Is this the future

I genuinely believe that an all electric van (I’m just talking about habitation for now) is the way forward but it is obvious from the last few posts that it wouldn’t work for everyone at present.
Personally, I can’t wait to get rid of the gas in my next van and go with as much solar/battery bank/inverter size I can. Maybe it’s the engineer in me that loves the way things have evolved in recent years?
I will admit, the gas oven in my van has been great, it’s the first time I’ve had one and I’ve used it loads. However, since I bought an Airfryer for the kitchen at home 2 years ago, I’ve not used the home oven once. That would work for me in the van alongside an induction hob.

PLOUGHLIN wrote:Diesel heaters need not be noisy, fitted with the available exhaust silencer extra they are near silent.

I had an Eberspacher diesel heater in a VW T5 and hated the thing, it was noisy and smelly even with the exhaust. I believe the Truma combi D4E is a completely different experience from what I’ve heard/read.

groundhog wrote:Our last boat had an eberspacher and it was virtually silent

Perhaps it was the location? I would imagine your boat was a bit bigger than a T5 
I must admit that once it got going it wasn’t too bad but on startup it was loud, out of respect to neighbouring campers I didn’t like firing it up at say 6am which was when I mostly wanted to use it.

I don’t know much about Eberspacher installation since I have always avoided them but the noise issue is most likely purely down to the exhaust design, usually just a very short length of small bore flexible stainless tube, perhaps a very small silencer.

We have a 14kw generator on our boat and you barely hear a hiss when standing right next to the exhaust. We never have to worry about noise. When it comes to noise attenuation it is a lot to do with system volume, absorption area and expansion space. I am just theorising but I wonder whether an exhaust for a diesel boiler that passes down through the floor and is tapped into the vehicle’s exhaust system might work well. It would be easy enough to braze a fitting in, or make up a transferable strap boss fitting.

Failing that, there is plenty of space under a van to at least install a good large dedicated silencer for the heating unit.

I didn't use the diesel heating on the yachts I sailed so can't say if it was noisy or not.  Heating was only of use in port to dry things out when I did on occasion use a fan heater if we had shore power but it was inefficient as the hatches needed to be open or at least partially open for ventilation.

Apart from cost, a concern I would have with diesel heating in a motorhome is that it increases the risk of having insufficient diesel to get to a service station.  Isn't it a bit like running the habitation electrics off the vehicle battery?  Or does the heating use such a small amount of diesel compared to the size of tank for this not to be a concern?

The 2.2 Kw one uses circa 0.2l/hr, actually needs 6w once lit for the fan.
As my, only, 60l fuel tank is rarely allowed to be less than 1/2 full, say 30l remaining I'd have 150hrs at full output before the van wouldn't start!!!

In my experience oil fired heating is much more economical than lpg whether in a house or boat, so I guess the same applies to motorhomes, even at road fuel prices. Availability is still (at present) much better than lpg, and lpg could be difficult even before the recent lpg issues since you had to find a dealer that sold the right brand of bottle.

The U.K. is the only country I have found so far where diesel supplies seem to require a visit to the supermarket. Village garages still exist everywhere else.

For us it will be diesel as soon as the present gas Truma needs money spent on it, if not before, but it won’t be an Eberspacher.

I was referring to the demise of many smaller garages due to excess competition from supermarkets! Also many smaller garages stopped selling fuel (petrol and diesel) when the oil giants started demanding payment up front for deliveries. You still see some of the garages complete with their forecourt canopies but the forecourts are now used for car sales or car washes.

Up until the end of the eighties diesel fuel could be much harder to find than petrol, and I well recall having only two local choices of diesel, one of which was the local Transport caff/truck stop, with the diesel pump hidden round the back. I was a regular customer keeping my tank topped up because diesel was hard to find elsewhere if you didn’t know the area, except on the motorways. That was when the only diesel “cars” were Land Rovers (as I had), Volvo made a 6 cylinder diesel car (the 760) using the VW LT van engine, and Mercedes also offered a diesel car but it was very sluggish. Then in about 1990 along came the turbo diesel LR Discovery. In 1992 Citroen started producing diesel cars and we had one of the early diesel Xantias. That was the dawn of the era of efficient, quiet and smooth turbo diesel engines. Soon after Gordon Brown told everybody else to buy diesel cars and as a result more diesel pumps were installed on forecourts.

Of course that trend is reversing now and perhaps we will start seeing diesel pumps disappearing, but probably not before I hang up my keys.

From reading around it appears that the diesel Truma has a ticking pump which is the only additional noise which owners don't notice after a while.  It also appears the diesel's higher calorific value narrows the difference in cost with LPG.  Looking at Truma's tech specs it looks as though their diesel version requires more DC than the gas version which will add to the solar demand for those wishing to go off-grid or not use metered EHUs.  This and the demands of a compressor fridge, an inefficient inverter and electric cooking may mean that roof mounted TV aerials and hatches have to be replaced with more solar panels for all-year use on vans with smaller roofs.

I think you are correct on all points Caraman.

It would be good to get more feed back on the Truma diesel boiler. I would not want to risk Eberspacher type issues, but I may just take the plunge later this year (with a Truma) because I am fed up with worrying about gas supplies.

More DC should not be a problem. For those that tour simple changes to the vehicle charging system allow much greater charge inputs from the existing engine alternator than are possible on AS models using the Sargent system. For those using sites then EHU coupled with an efficient battery charger will be ample. For those cooking electric a Victron Multi-Plus inverter will provide very efficient charging with the added benefit of Power Assist to combine DC and AC draw and minimise any metered electricity charges.

Additional solar would be less of an issue if AS just put a tiny bit more thought into where they locate other items. Our TV antenna was in the way of our additional solar panel so I junked it, but had it been located just 18” further forward alongside the middle skylight it would not have been a problem, and indeed the wiring would have been much more sensible. We also junked the Gazelle antenna because it didn’t work, and my present thinking is that you now have more chance of getting a good phone signal than a good terrestrial TV signal so we tend to use a Firestick tethered to our phones (with unlimited data) backed up by a small rubber duck type portable antenna on odd occasions

The only reason I didn’t fit a third panel across the back of our roof is that the loo vent is in the way, but again this could have been slightly elsewhere, and it may yet be moved but so far the 350 watts of solar we now have seems to be doing the trick.

I suspect that vans have too many skylights anyway. We never seem to gain any benefit from the middle skylight over the galley, which never gets opened for ventilation (since we are not burning gas to cook) and often the blind never gets opened. It’s not a dark area!

I have said it before: Modern inverters are very efficient. To labour a point, the biggest inefficiency in AS vans is the under specified DC wiring!

groundhog wrote:On the subject of skylights I have often wondered if there was some way of rigging an air scoop as is common on yachts. That could be the future

That is too simple, unless of course it is electronically controlled!