Re: On Board Water Usage

[bikeralw]

Our record abroad was 34 nights away in total, with only 6 of them on sites, and they were all in Croatia and Slovenia where it's illegal to free camp.
As you say, everything required for living is onboard, why not use it? With a solar panel fitted, water is the only thing that needs replenishing. 
It's not being tight, we spend lots of money when touring, just not on overnight parking fees.
Al.

[gassygassy]

Another way of putting it is that I wouldn't pay £3 an hour to park my car, (or motorhome) so why should I pay £25 a night to park on someone's grass?

[sunidorset]

Hi,
 Did any of the replies recommend regularly keeping an eye on the shower tray floor, especially around the drain plugs?
.
 When it's all dry, check for any flexing around the drains. I have reinforced my shower tray ( AS Broadway) around the drain inside the door ( ie towards the front of the van).  The tray was flexing and cracked. Ofcourse I also repaired the crack with a proprietary kit. That was almost 3 years ago.
Before the bathroom sink drain surround might have subsequently cracked ( as on our previous van),  I reinforced the plastic/GRP from underneath. Crawling under the van can be addictive!
Having said  all this, we love the Broadway and have just returned from 3 weeks away, going as far north as midge free Loch Tummel. We had the umbrellas up just twice...Don't take BBC weather forecasts too seriously - you'd never go anywhere!
Enjoy!

[IanH]

By way of reply to OP, just had 4 days, 3 nights away, we don't use the shower.
Left here full, 67l, ,  Prob 60l at destination due overflow etc.

Got back here and drained it, not scientific but prob 5l came out, so a fair daily use, for us, would be 22 or so ltrs

[gassygassy]

After many years of not realising it I recently hit upon the idea of finding out exactly what your water tank capacity is. Tell everyone in the house not to flush a toilet or turn on a tap or the washing machine or dishwasher. Empty your camper's fresh water tank and close the drain tap. Run some water through your garden hose to make sure it's full. Put the hose in the camper's water filler. Go to your water meter and note the reading. Fill the camper water tank and turn off the tap when it is full. Go to the water meter and note the reading. Take one from the other and that is your fresh water tank capacity. The fact that I had never thought of that before is beyond belief!

[bikeralw]

The one snag with that for me is I don't have a water meter! And long may I not have one. I realise I might conceivably be paying more in water rates, but I can use a hosepipe, power wash, fill my spa whenever etc, without having to worry about usage.
Al.

[Dbvwt]

Nice idea gg but my meter would barely register any use and make an accurate reading impossible.
If I wanted to know the exact size of my tank I would empty it then fill with my 10l container, using a smaller 1l to finish off and get an accurate measurement.

[IanH]

I agree, mine is in whole and decimals of a cubic metre, which is 1000litrs as you know. So 67 is gonna be stretching the accuracy levels of the 20 odd yr old water meter methinks!!!!

[justlooking]

To go back to Uncle Mort’s original questions concerning the Combi 6e boiler, in my experience the boiler won’t function on electricity unless the gas supply is switched on, irrespective of whether I wanted to use the gas option. I coudn’t find this highlighted in the Truma documentation and had to You Tube the error code.

[gassygassy]

you're right, justlooking. I couldn't figure out why when that happened to me. Odd.

[Guest]

To go back to Uncle Mort’s original questions concerning the Combi 6e boiler, in my experience the boiler won’t function on electricity unless the gas supply is switched on, irrespective of whether I wanted to use the gas option. I coudn’t find this highlighted in the Truma documentation and had to You Tube the error code.

well, thats a new one on me....however, as we only have gas to cook with, its usual for us to have the gas turned on even if we will be using electric for heating.....ill have to test this out as ive not seen it in any documentation nor posted on any forum...one to try later.

[Guest]

By way of reply to OP, just had 4 days, 3 nights away, we don't use the shower.
Left here full, 67l, ,  Prob 60l at destination due overflow etc.

