Warwick XL and number of heating outlet vents

Looking at a new (2020) Warwick XL in a dealers showroom recently I noticed that it has 2 hot air outlets in the habitation area and one in the toilet shower room - a total of 3 outlets. 

This compares with "its sister ship" the Warwick Duo which I believe has 4 outlets - 2 in the habitation area, 1 in the cab end of the vehicle and 1 in the shower/toilet room. The Kemerton XL I believe has a similar number of outlets as per the Duo.

It strikes me that with no apparent (I could not find one and the showroom staff were of no real help) hot air outlet at the cab end of the vehicle it could get very cold in winter - does anyone have any experience of using the Warwick XL during cold weather?

I know a lot of people use oil filled electric rads etc in the cab area but it strikes me that a vehicle of that length should have an outlet at both ends to at least balance the air flow and prevent a draught from the unheated end.

It's such a small volumetric area that it's probably not an issue? 

RogerThat wrote:It's such a small volumetric area that it's probably not an issue? 

If so - then why put an additional one in the smaller Duo with the exact same layout?

Not entirely true, I'm afraid.
My 2011 and now my 2013 Warwick Duo, and I have also seen others had 3 warm air outlets as standard, one just fwd of cooker, one in bathroom the other in the side of the rh bed.
Now, controversy, and this has been discussed on here before....
Truma quite clearly state that all 4 outlets from the warm air heat exchanger must be populated, AS seem to disagree and blank off one of them
In both my Duos I have installed the 4th outlet, all parts from CAK Tanks BTW, the 4th outlet being also on the side of the rh bed, as I presume, Truma intended.
I am sure this is to ensure a balanced airflow over the warm air heat exchanger, before anyone asks, but what if one of the vents is closed, note that the vents never fully close, even "closed" there is still some airflow.

When we bought our Broadway ( new, 2014) it had a 4kW Truma heater installed. The spec says that it had a Winter Pack and that this included a  6kW Truma heater. The van went back to AS before we took delivery to have the change made as well as another, 4th, hot air outlet installed. This we were told was necessary to ensure the safe running of the more powerful heater.

Thanks Ian and Quilter, you are perfectly correct in regard to the Truma 6kW heater 4 outlet arrangement/requirement which was why I was surprised that there were only 3 outlets on the Warwick XL whereas most others had 4.

However, the latest 2020 camper van models have the new Whale 6kW mounted underfloor (to save internal locker space) heater. I would have thought that it would require a similar heat sink/outlet requirement as it is as powerful as the Truma - but maybe not as essential in this case as it is mounted outside and heat loss is natural. 
The Whale hot water heater is a completely separate item and fitted inside the vehicle!

My real question is why is there no heat outlet to the front of the van and do other XL users find it a cold spot without the extra vent?

After all, this area is the least insulated (front and side windows and doors) part of the vehicle and IMO more likely to get colder and for Mrs L to complain of feeling a draught!

As I understand it, the new Whale heater is mounted to the chassis under the vehicle and as such, I would have thought it very easy to run ducting to most parts of the vehicle.

The stock answer I received from the agent was that it had passed the Grade3 insulation test with flying colours and therefore probably didn't require a hot air outlet at the front of the van!

Well spotted - we moved from a Duo to an XL and the heating isn’t good on the XL. 

It went back to the AS Service Centre a couple of times as the front half of the cab can get very cold even when the lounge/sleeping area and shower are as hot as the sun.

In the end, one honest soul put their hands up and admitted it was a flawed design and would never evenly distribute heat in the vehicle - so much for all the marketing hype about insulation, working closely with Truma etc to obtain a high thermal rating. 

In my experience, there’s precious little insulation anywhere in the van and huge unprotected areas where it’s no different to a standard panel van e.g. empty rear door cavities!!

The issue with the heating design is down to the forward pipe that passes through the shower area, necessitating a reduction in ducting diameter. 

