At last, no more cold nights and chilly mornings - the Eberspacher heater is fitted:
Above is the view from the driver's footwell showing the air-inlet end of the Airtronic unit.
And here's the view from the rear of the seat base showing the hot air ducting exiting the unit. The benefits of mounting the unit here are threefold; it is inside the cab away from the elements, the amount of ducting required is reduced and therefore the unit is more efficient, and the unit can be flat-mounted as oppose to side-mounted under the van - this increases efficiency and reduces the chances of failure.
Here's a shot of the 'extra' ducting they've supplied:
We're back at
Campershak in two weeks to have this reduced and tidied-up to look something more like this:
Here's where the magic happens:
We went for the seven-day timer due to our early starts five days a week - there's nothing more depressing than spending 20 minutes warming a van up in the cold and scraping ice off the windscreen just to go to work! So far we've worked out the thermostat control and set the clock - next is working out the programmable days and on/off times - reading the manual everything seems fairly straightforward.
Initial reports are that the unit is very quiet after it's initial start-up period, quiet enough to sleep through. And on full-power the air is very warm! Probably too warm!!! But its good to know we can get a good amount of warmth quickly after being out in the elements walking or biking.
Speaking of noise, we also went for the extra silencer, this sits above the plastic undertray - again, away from the elements. Here's a shot of the exhaust:
It should be quiet enough not to bother any neighboring campers - I'm now looking forward to the temperature dropping to put the Eber to the test!
Loving this! A cheeky question: how much was it?
ReplyDeleteAlso does this have a remote control so you can switch it on from inside the house when it's frosty? Or are you relying on "defrosting" the van every day through the winter, even when it's not rainy?
Also, does it have a timer? So you can set it up to come on in an hour, if you're surfing and expect to be 90 minutes or so in the water for example - so the van is toasty when you come back to it...?
Cheers!
Blakey
Cheeky answer: just over a grand. Yes, I gulped too...
ReplyDeleteYou can buy cheaper on eBay but I wanted the confidence of buying brand new and it isn't something I'm confident at fitting myself. Coupled with a 2 year, European-wide warranty, spending the extra is worth it.
A remote control can be added later - I've gone with the 7-day timer; this has three programmable settings (a bit like a central heating timer) so I can have say, Mon-Fri 6.30-7.00 then Saturday 9.00-10.00 and so on... this can be manually over-ridden at any point. Hot air comes thru in 90 seconds of startup.
A thermostat can also be added to the system so if it drops blow a pre-determined temp the unit will kick into life.
'Manual-on' gives an instant switch on from anywhere between a single hour's use to up-to 8 hours continuous use. Temperature can be set in 20 increments between very luke-warm and 'its too hot open a window!'. So if I go out on the bike for a couple of hours I can leave the heater ticking over on warm until I return.
Fuel consumption is between 0.1 litre per hour on low to 0.3 litre per hour on max and draw on the leisure battery is very light.
On anything other than full-power the unit is whisper-quiet - an absolute must for a good night's sleep.
As the old saying goes: 'you get what you pay for'...