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We used our ranger 520-4 last weekend for the first time. To start with it was freezing as everything inside the van was very cold. Had the electric & gas on full for ages but didn't really warm properly.

Next morning we found one of the frot window latches was on night position so it was letting in a cold draft. After closing it properly it warmed up quickly and stayed warm for the rest of the stay.

It's important to keep the heating on if you go out and leave it on lowish at night. If the van cools down too much it takes a lot of reheating. Also don't put the fan on for half an hour at least.

We were at Ferry Meadows last weekend and it was very cold too. It was only about 3 or 4 degrees during the day. We have found -  then and in the past, that the caravan does take a long time to heat up at first so we tend to plug in our little fan heater to help the process. But once there (after a couple of hours !!!) the blown air heating keeps it toasty on it's own. We tend to leave the blown air heating fan on Auto. And as stated above - we leave it ticking over when we go out too, otherwise it just takes too long to heat up again !

Hope this helps,

Shirley.

I think the problem here is these excessive lengths of ducting outside, more than a metre and a half which is not already insulated in a second black outer duct, will loose a lot of heat.

This last new year I checked the temperature from the rear bathroom vent, it was 42C, front vents fed by internal duct around 55C. The rear duct underneath is 2.5m long, it already had the outer insulation and I managed to quickly insulated half of it using 3 inch strips of camping sleeping mat and gaffer tape.

Doing half is not the best idea but result was still an impressive 5deg increase at the outlet and obviously more to be gained yet.

Screw-fix among others do something called 'Spiral-wrap' insulation which should do an even better job quicker and easier I'd think as well

Although the ducting is foil lined inside for insulation we fine that the ducting loses lots of heat, so I wrapped all the internal pipes in another layer of foil and found it did make a difference. The external ducting on ours is quite long, so I have a foil space blanket which I'll use to wrap that, then I'll see if I can slit a plastic pipe lengthways to keep that water off and slip it over the wrapped duct and seal that off, fixing it to the bottom of the 'van.

I got some of that sponge backed foil used under laminate flooring and cut it to size to fit under all the lockers, laying carpet samples over that, and that made a huge difference last winter. I did under the removable carpets in the living area too and they sit quite well and stop the carpets sliding around.

Quote: Originally posted by powerjohn on 11/2/2010

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The daftest part of the heating in our Avocet is that the fan keeps blowing even when the thermostat switches off the heat!!! Is this common?

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Have you got the 'van set to 'Manual' rather than 'Auto'.

Mike

Our Pageant Burgundy is much warmer in the back than the front, because the duct goes under the van to pass the door! Shower compartment is really warm!

We have  caeramic element fan heater which warms the van very quickly as all the heat is direct from it, if it is very cold we use that instead, also good in the awning!

Getting a Pegasus soon, apparantly they are much warmer!