Heating.

[Martin24]

Just having a ponder.
Our heating system is proving to be pretty un reliable. About to be fixed for the third time. Okay I know it gets fixed each time but we're actually planning to keep this van long term and out of warranty.

Is it going to be possible to have the whole system replaced (at our expense) for something more reliable? and if so with what?

 

[Hutch]

Our Truma comdi heater, is really great, once up to heat reasonably quiet, but first thing on a winters morning what a lovely alarm clock, sounds like a tube train coming into the station for about 5 minutes, thats going from 10c to 15c. And only, 10 litre water capacity, so two showers takes a bit of thought, If it blows up I will go for the bigger capacity one.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

Martin
What is your type of heating and what have the three faults been?

Having worked in the reliability field for a good number of years all I can say is the simpler anything is the less there is to go wrong. Vans normally only contain showers but the 'bathtub curve' comes to mind when talking about reliability. Try googling it.

 

[Martin24]

Whale combi system. PCB each time. Mobile chap that came out last time also realigned the flue. When we googled the system last time the only problem was noise so we made sure that amendment had been made before collection. Will try again though. Thanks.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

I meant google 'bathtub curve' and not the reliability of your heating system, but at least you had an answer.

 

[Martin24]

Googled both now Interesting, mobile chap in August also said the manufacturer had been rushed into production when system was not 100% ready. My worry now is the fixes have not been effective. Will speak to our service chappie when it goes in to have some modifications soon.

 

[Hutch]

Thats agood link, never seen or heard of that before, just sent a link to my Engineering mates , still at work.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

Glad to be of use.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Thats agood link, never seen or heard of that before, just sent a link to my Engineering mates , still at work.

This is nothing new. The manufacturer I worked for applied these principles on all new products, and continued with audit processes throughout production this was a key element of the companies quality assurance processes.

The initial testing during development proved the designs, and a 1:50 audit testing picked up any changes in finished product performance and highlighted a number of occasions when suppliers production items had actually drifted out of specification.

 

[Dustydog]

Thats agood link, never seen or heard of that before, just sent a link to my Engineering mates , still at work.

This is nothing new. The manufacturer I worked for applied these principles on all new products, and continued with audit processes throughout production this was a key element of the companies quality assurance processes.

The initial testing during development proved the designs, and a 1:50 audit testing picked up any changes in finished product performance and highlighted a number of occasions when suppliers production items had actually drifted out of specification.

That explains why caravans still leak

 

[Hutch]

And also $28 miliion dollar helicopters, , I have had to abort flight due to the passengers getting into the Heli, 19 passengers, and as it has started up the roof lining has "Dropped water" everywhere. , due to cracked drain pipes, putting water inside rather than out side, cheaper vendor, . And at $ 11k an hour not funny.
Sikorsky S 76 Helicopter, $ 12, million dolar have Ford door handles and truck windscreen wiper blades,.
By the way I am an Engineer, not a pilot, I passed my exams,
Should get a bite, :evil:

 

[ProfJohnL]

That explains why caravans still leak

I'm sorry Dusty,
I don't understand your comment.

Perhaps I should explain I did not work for a caravan manufacture, though some of the the products we produced were sold to caravan manufacturers.

We employed and exceeded some of the industry's most stringent quality assurance procedures, conforming to BS EN ISO 9001 QS9001 (Automotive) & elements of TS9001(Aerospace) which set target performances for our suppliers for consistency or product, and delivery schedules. Any supplier whose products fell outside of our parts per million permitted failure rates had increased goods inwards surveillance so we were confident that parts reaching our production lines were of the correct specification.

By employing good product design techniques, the opportunities for incorrect assembly were minimised, resulting with a less than 1:1000 reject on test at any stage in production, and by analysing the failures that did arise, the information was used to to influence production engineering control and or design revisions to further drive down the reject rates and raise get it right first time.

In the gas of gas and electrical products, the production lines were obliged by legislation to carry out certain testing, which we did at sub assembly stages, and as a final full product test . Only after all the tests were successful was a a product serial number produced and given to the appliance. As a further quality and reliability test. at least 2% of all finished products were withdrawn from finished stock and given a laboratory inspection.

Periodically about 1:1000 items was put on an extended test for reliability.

What we could not control were other organisations (for example domestic gas fitters , Some large construction companies and caravan manufacturers) miss -storing, -handling or damaging our products before they were installed.

Just as an example back in 1990 we had about 10 pallets of product returned to us by one caravan manufacture with a note claiming they were all faulty,
We found two complete pallets where a fork lift truck had driven its forks through the appliances.
There were pallets that were full but had been left out in the rain ( all at least 18 months old)
There were pallets where all the cartons had exactly the same external damage and the packs of fittings had been removed. Each pallet was worth about £2500.

With carelessness like that its hardly surprising that caravans have such a poor reliability record.