"Scorching" smell from electric water heater

When the water heater is operating on electric, and the space heater is off, we get a strong smell of scorching in our 2014 Stanton. There is never any odour whilst the space heater is operating. I reported this at the recent habitation service but was I was fobbed off with "there are often smells", I asked them to check for signs of scorching but they reported no problems.

Has anyone else experienced this?

If it's a Truma Combi it's a common problem and apparently nothing to worry about. It happens on our Combi 6, mainly when on the higher current setting. I think it's caused by slight vaporisation of the metalised internal coating to the ducts getting hot, as when on water heating, no air is passing through the ducts and they pick up residual heat from the boiler.

In the early days I spoke to Truma about it and, on their recommendation, made a couple of changes to the duct layout which made little or no difference. We've lived with it for 6 years now.

Thanks nimbus. Originally thought it was smell from "new" boiler but it has persisted. From your experience it sounds like nothing to be concerned about.

Whenever we get the smell we turn off the Combi as the water has usually reached temperature by then. But it's not nice and I would describe it as acrid rather than scorching. Or maybe a combination of the two!

If you do a Google search on Truma Combi smell you'll find we're not alone.

Ours is exactly as Nimbus describes and we too spoke in length to Truma and also had a chat with the tech people at the show where they had a sectioned one to show me the innards. I was worried as I thought it smelt like burning electrics. They said as Nimbus that it was from the ducting and not the actual heater so not a prob. And yes ours still does it after a couple of years and quite a lot of use.

Try using heating and hot water mode with the room thermostat turned down.
Pete

pjkxpjkx wrote:Try using heating and hot water mode with the room thermostat turned down.
Pete

Good point; presume that would keep a bit of air moving through the ducts? (Can't try at mo as away in the tugger) 

Thank you all. We lived with the smell in our last van for 7 years having been assured at various times that it was " newness", dust, inadequate ventilation, too much insulation, scorching if adjacent woodwork etc etc etc. After a few years we were convinced it was not going to go up in flames and learnt to live with it

We were so disappointed when our new van ( AS Broadway) proved to have exactly the same smell when we bought it a year ago.

This explanation seems the most plausible and it is reassuring that others have the same smell.

Q

The van has been to AS today for a hab service and we asked that they look at the heater. This they did and the air hoses which take the hot air from the boiler itself to the two vents in the base of the wardrobe were renewed with much longer hoses which were re- routed round the back of the space before being attached to the air vents.

This is all as per Truma's recommendations.

Touch wood, fingers crossed etc but this seems to have done the trick. The water heating has been on this afternoon and, while we normally would have switched it off as soon as possible because of the unpleasant smell, we forgot about it and it switched itself off as soon as the water was hot enough. No smell.

Q

Any chance of a picture ? Sounds interesting 

Possibly ! The whole thing is walled in under the wardrobe and we are unwilling to remove all the pins and pegs to get at it that way. I forgot my phone and my OHs camera is a bit big to go in via the removable drawer, which is our only other access.

We' ll have a go when we get home at the weekend.

Q

Quilter wrote:The van has been to AS today for a hab service and we asked that they look at the heater. This they did and the air hoses which take the hot air from the boiler itself to the two vents in the base of the wardrobe were renewed with much longer hoses which were re- routed round the back of the space before being attached to the air vents.

This is all as per Truma's recommendations.

Touch wood, fingers crossed etc but this seems to have done the trick. The water heating has been on this afternoon and, while we normally would have switched it off as soon as possible because of the unpleasant smell, we forgot about it and it switched itself off as soon as the water was hot enough. No smell.

Q

Interesting!
The two vents under the wardrobe are fed with VERY short hoses direct to the two outlets on that side of the heater - literally only a couple of inches long. The bathroom vent has a long hose from the rear and loops round from one of the rear outlets to the vent in the bathroom. When I had my recent habitation service Mark arranged for the bathroom ducting to be moved from the rear lower outlet to the upper outlet and put the mising plug in the lower outlet.
When I say front or rear I mean as it is looking at the wardrobe from the fridge - ie rear is the side wall of the van, which is an EK, not an ES.