Got back here and drained it, not scientific but prob 5l came out, so a fair daily use, for us, would be 22 or so ltrs

...Ian, does this mean all your camping is on sites where there are facilities? not an issue but, if you added two showers a day (say 15 lts combined hot/cold) that would push your usage upto around 37 ltrs a day, which would mean refilling every other day.
for comparison, weve just had a week on a CL with no facilities so had to shower in the van (a regular thing for us as we use plenty of aires when 'away') and our tank lasts us 5/6 days even using showers.
i know we are all different, but we average 22 ltrs or so daily including showers.
when on a site with showers, we reckon our usage is around 10-12 ltrs a day as we manage 10-12 days without topping up. 
our pals have a 70 odd ltr tank yet seem to fill (and empty waste) every other day...but i know they wash up several times a day under running water.
i guess it depends how close the supply is as to whether this becomes a chore or not.
as i said, each user is different but we dont seem (to me) to be 'over thrifty' but dont clean teeth or wash hands under a full running tap, nor draw a full bowl of water just to wash a couple of cups.
i guess if you regularly use THS/aires/CL where a water tap isnt close by, habits change slightly.
we also have a meter at home (bills halved when the kids left home) then dropped further as we spent many months away in the van, so 'water thrift' (though not excessive) became normal practice.

[Guest]

To go back to Uncle Mort’s original questions concerning the Combi 6e boiler, in my experience the boiler won’t function on electricity unless the gas supply is switched on, irrespective of whether I wanted to use the gas option. I coudn’t find this highlighted in the Truma documentation and had to You Tube the error code.

well, thats a new one on me....however, as we only have gas to cook with, its usual for us to have the gas turned on even if we will be using electric for heating.....ill have to test this out as ive not seen it in any documentation nor posted on any forum...one to try later.

just posted this query on another forum and got two responses where users HAD run the system successfully on EL with the gas turned off. 
there are no error messages to be found along the lines of 'gas not present whole in EL mode'...
Gassy, have you the You tube link?

[Caraman]

To go back to Uncle Mort’s original questions concerning the Combi 6e boiler, in my experience the boiler won’t function on electricity unless the gas supply is switched on, irrespective of whether I wanted to use the gas option. I coudn’t find this highlighted in the Truma documentation and had to You Tube the error code.

well, thats a new one on me....however, as we only have gas to cook with, its usual for us to have the gas turned on even if we will be using electric for heating.....ill have to test this out as ive not seen it in any documentation nor posted on any forum...one to try later.

just posted this query on another forum and got two responses where users HAD run the system successfully on EL with the gas turned off. 
there are no error messages to be found along the lines of 'gas not present whole in EL mode'...
Gassy, have you the You tube link?

I run my Combi successfully with the power source on the Truma CP set to electricity only and the gas tap turned off.  I wonder if when the Truma CP is set to gas and electricity the gas tap has to be on?

[Guest]

u

well, thats a new one on me....however, as we only have gas to cook with, its usual for us to have the gas turned on even if we will be using electric for heating.....ill have to test this out as ive not seen it in any documentation nor posted on any forum...one to try later.

just posted this query on another forum and got two responses where users HAD run the system successfully on EL with the gas turned off. 
there are no error messages to be found along the lines of 'gas not present whole in EL mode'...
Gassy, have you the You tube link?

I run my Combi successfully with the power source on the Truma CP set to electricity only and the gas tap turned off.  I wonder if when the Truma CP is set to gas and electricity the gas tap has to be on?

yes, it definitely would need to be on...
more responses on the other forum tend to suggest that perhaps the unit 'errored' when it ran out of gas and then was hard to 'reset' when moving back to electric.
having said that, we use has for heating when wintering in Spain (bottled gas there is far cheaper than metered electric) and we did run out once.....i think i just changed over to the other bottle and away it went.

[gassygassy]

.......
Gassy, have you the You tube link?

Now you have me wondering, I know there was an occasion when I couln't get the heater to work on electric with the gas off, but I now wonder if there was some other fault. It was only in my driveway and I was just checking the boiler works. I didn't need the heat so I stopped trying. I may have fiddled about and found it works with the gas on, but I can't be sure now.

What youtube link did you want Chris?

[Guest]

sorry Gassy.....twas Just looking, not ypu,  who posted this....my mistake....

I coudn’t find this highlighted in the Truma documentation and had to You Tube the error code.

