Front heating vents (Symbol Plus)

Having had our Symbol Plus only since the spring, we're just now starting to experiment with the heating system.  I find it can turn the kitchen area into a nice sauna, while the front vents, in the step behind the cab seats, emit a slight hint of a gentle warm breath.

I thought perhaps the ducts might be loose, or crushed under something in the under-sofa-storage... but they look fine. So I'm wondering whether I'm expecting too much from the long, rather thin pipes? (Or perhaps I haven't waited long enough.)

Does anyone get a nice warm blast around their feet from the heating?  (Like I used to get from the Webasto in our old Bilbos T5.) If not, I may need to volunteer to do the washing up more often!

Some of this, no doubt, is due to the fact that the butterfly throttle valve thing in the vent near the sink keeps falling out, so it's hard to restrict the air flowing that way, and that is the outlet with the biggest and shortest pipe.  I'm trying to fix that too. :-)

It sounds as if the dodgy adjuster may be allowing too much hot air into the rear of the van and starving the front. Add to that the longer pipe run to the front and you can see why you’re chilly in the lounge area. To make matters worse, the cab is always the coldest spot and a good insulated windscreen cover can help with this.

Thanks - that's a good reminder... I used to have a Silverscreen windscreen cover for my T5 and it was great.  I'll have a look at Boxer pricing...

…..yep, Silverscreen or Taylormade. They can sometimes be found for sale second hand. I sold one on ASOF.

on the heater the position of the longer pipes are they at the top or bottom as there is a correct position to help with your problem
I have done a mod to help blow the heat to the front that can be seen on my kemerton xl improvement post

Also having a draught excluder like a long towel pushed down at the bottom of the side sliding door, makes a hell of a difference in that area, took me two years to figure out how much cold air was coming in from the bottom of sliding door

glyne lock wrote:on the heater the position of the longer pipes are they at the top or bottom as there is a correct position to help with your problem
I have done a mod to help blow the heat to the front that can be seen on my kemerton xl improvement post

Hi Glyne  - Ah, I've found [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - that looks good!

We have two long thin pipes going to the front.  They come out of the right-hand side of the heater, where I see they are nicely lagged:



[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And they run along the back of the sofa cupboard:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And then, behind the driver's seat, they turn under the raised floor:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And they emerge at the vents (which I'll need to put in a follow-up reply because of the three-image limit :-) )

Here are the front vents.  One has a grill, and one a closable vent.  I guess perhaps they need to leave one which can't be closed off. (Unless it's an inlet...)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I have put the silver pipe tape to keep the heat in the pipes and they say the longer pipes should bet fitted to the top as they would get more heat . This is what I would do with out reading that should be done it may only be a small gain  but it all helps .the mod I have done you could put a tee fitting and the vent as I have done and would be a great help
I see you have the grey that they put when they did a repair to mine but then had to have a black made as mine is black and the grey did not look right

quentinsf wrote:Here are the front vents.  One has a grill, and one a closable vent.  I guess perhaps they need to leave one which can't be closed off. (Unless it's an inlet...)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Is the grille one fed from the cab heater? It is in my Symbol I think.

I’m surprised to see how small those pipes are. In my van which has the later Whale heating, the pipes must be twice the diameter.

It may also help reduce potential draughts a bit if you put the cab (base vehicle) air inlet/heater control into recirculation position.

Also check around the fridge, that was a horrendous source of draughts on our Pollensa until I sealed around it.

Hi, I think you will find the grill one is not connected to anything, if ours is anything to go by.

v8oholic wrote:Is the grille one fed from the cab heater? It is in my Symbol I think.

Well, it would make sense.  Though I'm not sure it works very well: my mother got cold while sitting back there last week! (She was the first to try riding in the back.) Will experiment.  But mostly I wonder, if that *is* fed from the cab, then where does the second of my two pipes go?

v8oholic wrote:I’m surprised to see how small those pipes are. In my van which has the later Whale heating, the pipes must be twice the diameter.

Yes, I was surprised. The pipes are much larger as they come off the heater, but narrow down considerably both for this long run and for the one going into the bathroom.  The one to the kitchen vent stays large, which is presumably another reason why most of the heat comes out that way.

I wonder if both of those thin pipes combine into the one vent, and they did it this way instead of using one big pipe because of space constraints behind the fridge?