The result is that the mighty Truma 6 has asthma by the time it reaches the cab. You can barely tell if it’s working even on full fan. The Service Centre tried to improve the ducting run and also swopped the duct position on the Truma heater (production seem to randomly fit these and got it wrong on both our vans). 

It didn’t overcome the issue so we wedge the bathroom door open and hope the shower bleeds some heat up front. Pretty pathetic for a £65K van that we’d hoped would have an extended season having read the AS exaggerated winterisation claims.

Pity, as the van is a good layout and AS had plenty of time to correct these faults, however they continue to rely on customers / dealers to finish the build.

the main issue for poor heat distribution is the poorly located Truma. there are also many threads about the 'wrong' orientation causing severe access problems for fuses/pcb etc...despite specific Truma installation instructions to the contrary.
for even and consistent warmth, the unit needs to be centrally sited with two of the heating pipes supporting the rear of the van and the other two supporting the front.
to have only three vents connected is just plain wrong/lazy/cheap...
my own van has a similar footprint to the XL (6.4m x2.12m) yet it has 8 outlets plus a continuous dedicated pipe (with small outlets) which surrounds the rear bed providing a curtain of warm air..
all four outlet pipes are connected...
the front offside pipe has three outlets....one in the habitation door stepwell and two in the front offside cab.
the front nearside pipe also has three outlets...two in the dinette base and a further one in the nearside cab. the dinette outlets serve the central part of of the van (kitchen).
the third pipe serves the bathroom with its own outlet...
the fourth outlet supplies the bedroom surrounding 'curtain' and a further outlet in the garage to keep things warm and dry in winter...
heating pipe and outlet points are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things (as IanH mentions) and a well balanced sytem with multiple outlets covering potential cold spots (cab) costs little more than chucking together a system thats poorly sited and set up with the minimum that can be got away with.
my van is far, far better insulated than an AS PVC (including heated double floor) yet the manufacturer has seen fit to design in the same basic heating system as a fundamental component rather than bolt it on afterwards.
with AS also using much 'narrow pipe connectors' to squeeze past furniture (kitchens etc) what chance is there of maintaining heating flow to vents at the front with the heater at opposite end of the van?...

ps....Howie....using EL2 (1800w) wont be able to send a surge of heat to the front of your van...try using gas only or Mixed 2 (gas plus 180w electric) and you will notice some benefit.
with a Combi 6, you sould be able to run on gas with the fan on ECO and even this will provide far more heat than EL2 on HIGH.
good luck.

bolero boy wrote:the main issue for poor heat distribution is the poorly located Truma. there are also many threads about the 'wrong' orientation causing severe access problems for fuses/pcb etc...despite specific Truma installation instructions to the contrary.
for even and consistent warmth, the unit needs to be centrally sited with two of the heating pipes supporting the rear of the van and the other two supporting the front.
to have only three vents connected is just plain wrong/lazy/cheap...
my own van has a similar footprint to the XL (6.4m x2.12m) yet it has 8 outlets plus a continuous dedicated pipe (with small outlets) which surrounds the rear bed providing a curtain of warm air..
all four outlet pipes are connected...
the front offside pipe has three outlets....one in the habitation door stepwell and two in the front offside cab.
the front nearside pipe also has three outlets...two in the dinette base and a further one in the nearside cab. the dinette outlets serve the central part of of the van (kitchen).
the third pipe serves the bathroom with its own outlet...
the fourth outlet supplies the bedroom surrounding 'curtain' and a further outlet in the garage to keep things warm and dry in winter...
heating pipe and outlet points are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things (as IanH mentions) and a well balanced sytem with multiple outlets covering potential cold spots (cab) costs little more than chucking together a system thats poorly sited and set up with the minimum that can be got away with.
my van is far, far better insulated than an AS PVC (including heated double floor) yet the manufacturer has seen fit to design in the same basic heating system as a fundamental component rather than bolt it on afterwards.
with AS also using much 'narrow pipe connectors' to squeeze past furniture (kitchens etc) what chance is there of maintaining heating flow to vents at the front with the heater at opposite end of the van?...

ps....Howie....using EL2 (1800w) wont be able to send a surge of heat to the front of your van...try using gas only or Mixed 2 (gas plus 180w electric) and you will notice some benefit.
with a Combi 6, you sould be able to run on gas with the fan on ECO and even this will provide far more heat than EL2 on HIGH.
good luck.

