Warwick XL Heating

In cold weather i'm finding the front end of my van to be pretty cold. The seating area is cosy but when I walk up front you can feel the cold. There are only 3 heating vents, 1 at each end of the bench seats and one in the shower. Just wondering if it would be possible to have an additional vent fitted somewhere up front. Has anyone got any experience of this.

First question - - Do you use an external screen? Silverscreen or Taylormade, both are excellent and you might be surprised by how much warmer they keep the cab end of the van in cold weather. The single glazed cab windows lose your heat very quickly, and without a screen our van is significantly colder at the cab end.

Don't go for an internal screen though. Whatever the adverts claim, they do not prevent condensation!!

Sorry but I don't know your van but I have fitted two additional heater vents to my Dorset and altered where it takes the input to the heater as this was the main cause for the front of my van being cold.
Looking at the layout plan it looks like the heater vent in the loo is on the wall backing onto the cab area so it might be possible to simply add a T piece onto this and a heater vent on the other side.

I'd second Gromit's comments about external insulation screens, they make a massive difference as the cab front and side windows are the only single glazed parts of the van. 

Also if your cab heating/ventilation system has a recirculation setting then set that so the damper is closed to outside, eliminating a source of draughts which can be surprisingly strong if the wind is blowing towards the inlet.

As we are almost always on sites with hookup, we carry a small 500W oil filled radiator during chillier months. Depending on how cold it is, we either use it on low for background throughout the night or else on a timer to come on in the morning to warm the van up before we get up. We site that in the cab area between the driver and passenger seats, mainly so I don't have to navigate past it for nocturnal loo visits but also because that tends to be the coolest part of the van.

We also have a Warwick XL. There is actually another vent which you havn't mentioned on ours, it is on the step up into the cab area, in the middle and faces the rear. It is also pretty useless. We also find outside screens in the colder months a bonus as others have said. We usually leave the toilet door open a bit to let some of the heat escape to the front end as the toilet and shower is overheated on ours.

Justus2 wrote:We also have a Warwick XL. There is actually another vent which you havn't mentioned on ours, it is on the step up into the cab area, in the middle and faces the rear. It is also pretty useless.  . . . .

Our Pollensa has a vent by the step into the hab area which I believe is designed to allow any leakage of LPG to escape, it being heavier than air so requiring a low level vent (there is also one in the external LPG locker floor). That should never be blocked for obvious reasons.

I don't know if this might be the purpose of the vent you mention, if it's part of the conversion, although if it is part of the original base vehicle then it probably isn't.

On the Dorset this is the inlet side hence my comment on it being cold in this area
You could tell as it was simply a grill cover and not a swivel/close vent
David

I think the vent in the step is fed from the engine heating system to provide hot or cool air to the habitation area when you are travelling. Unfortunately the vent in the shower is on the wrong side for me to take a tee off of it. I think the only way would be to run a piece of trunking under the floor and maybe tie in to the step vent. Seems like a lot of work, may just buy the missus some thermals.

Hot water bottle or electric blanket,,,BUSBY65.

I think the vent in the step is fed from the engine heating system...

I think it is fed from the Truma heater.  Have you checked that the flap is open?

Also an AS trick is to cut the duct too short so that it falls out of the vent.  I have just sorted this on our Warwick Duo.

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I have put an extra branch into the lounge.

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PeteJ

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I became curious about the Warwick XL heating so have had a look at ours... There are 3 main heating ducts as Greycaster said in his original post, 2 in the seating area and 1 in the shower. However, there is another in the step, up to the cab. There is NO airflow with the cab fan on, but there is a flow with the Truma fan on, therefore it is certainly a Truma outlet. It is not of the normal flap type it has an open plastic grill. Looking at the Truma heater, there are 2 pipes which go forward, one feeds the shower vent, the other, as per the pic first goes into a reducer which halves the diameter of the pipe, presumably so it will fit behind the washoorm fittings, and I am assuming it is this one which goes all the way to the step vent. Because it is the smallest diameter, and the longest run, not much comes out of it unless you close all the other vents. Not much use at all in my opinion. Hope this helps.

this is like mine the grill type is the inlet pipe on mine  and as previously mentioned was making the van cold try putting a tissue in front of it with doors and window closed and see which way it blows.
Rightly or wrongly I have left the grill vent in place but have disconnected the pipe from it and this is now left in the open space under the floor which means it can still draw all the air it needs but not from a concentrated source i.e. the grill
David

I have tried shutting all the other vents and ramping up the heating to full but there seems to be very little or nothing coming out of the step vent. I am currently in Switzerland and stayed the night in the Gothard pass, temp was -2 during the night. I had to set the temp at 9 deg to maintain a temp of 18 deg in the sleeping area as it was so cold up front. If I set the temp at anything higher it became too hot in the sleeping area. I think I will contact Autosleepers to find out exactly what that vent should be doing.