I wonder how easy it would be to take off the panel under the step which has the vents in to have a look...

v8oholic wrote:

Is the grille one fed from the cab heater? It is in my Symbol I think.

I’m surprised to see how small those pipes are. In my van which has the later Whale heating, the pipes must be twice the diameter.

Put the vehicle fan going and see if you get air blow out .to get a pipe from the vehicle heater to there would be good to see
Some campers use the same section as my camper with 2 outlets but only one is used the other is a vent

Well, I did some digging, and look what I found!  The vents are indeed each connected to a pipe from the heater:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So two of the four outlets from the heater at the back are fed into thin pipes, run almost the length of the van...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

including a rather tight turn there behind the driver's seat:


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

then across to the middle of the van, and whatever flow still remains is then expanded into a wide tube before exiting, so it's not too surprising that I'm not exactly feeling a jet of hot air coming out!

But the good news is that by the time I'd opened up all of this, and constrained the flow from the big vent at the back, things had warmed up and there was just enough warmth coming out of these that I could see they could actually make some very modest contribution to the heating of the van!

Also, I found two loose screws and a 50p piece under the floor, so that should reduce the rattles, and I even made a profit!

I would look to fitting larger pipe and insulate with multi foil insulation. I did our Stanway with 65mm pipe, The heater is at the o/s rear and it made a huge difference. The flaps were removed at the front.
Rob

You can move the cables away from the heater pipes clean what was not done from new and not come out by the side door .tidy the great light wiring .lights I have never used they are so great

Thanks Rob, yes, I'd like to do that, but everything is built and fitted to leave a gap suitable for pipes that size. 

Between the heater and the sofa is the fridge, and I wonder whether there's room behind it for bigger pipes, for example.  But perhaps the Stanway has the same arrangement, so you might have found out?  Do I just need a big hole saw? :-)

I haven't looked to see whether it's easy to get behind the fridge...

glyne lock wrote:You can move the cables away from the heater pipes clean what was not done from new and not come out by the side door .tidy the great light wiring .lights I have never used they are so great

Yes, if I took the one with the longest run -- the one by the door -- and instead diverted the pipe under the sofa to come out at a new vent at the front of the sofa, like you did, it would at least have a shorter run, and I could probably at least use 65mm piping for the stretch under the sofa too...

Mmm.  Will ponder...

For the parts cost could position one pipe as you have said .my mod puts hot air towards the front seats and makes it much warmer to sit there. I don’t post all my mods but do when it will help others

quentinsf wrote:Thanks Rob, yes, I'd like to do that, but everything is built and fitted to leave a gap suitable for pipes that size. 

Between the heater and the sofa is the fridge, and I wonder whether there's room behind it for bigger pipes, for example.  But perhaps the Stanway has the same arrangement, so you might have found out?  Do I just need a big hole saw? :-)

I haven't looked to see whether it's easy to get behind the fridge...

 I removed the fridge vent and used a 65mm holesaw just above the boxed in pipe work each side, not easy but doable with care. I removed both pipes from the boxed in section and fitted one 65mm pipe and the 2nd one through the new holes. I did cut out the floor inside the twin door cupboard to the right of the fridge. This enabled fitting pipework with ease. Under the new removable floor I also fitted the Shureflo pump. The bathroom pipework was badly kinked at a bend so with a bit of work a 65mm pipe was fitted. All pipe was insulated.

Rob

So much of this forum is about giving people the confidence to try things! Somebody else managed this, so I probably could too!

Thanks, Rob!

quentinsf wrote:Well, I did some digging, and look what I found!  The vents are indeed each connected to a pipe from the heater:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

How interesting, it seems they must have redesigned it by the time mine was built. Those fat pipes are the same size as the single pipe that runs to the two outlets which are at either end of the sofa in my van. It terminates at the frontmost one, so no pipe runs into the step from there, so I assume they have abandoned that idea.

Of course I’m now thinking that looks like a useful storage space

Oooh. Yes. Shoes, or something. 

Of course, I’d need the extra storage if I started filling my sofa up with pipework….

“Of course I’m now thinking that looks like a useful storage space”


Off topic but a few of us have fitted access to that step for storage, very useful especially in a Symbol.