Truma Electric/Gas fire

[craigmurray]

Hi all i'm hoping someone may be able to help me, I have a 2001 Sterling Elite Trekker, which has the normal truma blow air heating with gas/electric fire. Myself and her who must be obeyed went away this weekend, turned the fire onto electric no problems, then when we went to bed i turned the themostat down but left fire on in case it got cold in the night. Any way woke upto a cold van and cold fire, thermostat was clicking when turned, but no heat from fire. I am presuming that the electric element has gone for a burton?as the 10amp fuse controlling it had blown to. Has anyone had this problem before? is it easy to replace? any idea of cost?

thanks

craig

 

[gary]

It is possible for an element to pack up but there are two 1kw elements so highly unlikely both have packed up.

Second, by 10A fuse, do you mean the glass fuse in the isolation switch? or the 10A MCB in the consumer unit?

Either again though should not blow/trip unless there is a overload, not sure how that can be without involving an earth fault and therefore also tripping the RCD earth leakage device.

I've frankly no real idea what's happened from the information you give, has it been working OK and or when did it last work OK

Over night, what wattage setting was it on and what number did you set on the temperature dial?

 

[craigmurray]

Hi Gary, I meant to say it was the 10amp spade fuse not the MCB, Fire was working great all afternoon and evening once we had got set up and we had, had no problems previous to this with the fire. I turned the thermostat down to 17 degrees and left the fire on 2kw, we have done this before without any problems? The blow air side works fine (obviously only blowing cold air lol) and you can still hear the thermostat click as you turn it and it finds the room temperature but no heat from the fire even on 500w, 1000w or 2000w.

 

[gary]

I think everything points to one of the two thermostats having failed. These are situated directly behind the gas fires flue pipe where the flue enters the fire.

The higher, (175C), temperature stat is a 'self hold' this means the mains supply to the heater needs to be disconnected to allow it to cool before it will reset, however as your 'fuse' blew and disconnected the mains, this should have allowed it to reset, no harm though in making sure the mains are actually disconnected for a few hours and see if the fire works then?

Of course how it might have got to 175C therefore past the lower 125C stat is a mystery? more likely it or the lower one are faulty, becoming faulty is actually quite common.

So best guess is checking these two stats, the fire needs to come out so that involves gas, you may well then need to get someone in to do the whole job