A great sales pitch for a foreign van but not at all relevant or helpful to the question I was asking!!

Kemerton-bath wrote:Oh here we go again, Carthago vs AS, I thought we’d moved on from this.

I don’t dispute that AS could do a better job on their insulation and heating, but a new Carthago c-compactline i138 exceeds £86k, so hardly a relevant comparison.

you missed the point (not surprising)...
it costs the same to implement a good Combi set up as it does to implement a poor one...
placing the unit centrally, correctly orientated and with sufficient outlets to service all four corners of the van are all part of the Truma installation instructions....and fairly basic thinking?
yes, an A class with a different body construction is going to cost more but the cost of the heating system is roughly the same....in fact, adding a bit more pipe and a few more vents is a trivial amount of the overall cost....and a AS PVC at £60k+ is still a sizeable outlay, is it not?
no, this is about not understanding the systems they are implementing, not complying with the installation guidelines and considering the heating system as an afterthought not a fundamental design component.
im sorry you dont like to hear 'criticisim' of AS vans but a balanced forum needs to be able to discuss all aspects, both good and bad. the poster i was responding to was unhappy, i was just commenting that it can be done better for the same cost...
perhaps you should look closely at the insulation levels and heating layout in a Malibu PVC?...similarly priced to an AS PVC but light years ahead in these areas.

Liam, good luck with the Whale system, perhaps ypu can update us on its performance when the seasons change...

Liam wrote:

bolero boy wrote:the main issue for poor heat distribution is the poorly located Truma. there are also many threads about the 'wrong' orientation causing severe access problems for fuses/pcb etc...despite specific Truma installation instructions to the contrary.
for even and consistent warmth, the unit needs to be centrally sited with two of the heating pipes supporting the rear of the van and the other two supporting the front.
to have only three vents connected is just plain wrong/lazy/cheap...
my own van has a similar footprint to the XL (6.4m x2.12m) yet it has 8 outlets plus a continuous dedicated pipe (with small outlets) which surrounds the rear bed providing a curtain of warm air..
all four outlet pipes are connected...
the front offside pipe has three outlets....one in the habitation door stepwell and two in the front offside cab.
the front nearside pipe also has three outlets...two in the dinette base and a further one in the nearside cab. the dinette outlets serve the central part of of the van (kitchen).
the third pipe serves the bathroom with its own outlet...
the fourth outlet supplies the bedroom surrounding 'curtain' and a further outlet in the garage to keep things warm and dry in winter...
heating pipe and outlet points are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things (as IanH mentions) and a well balanced sytem with multiple outlets covering potential cold spots (cab) costs little more than chucking together a system thats poorly sited and set up with the minimum that can be got away with.
my van is far, far better insulated than an AS PVC (including heated double floor) yet the manufacturer has seen fit to design in the same basic heating system as a fundamental component rather than bolt it on afterwards.
with AS also using much 'narrow pipe connectors' to squeeze past furniture (kitchens etc) what chance is there of maintaining heating flow to vents at the front with the heater at opposite end of the van?...

ps....Howie....using EL2 (1800w) wont be able to send a surge of heat to the front of your van...try using gas only or Mixed 2 (gas plus 180w electric) and you will notice some benefit.
with a Combi 6, you sould be able to run on gas with the fan on ECO and even this will provide far more heat than EL2 on HIGH.
good luck.

A great sales pitch for a foreign van but not at all relevant or helpful to the question I was asking!!

