I have a 1970's Bailey caravan wit a Holt Rogers gas fire installed(original equipment) does anyone have experience with these?
Holt Rogers gas fire
- Thread starter phil1204
- Start date
I'm guessing your referring to one like this:-
This one that was fitted to a 1978 Bailey caravan featured in a Practical Caravan Magazine article.
This was released just before the law about open flued heating appliance in touring caravans changed, and subsequently this type of open flued heater was outlawed.
The reason being, because the flame burnt in the atmosphere inside the living space, it uses up the Oxygen from that space. That is OK provided all the permanent ventilation and the flue in the caravan is functioning correctly. But if the ventilation or the flue is obstructed, the burning flame will deplete the Oxygen to dangerously low levels. And its quality of combustion will deteriorate and it will rapidly produce disproportionately more carbon monoxide (the silent killer)
Whilst the heater may well be concurrent with the caravan, it would inadvisable to use it. It will almost certainly be due a service, which I doubt cold be carried through lack of spare parts.
As a gas engineer I would almost certainly have to condemn it, and disconnect and seal it so it can't be used. If you want to retain the authenticity of the caravan, by all means keep the carcase for the visual appearance, but if you need heating, either look to a new heater that hidden from view or even an electric panel heater.
This one that was fitted to a 1978 Bailey caravan featured in a Practical Caravan Magazine article.
This was released just before the law about open flued heating appliance in touring caravans changed, and subsequently this type of open flued heater was outlawed.
The reason being, because the flame burnt in the atmosphere inside the living space, it uses up the Oxygen from that space. That is OK provided all the permanent ventilation and the flue in the caravan is functioning correctly. But if the ventilation or the flue is obstructed, the burning flame will deplete the Oxygen to dangerously low levels. And its quality of combustion will deteriorate and it will rapidly produce disproportionately more carbon monoxide (the silent killer)
Whilst the heater may well be concurrent with the caravan, it would inadvisable to use it. It will almost certainly be due a service, which I doubt cold be carried through lack of spare parts.
As a gas engineer I would almost certainly have to condemn it, and disconnect and seal it so it can't be used. If you want to retain the authenticity of the caravan, by all means keep the carcase for the visual appearance, but if you need heating, either look to a new heater that hidden from view or even an electric panel heater.
Thanks for the detailed reply, i thought as much. It's been suggested that a Carver SB1800 would be a fiarly simple replacement as it has a bottom flue arrangeent.
I fitted a Carver SB1800 to our 1983 Ace - it's fairly straight-forward but you need to triple check what's under the floor where the hole for the combined flue/air inlet is positioned.
The Carver units have been out of production for a couple of decades - you may find there's a bottom flue version of the Truma units.
Be aware you shouldn't use a bottom flue heater in snowy conditions as the flue ca get blocked.
Indeed it would, but as RogerL points out they have been out of production for at least two decades, and whilst the snow warning is correct, in practice we rarely get enough in the UK to cause that issue.
The Carver SB1800 was effectively a rebadged Truma SB1800, though later versions had a high proportion of UK sourced parts.
You could consider a concealed heater which only produces blown hot air through ducting. examples from Propex, Whale and Truma.
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