21020 Auto-Sleepers Heaters..

Please. can anybody advise me the calorific value of the new miniature boiler and room heater made by Whale? This is the new fitment since A-S have ditched the Truma. We had terrible trouble with the Truma ,it filled the habitation area with acrid electrical fire smoke and fumes setting off the smoke alarm. All this is the middle of a freezing November night. This resulted in a cancelled holiday, and meant a return home during the night from Torquay to Oxford with the windows open! A ghastly experience in a brand new van. first reg. October 2019. The waste water system fell off, on the M5 and on reaching home the Sargent black screen of death appeared. This on the third soldered up replacement Sargent EC 700 display screen!  I am unlucky? are all £61.000 luxury motorhomes this bad?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Spec in pdf at bottom of page. AS are only fitting to panel vans at the moment.

Phoboff wrote:....... are all £61.000 luxury motorhomes this bad?

That sounds terrible. I can assure you that you are not alone in forking out £60k for a faulty new morothome. I had a Rapido with an electric bed that wasn't assembled properly. On one occasion it left me, having had two glasses of wine at a wedding reception, the choice between failing to get to sleep on its lounge floor in my wedding attire, or driving 120 miles home. The main dealer was unable to fix the fault in three attempts, and after I had fixed the electrical fault for them the bed collapsed in one corner. Luckily I wasn't driving.
A Burstner dealer told me that all non-German manufacturers pay their staff a bonus on how many motorhomes they get out the factory door. The German ones (He actually said Burstner, because that is what he sells) take their profits and stick a certain amount of money in a "Warranty fund". Warranty claims are paid out from this fund and at the end of the year, the warranty fund is distributed to the workers as a bonus. Thus, each person on the assembly line makes sure their particular operation has been done properly and is working before it goes on to the next operative.
Another dealer has told me this week that they are in future only going to sell German motorhomes.

I know that Truma Combi's tend to be a bit smelly when first fired up but that's a tad excessive. There again they've been fitted in motorhomes and many  many more caravans over the last decade or more and generally work fine.

Do we know why A-S have started using the Whale and dropped Truma?
I did see that some Whale heaters can be mounted under the floor.

We had the previous similar Whale heater fitted to our 2014 Kemerton. It is mounted under the step up into the cab and was a very compact and utterly reliable unit . I would be quite happy to buy a new van tomorrow on previous experience if similarly equipped.

kaspian wrote:We had the previous similar Whale heater fitted to our 2014 Kemerton. It is mounted under the step up into the cab and was a very compact and utterly reliable unit . I would be quite happy to buy a new van tomorrow on previous experience if similarly equipped.

Did this mean you had more space in the locker under the bench seat?

The Duetto our previous van, under the bench seat had a separate compartment for the services, the blown air heater, the Truma water heater, and the battery charger. Some years ago I remember looking at a Timberland van. Under it's bench seat you could see all the services, which your clothes would probably be touching. We then bought a Kemerton XL, Ugg, no separate compartment, as in the Timberland.

I think it rather poor that you don’t get a bench seat clothes locker all to yourself. Perhaps having an underfloor Whale gives you more locker space?

Don't they normally have one side with all the services and the opposite bench free for storage. There again, if there's just one bench then it'll have services under.

In our Duetto the services were in a rather small compartment, though the water pump was at the back of the fridge. I know because I had to change the pump. The upside was I then knew where to fit a Whale surge damper, an excellent addition. It stopped the water pump stuttering at low flows, and stopped it switching on every few minutes if the pressure fell slightly. It smoothed out the flow.

Relaxez-Vous wrote:

kaspian wrote:We had the previous similar Whale heater fitted to our 2014 Kemerton. It is mounted under the step up into the cab and was a very compact and utterly reliable unit . I would be quite happy to buy a new van tomorrow on previous experience if similarly equipped.

Did this mean you had more space in the locker under the bench seat?

The Duetto our previous van, under the bench seat had a separate compartment for the services, the blown air heater, the Truma water heater, and the battery charger. Some years ago I remember looking at a Timberland van. Under it's bench seat you could see all the services, which your clothes would probably be touching. We then bought a Kemerton XL, Ugg, no separate compartment, as in the Timberland.

I think it rather poor that you don’t get a bench seat clothes locker all to yourself. Perhaps having an underfloor Whale gives you more locker space?

  Yes, the heater is inside the cab step and the separate water heater was built in under the kitchen sink so the under sofa storage locker  was generous with the battery compartment and charger at the kitchen end of the locker!

Thanks, I'd say on our Kemerton XL A-S used too much of the space under the bench seat for the services. If the Whale system enables them to move things under floor and release for more usable space that would be a big plus for future purchasers.