[marconi]

There are Truma error codes for :- Gas cylinder empty - 507 and Gas cylinder or quick-acting valve in the gas supply line closed - 516,517 on 6e's manufactured after April 2018. 112/121 and 122/202 prior.

You would expect these codes in Gas or Mixed mode settings.

I just noticed some different wording on the Frost Control operation. :-

At temperatures below 3 °C, the FrostControl drain valve opens and automatically drains the tank. The water is drained intermittently so that the drain doesn’t freeze.


How do they do the intermittent draining. Or is it the vacuum makes the flow stop and gasp for air. Hmm must make that into a feature.

[gassygassy]

That intermittent thing makes no sense at all. Running water is far less likely to freeze than still water. So it will dump a slug of water, then the drain will freeze up and block further drainage.
Though to be realistic -or maybe not- if it opens at 3 degrees the water isn't going to freeze anyway.
Thinks: It may be 3 inside the van where the valve is, but minus something outside which would cause the water to freeze.
Thinks part 2: possibly once a slug of water has left the boiler and drained, there will be an air gap inside the boiler which would take up the freezing water expansion. It isn't going to be me who tests that though.
Have you heard Truma's answer to 'How do I stop it from freezing when I am away from the van?' Truma's answer: leave the heating on.

[justlooking]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuW_0uEzMDI
This YouTube post shows how to do a hard reset on the Truma 6e boiler. I haven’t needed to use it but it’s useful to know. My experience is -  no gas turned on, no boiler function on electric. Others may have different experience.

[Caraman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuW_0uEzMDI
This YouTube post shows how to do a hard reset on the Truma 6e boiler. I haven’t needed to use it but it’s useful to know. My experience is -  no gas turned on, no boiler function on electric. Others may have different experience.

A useful video.  I have had to reset my Combi to clear error codes on a number of occasions by pressing the microswitch next to the LEDs.  Earlier models do not have this facility.  As discussed on another thread, the Combi is mounted so that the PCB faces the sidewall which makes it difficult to do the first time as the PCB cover, the PCB, switch and LEDs are all out of sight.  I keep a hand mirror in the Nuevo solely to do this job for which a torch and third hand are also useful.  I was taught how to do it over the phone by a Marquis technician when the Combi had completely packed up.

[gassygassy]

I don't know why A/S fit them that way anyway. Just out of interest I rotated the boiler in my Nuevo through 180 degrees and refitted it. No problems. No reason so far as I can see for not fitting it that way and then if you need to reset it or replace a fuse, or even replace the pcb you can just remove the brown vent panel under the wardrobe and get access.
You need a Sainsbury's Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce tin with both ends cut off and the beans eaten, a couple of jubilee clips and water pipe to re-route the pipes, cut / bend / reconnect the gas pipe and that's about it. If you read the manufacturer's fitting instructions this is how they should have been fitted in the first place. Not with the Sainsbury's baked bean tin, just a continuous hot air pipe. But the same amount of materials would be used so there isn't even a halfpenny worth of savings for fitting it wrongly as A/S do.
Furthermore as the electronics are now adjacent to the air vent under the wardrobe and not enclosed at the hot area near the wall, the electronics will last longer. Any electronics engineer knows that the cooler you can run a circuit the less likely it is to go faulty.

[gassygassy]

OK I'll try again. My Apple Macbook only shows tiny thumbnail prints when I want to select a picture so it is difficult to see if I am getting the right one. And it only seems to allow one picture per post.

[gassygassy]

OOH! That worked. I wonder why it didn't the first time. I'll add some more. I was going to write an article for MMM, but I doubt they would publish anything promoting the ideas a) that A/S fit it wrongly and more importantly b) that you yourself, without a Gold Star in Professional Gas Pipe Fitting Certificate can possibly cut a piece of pipe, rotate it 90 degrees and reconnect it with a 10mm compression fitting and gas sealing compound.


.........harrumph. I don't like this 'host an image' system. I selected four pictures. I pressed 'send all'. I watched them all gradually load, then they disappeared so I pressed 'send'. They haven't appeared. I did nothing different to what I did in my previous post.
Try again . . .

[marconi]

Another YouTube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYTFY6c9AcI

It comes from the time of the technology they use too.