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Writer's pictureGav Parker

The heat is on

Updated: Feb 28, 2022


At present we’re parked up on a friend’s driveway, staying in the house for the weekend and looking after the dog whilst she’s away. So with a clear block of time in one place, with water and power to hand, now’s a good time to sort out a couple of jobs on the van, give it a fresh sweep and a Spring clean.


We’ve had an issue with heating, along with a long list of other things that need sorting. But we did notice, just before Christmas, that the heater in the back of the van had stopped working. The good news was that it didn’t just stop. It still came on. But it only blew out cold air. Which was no good to us back then. And in the couple of months since.


So there’s six flashing lights going off on the control panel which after a quick search on the internet, means it’s an ignition fault. We’ve got gas and we’ve got power but for some reason the system isn’t igniting to warm it up.


I’ve wanted to do this job for quite a while, with it being really cold on a night-time, but I’ve had to be somewhere for a couple of days in order to sort it out. Everything’s custom fit and I need room. Just this morning, it took me 2½ hours just to get the unit out the back of the van, underneath the seating area.



So, I’ve got that out and I’ve managed to strip the machine right down to its essential bits and I’ve come to the heater exchanger. If it were working, the gas ignites and heats up this big tube which has got fins on it. And then the fan blows the air and goes through all the duct piping and feeds the warm air to the van.


I’ve never done something like this before but I do enjoy the experience of learning something new. Especially things that are pretty robust, and this unit is. It’s 20 years old and still has a lot of life in it.



So I’ve stripped it down, given it all a clean and realigned the ignition element which is like two prongs that were covered in green oxidisation. And it was just a simple matter of giving that a light sand down with fine grade emery paper and then reassembling everything.

I’ve just got a couple of things to do to finish the job. We need some exhaust shielding pipe which goes underneath the van and some really high quality fire retardant sealant which goes through the floor. But I’ve plumbed it all in, tested it, checked for gas leaks and I’m so happy that when I switched it on, the green light stayed on. First it went to amber to indicate that it was igniting and then it went to green. And after 10 minutes, we just had a nice belt of heat coming out form the blow air system. What a joy! Another job on the list that I can very nearly tick off.



And whilst we’ve been here as well, I’ve been able to charge the batteries. So we’ve got two full batteries now and our third, which stays in the car, that’s nearly full too.


So this moment in time, I’m a little bit more happy as regards things that need doing to the van. It’s a relief when things pan out how you expected them to be. I’m glad I didn’t come to plugging everything in and the heater just had more issues. It was just nice that it went to plan. Not everything comes easy. So today’s a good day. Thank you.

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