have an ehu. We were freezing some of the time at Dent and now worried for Skirlington.
I used a small oil filled radiator on ehu, but I can honestly say not really been cold in Freda, when it goes cool, usually, just turned on the cooker and it has warmed up quite quickly.
I am sure that someone will advise the 'Black Cat' gas heater, which is an element attached to a gas cannister.
Do you have thermal blinds on your vehicle? these help any heat from escaping
I had to switch the heater off on the Saturday night at Dent I was far too warm, and slept on top of the sleeping bag.
Diesel powered heaters are normally excellent--tho they can malfunction--if your van has a warranty-take it back--otherwise ask at a truck dealers they will know of a specilist repairer--the heaters are normally made by Eberspatcher--when the heater is running the blast of air at the outlet should be so hot you can barely keep your hand there--if this aint the case-its faulty--
Our diesel heater blows out loads of really hot air. We have even used it when we stopped for a picnic in the winter - it blows hot quite quickly.
I would get someone to look at it - as Billy says it's possibly faulty. Maybe a blocked pipe or something not connected.
Don't dismiss it as useless, it should work really well. They are very expensive when new and I don't think that so many people would have them if they really didn't work.
Hope that you get it sorted, although you will, hopefully, not need it during the summer.
You have confirmed what my son told us, he said the one in his lorry is so hot, he has to turn it off. I assumed that it was not so hot because it is in a motorhome - for safety reasons if children were around. I will get it checked.
Joan, yes we do have a thermal screen but thought it was for when it is snowing so we didn't put it on the first night at Dent & that is when we were freezing. We then saw you had got yours on and so we copied you and it did make a difference. We didn't take our electric heater with us because my son had said the diesel blown air would be more than sufficient. I will look out for a Black Cat heater as a back up.
Thanks to you all. (One day I will have learned enough about this camping lark so that I can answer questions as well as ask them!)
We aren't too fond of our diesel heater either. It doesn't seem to cut in and out as required and the noise outside sounds like a Tornado jet taking off. Waste of money really.
We have a small ceramic heater, with a thermostat from B&Q about £8 and it is really good and nice and small. We are however going to get a tiny oil filled radiator for the winter as the fan coming on and off on really cold nights wake us up.
I don't fancy the idea of a heater attached to a gas cannister myself due to it not being a room sealed appliance and so many furnishings around.
Yes, the diesel heater is a bit noisy, but I'll put up with that if we have no EHU. Otherwise we use a small fan heater.
We use our thermal screens all year round - winter for warmth and summer for keeping the sun out. It also saves having to fix the curtains at the front - the press studs always break my fingernails. We have the one with a drop down front, so can still keep an eye on what's going on!
Thanks for the information but I am loathed to pay out another £600+ & fitting when my van is only 18mths old. My son has had a go at the diesel heating and it is slightly improved but it takes ages to warm up. Fortunately, we have now moved up the list for Skirlington and we have ehu for Easter. By May, I hope the weather has warmed up also.