Symphony - Carever Rapide

I tried the Rapide water heater for the first time at the weekend, running just on gas. The external
plastic flue cover with 'Carver' on it gets almost too hot to touch in the centre, and the van paint
just above gets pretty warm, is that what other owners experience?

Mine gets pretty warm when running on gas. I think the flue cover is actually alloy, but I could be wrong.

Frank

Thanks Frank. Alloy does sound a bit more likely actually!

Hi Marc.
They get hot!

Just measured mine and it peaked at just over 63 degrees C. This was on a cool “ish” evening in a fairly strong wind, so on a still day I wouldn’t surprised if it got to 70 or even 80 degrees. Close to skin burning temperature.

I tried to work out what the flue cover was made of. Not easy - it looks and feels like plastic but when you rub a nail against it seems quite hard. I tend to agree with boxerman that it’s probably some form of alloy.

It there’s no smoke I wouldn’t worry about it.

Thanks for the measurements brodco. As the light's green, the water's hot, and err there's not smoke, I think I'm reasonably happy. Talking smoke I saw a thread somewhere of a potential for fire when using a motorhome water heater in high wind, I forget where I was it now unfortunately.

On another note, the Rapide manual says not to use sodium metabisulphite to sterilise the water tank, does anyone know why? What should I use instead?

marc4242 wrote:
On another note, the Rapide manual says not to use sodium metabisulphite to sterilise the water tank, does anyone know why? What should I use instead?

I can think of a couple of possible reasons - one being the fact that the tank is not vented to the outside air, so there is the potential to accumulate pure sulphur dioxide gas in it, which could be a health hazard when expelled from the water tap. The other is that the tank is metal, and dissolved sulphur dioxide is quite corrosive to some metals.

Some people will probably recommend bleach, but I would use Milton (or Boots' generic equivalent if it's cheaper), as it has less of a residual odour.

Thanks. But *Bleach*!? I'm going to drink this water!!

The idea is that you put the bleach in to clean the system. Let it soak for a bit and then flush it out with fresh water!
I’m sure the water companies put something similar into the water supply at low levels. Occasionally when we run the cold tap at home there is a definite smell of bleach.

You could try this stuff.
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I can’t recommend it personally – I’ve never tried it but a caravanning friend of mine swears by it.