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We have an Eccles and when we were away last week it kept us more than warm. There is no doubt that if you put the blow part on immediately you switch on it will take a while to heat up. What I would suggest is to leave the heater on as a convector for 10 mintues and then put the fan on as you will then be circulating hot air as opposed to warming air. I would have though the solution in the manual should only needed to be used in really cold (freezing) conditions.

David

Quote: Originally posted by abimarauder on 18/11/2008

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electric blown air heater very poor in our 2006 swift  challenger van . the manual says to start up on gas & then run the electric together , is this right ? what do you do ?

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We have a Burstner S500TS.  In very cold weather, I'd always use both gas and electricity together.  The gas will cope on its own whatever the weather but it would also use much more gas.  I did once use a full 6kg propane cylinder in 3 days.

Using electricity and gas together will reduce your gas consumption.  A 6 kg cylinder at easter (it snowed) lasted about 10 days because we were also using the electric heating at its highest setting.  I've never been very keen on leaving the gas heating running overnight, so we switch that off and use electricity only.

In cool evenings in late spring, summer and early autumn we'd usually use just the electric heating.  It'll certainly cope on its 2kw setting and the 1kw setting is OK on its own for much of the time.  I haven't yet found a use for the 500w setting - just too feeble to be of value.

Cheers
Andrew

Quote: Originally posted by abimarauder on 18/11/2008

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electric blown air heater very poor in our 2006 swift  challenger van . the manual says to start up on gas & then run the electric together , is this right ? what do you do ?

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You are lucky, on our challenger van the blown air is temperamental. One minute working fine then blowing out cold air, its gone back to the dealer.

You are lucky, on our challenger van the blown air is temperamental. One minute working fine then blowing out cold air, its gone back to the dealer.

I've fixed plenty but never used a Truma system in anger, only Carver, (no surprise there!), but the gas fires the same output and the electric is slightly better. The mk2 Carver Fanmaster system allows gas and electric to be used together, I switch both on to maximum and leave it high until the whole vans warm, not just the air. Once the vans throughly warm the electric is then ample to maintain an even temperature

I don't agree about leaving the fan off for a while although it must be on automatic, this is so the air temperature controls the speed and draughts kept to a minimum. Depends how cold your starting from but from say just above freezing, I find the air from the vents is hot in under ten minutes 

Quote: Originally posted by michael on 19/11/2008

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You are lucky, on our challenger van the blown air is temperamental. One minute working fine then blowing out cold air, its gone back to the dealer.

check where the thermostat is,it may be cutting off to soon if its in the wrong place.

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The dealer is moving the thermostat, and its going to be remote control.     

Our blown air heater is fine on either gas or electric.  In very cold weather, first thing in the morning we do use gas, because it seems to heat up more rapidly. Then we switch over to electricity, and the van maintains a good, steady temperature.

One thing I did notice.  In the process of switching on/off and to different heating levels (500/100/200 watts), the thermostst knob became moved.  On an occasion when we felt colder than we should have been, correction of the thermostst solved the problem.

Bertie.

We have a Challenger (end bathroom) and it is a fact that when just using electrical heating the warm air does not really heat the bathroom at all well.

Mr UM

Added a remote thermostat to ours because the blow heating would warm the van and then blow cold for ages .

atb

Wizard

During autumn/winter we leave our heater on the 500w setting during the day whilst we are out and are pleasantly surprised with how warm the van is when we return; very rarely need to turn it up at all, often have to switch it off during the night and then switch on again when we wake up - at this time we put it on 1000w for about 15 mins and then turn down again.

Also leave a small fan heater (700W) on in the awning when the weather is really cold; it is just enough to make a difference.