We had some smells at first but that was only the first few times of using the heater.

Quilter; don't worry about the pics as I think the two layouts between our vans are too different. I have sussed some good info though and now have a good idea or two 

Hi, is it possible to see by just taking the drawers out? I remember when we first got the Broadway I crawled all over it and into and behind drawers because I was interested in the construction and finish, checking to see if anything had been badly put together! I am like that, being a cabinet maker, draughtsman and cartographer for my sins - I can't help myself. In fact my wife says I can be quite embarrassing or is it irritating! I would love see a photo, if it is possible, of the re-routing of the longer hoses, as we also have an unexplained smell coming from the heater.

It's not a problem if it is not possible to do this.

Thanks 

Pete

Pete: we will do what we can when we get home and can get some decent light and a smaller camera into the area. I'm sure we'll manage something.

Q

Pete: My apologies. We went out to the van this afternoon to take photos of the new heater ducting. Unfortunately we can't remove the drawer to do so and have no other means of getting at the heater, short of removing the whole wardrobe front.

One of the things we asked be done at the service was to fix the drawer, which tended to slide out when we went round corners. It certainly doesn't do that any more but we now can't remove it.

Sorry.

Q

No problem Q, thanks for trying. If our smell persists I will ask Mark to have a look at it when we come back from our hols.
Regards
Pete

I have had this smell on both AS (both new vehicles with one having the combi 6). The smell is not unlike wire shorting and burning or electric element shorting. It is extremly unpleasant and obnoxious to the point that we have to open the door and vent the van out plus switching off the water heater. The smell is only apparent when the water is heated to 60C (which is actually running around 70C after switch off) So we switch to summer setting for the water which is then set to 40C but in summer setting the heating is imobilized. To me 60C is way to hot and under the health and safetey aspect could be a hazard especially where children are concerned.

Re the hoses if you look at Truma on line there are specifics for air hose to duct routings which are not complied with in my FB. Look in TrumaUK.com under heater donloads.

I am not happy with the Truma systems  and would never buy another van with such a system. It also rather worrying as some members are stating that the smell never goes away. I prefer the ALDE system which provides a better heating and consistant performance with no smells or operational restrictions. My next van will be based upon this as a priority item.

In order to prevent any possibility of Legionnaires disease you are supposed to heat your water up to a minimum of 60 deg C every now and again. This is the rule in public buildings and, given that we pick up water from all sorts of sources in our vans, seems sensible to maintain when travelling.

I well remember my chemistry teacher telling us that 60 deg C is the temperature at which water is just too hot to hold your hand under comfortably when it is tunning from the tap.

Health and safety hmmm. We have always taught our children to check water temp from taps etc and learn life skills to do their own health and safety assessment as a constant preservation procedure.

I'm sure your children are well versed in avoiding scalding themselves. I would prefer however, knowing of a forum acquaintance whose husband died of Legionnaires disease while on a holiday in their motorhome in France, that all campsites are obliged to follow sensible procedures to prevent it. We do the same in our van: common sense rather than anything else.

Sorry Quilter for any confusion, I was agreeing with you for having water at 60deg rather than the nanny state H+S comment re it being too hot.
Trouble with the written word, it can be misinterpreted

My fault: I 've a relative in the H&S Executive and he boils when all the silly stories come out of the likes of H& S ban conkers etc.!

I have to agree re H&S but would dissagree regarding the water temperature. Anyway it was a personanal viewpoint that 50C would be a better temperature for leisure use. As for deseases - its a first for me as I have just retired after 43 years travelling Middle East and Arica. As stated the written word is very often missinterpreted. I think that maybe I will just read the forums in the futue.

Sorry to you also Woodchuck didn't mean to sound rude re your comment. Was talking generally about H&S.