Yes, a foreign van but the same heating system as owned by the AS poster (HowieT)i was responding to...

I do sometimes despair, Liam was so careful to make his one question extremely clear. Fortunately one member actually read it and answered the question posed.

We own a 2017 Warwick XL that we purchased from an Auto Sleeper dealer. It has 4 heater outlets
which includes the less obvious 1 at the cab end of the vehicle. The heating system is good (it overheated once and gave off fumes, but the dealer couldn’t find any fault with it). The only minor fault was the first time we used the blown air, 1 of the vents had no airflow. On investigating I lifted the seat to find it had part of the ducting missing, but the storage locker was lovely and warm!

Peter Brown wrote:I do sometimes despair, Liam was so careful to make his one question extremely clear.  Fortunately one member actually read it and answered the question posed.

peter, despair at your leisure, i was responding to Howies post as you well know..

perhaps you (and others) glossed over his (also despairing) comments about poor insulation, lack of heater outlets, narrowing of pipework to circumvent furniture and being "Pretty pathetic for a £65K van that we’d hoped would have an extended season having read the AS exaggerated winterisation claims"

oh, and his well fitted fridge!

however, as i (a heretic) chose to reply, it was me that gets the never ending vitriol from owners who chose to ignore the many threads that dare highlight AS shortcomings rather than offer folk like Howie some constructive advice on how to make his van fit for purpose...


have a good day all.

HowieT wrote:Well spotted - we moved from a Duo to an XL and the heating isn’t good on the XL. 

It went back to the AS Service Centre a couple of times as the front half of the cab can get very cold even when the lounge/sleeping area and shower are as hot as the sun.

In the end, one honest soul put their hands up and admitted it was a flawed design and would never evenly distribute heat in the vehicle - so much for all the marketing hype about insulation, working closely with Truma etc to obtain a high thermal rating. 

In my experience, there’s precious little insulation anywhere in the van and huge unprotected areas where it’s no different to a standard panel van e.g. empty rear door cavities!!

The issue with the heating design is down to the forward pipe that passes through the shower area, necessitating a reduction in ducting diameter. 

The result is that the mighty Truma 6 has asthma by the time it reaches the cab. You can barely tell if it’s working even on full fan. The Service Centre tried to improve the ducting run and also swopped the duct position on the Truma heater (production seem to randomly fit these and got it wrong on both our vans). 

It didn’t overcome the issue so we wedge the bathroom door open and hope the shower bleeds some heat up front. Pretty pathetic for a £65K van that we’d hoped would have an extended season having read the AS exaggerated winterisation claims.

Pity, as the van is a good layout and AS had plenty of time to correct these faults, however they continue to rely on customers / dealers to finish the build.

Thanks HowieT, your reply is very helpful and has proved that my initial gut feeling and engineering instinct was not totally wrong.
We also like the layout of the XL and it is a real shame that it is spoilt by an inefficient heat distribution layout which with some minor tweaks could be improved.
I will endeavour to pursue with the powers that be the reasons for this current design layout and see if there is any possibility of making changes/improvements - at least to new manufactured vans.
Watch this space!

Norfolkretireds wrote:We own a 2017 Warwick XL that we purchased from an Auto Sleeper dealer. It has 4 heater outlets
which includes the less obvious 1 at the cab end of the vehicle. The heating system is good (it overheated once and gave off fumes, but the dealer couldn’t find any fault with it). The only minor fault was the first time we used the blown air, 1 of the vents had no airflow. On investigating I lifted the seat to find it had part of the ducting missing, but the storage locker was lovely and warm!

Thanks Norfolkretireds and welcome to the forum. 
You have illustrated my point precisely - 2017 model 4 heater outlets and the 2020 model (as seen by me in a showroom) only 3 outlets!! 
Staff in the showroom confirmed that I could count and there were only 3 vents!
I hope you enjoy your new van.