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Old 02-12-2017, 11:06 AM   #61
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Just another issue caused by dealers. I lived with this through much of my work like first as sales, then as a national sales manager then as CEO of another company and then GM of yet another, all using dealers as our avenue to the end users. I feel your pain as I was either Jon or had someone working with me who was "Jon". I trust Airstream, period. I agree as I posted and you mentioned, get your baby back to the "mother-ship" and let them get it right.

Once this is done I can virtually assure you all will be well. We've been out in 18 degree weather up to now 80 degrees for three weeks now and (I hate to jinx anything) but nothing, absolutely nothing has failed or has not worked as it should and expected to. More than enough hot water for two long showers, heat is spectacular. I could go on and will once this trip is over in April sometime.

As a side note and just maybe ease your pain, a 45" bus pulled in two days ago next to us. Prior to picking the bus up they found issues and the dealership kept it for another 30 days to get things straight. They are on their first trip in this $500,000 beauty. I have already fixed or gotten working ten items and they have a list of 48 on a punch list they are now keeping of things that do not work or do not work correctly.

Like you I suggested they contact the factory and take the bus back. I know the owners of the bus manufacturer and they care so I assured these new owners that the factory will make it right - not the dealers.

Finding good dealers, with a good service department is a challenge and what is interesting with State and Federal Laws it can take months or years to get rid of bad ones. The answer we came to was eventually opening factory branches, not something I'd recommend AS even consider, but we did and it helped in areas we hard to fire a dealer or could not find a trust worthy one. Sounds like you have one of the worst.

Best of luck.

Bud
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Old 02-12-2017, 04:19 PM   #62
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Mixing Valve Plumbing

Mojo, so sad to hear your troubles.

Lack of technical documentation or configuration control at the dealer leads to much inginuity and frustration. Please find attached plumbing drawings I received from AS and a picture of the factory install on my Sep 16 built trailer. The Service Tech giving us our delivery tour commented, "You got one that is built right", when he saw the mixing valve arrangement.

These may not be helpful to you but may be in tme for others in similar situation.
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Old 02-17-2017, 01:56 PM   #63
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Hot Water PITA Solution

Quote:
Originally Posted by kendrick.l.j View Post
I am hoping that you were able to fix the problem by now but if not you may want to try this. Dump all the water out of the tank. First, turn off the Alde system at the panel then turn off the water at the outside hook up. Under the dinette you will see two water lines one is blue for cold and the other one is red for hot. Open the pressure release valve on the blue line and right behind that valve you will find the valve for the hot water drain that goes from the tank to outside under the coach.

Allow all the water to drain out fully. It is only a 2 gallon tank but it took a long time
for all my water to drain. After the tank has completely drained, close all valves and slowly allow water back into the coach and turn the Alde system back on.
I make sure that the temperature is set at least 10 degrees below than needed. If the coach temp is currently 70 then I make sure the the temperature setting is 60 degrees so that the system will not divert any resources to heating the coach while taking a shower. After showering I will reset the house temperature back to normal.
Once the tank is full and the system is back on then press the shower icon and wait until the Sanitary temperature, not the Heater temp but the SANITARY temp is back up to at least 120 or higher to shower.
I didn't learn this on my own. Iceman taught me this and it has helped. The reason for dumping the water is to ensure that there is an air cushion in the hot water tank. This cushion can disappear with time, moving and multiple uses. I read in the manual that the tank should be emptied about once a month to ensure the proper amount of air is in the tank.
I am still having problems with my system and waiting for a new mixing valve to arrive but dumping the water helped. I hope it will help you as well. I have noticed that after pressing the shower icon and pressing 2 on the heating element that my water temperature starts dropping pretty quickly after about 15 minutes even if I am not using any water. I not sure why but I will keep monitoring while I wait for the new mixing valve to show up.
IMO, this whole hot water thing has been a PITA.

Lauri
Ms. Lauri, please let me provide you some additional info that may make your hot water PITA drills a bit more tolerable.


SOFTWARE: If you select the Heater and Sanitary temp screen on the ALDE panel, you can validate what I'm describing below. Instructions to get to the Temperature screen are in another post in this string. The Shower Booster is the "2" position for the Shower Head icon. Electric heaters 1 or 2 are the Lightening Bolt icon, Gas burner is the Flame icon. Selecting Shower Booster on the menu will turn off the heater circulating pump and raise Sanitary up to about 145 (?), if below that. The Booster function turns off after 15 minutes so the heater can continue warming the cabin, if the thermostat calls for heat. ALDE defaults to use electric heaters if electric and gas are turned on, but the shower booster button turns on all.

HARDWARE: Based on a cutaway picture I got from ALDE website, all the heat for the Sanitary water chamber comes from the glycol heater fluid chamber. Both electric heaters are in the glycol chamber. The glycol chamber is around the gas flame chamber. Three chambers, inside to outside, gas burner, glycol heating fluid w/ electric heaters, sanitary water with air cushion. You can have heating water hotter or cooler than sanitary (usually hotter) and Sanitary water lags heating water heating on the way up.

I’ve found a fingernail works better on the ALDE touchscreen panel than my fat fingertip.

The Mixing Valve limits Sanitary water temp to the fixtures. Don’t be afraid to cycle it periodically fully left and right to keep the spring limbered up and pull the knob off, rotate, and reinstall to get a “Hotter” MAX temp.

Yes Bud, and other inquiring minds, the exhaust fitting under the dinette window drips water and will make a nice ice formation on the ground when it's below freezing 24/7. All normal for propane exhaust in cold weather.

OPERATION: At 0500 this morning when I got up, my heater night timer had woken at 0230 to raise cabin temp from 64 (best sleeping temp for us) to 70. The glycol was 164, Sanitary was 163. I jumped in the shower, took a "Hollywood" jumped out when I first started feeling hot water going to warm (about 8 minutes-I have removed flow restrictor in shower handle). Glycol was 145, Sanitary was 96. Never touched the shower booster button 'cause its not going to get hotter than 163 anyway. While trying to heat the cabin, gas or electric heaters are on already, depending on your selection.

At 0600 when my wife was getting ready for the shower, the cabin was warm enough so the heat circulating pump was off. Pressed shower boost, Glycol was 96, Sanitary was 95. Immediately, glycol started climbing and was at 135 before Sanitary water changed, which then started climbing to about 135, glycol up to 158 (about 10 mins). She showered and Sanitary dropped only to 120, but she cycled the shower head button and didn’t dwoidle, for scientific study, as I did.

The jury is out for me if the additional gas booster heat through stationary glycol makes more Sanitary hot water than the larger volume of flowing hot glycol circulating through the chamber. There may be some engineers out there who didn’t loose their slide rules that could figure it out, but I’ll figure it out like the hammer mechanics and just keep taking showers.

Hope that helps to reduce that chicken dance you described to get enough hot water. If you didn’t see my other posts about the air cushion, if you are winter camping and down in the teens at night, where the heating system is running almost non-stop, I found weekly sanitary drainings to be necessary to keep the Safety Valve from lifting due to no air cushion. Very hot sanitary water will more quickly absorb the air and in a closed system (no faucets open all night), slight temp changes will raise pressure quickly.

I always cooldown the system to 75/75 before draining and refilling to limit the thermal stress of refilling with winter temp water. The ALDE manual warns to not drain while hot, but provides a general caution about hot water exposure.

Please look at the CLASSIC Much Ado about ALDE thread for more info and make any contributions there for those of us still learning.

Thanks and God speed for good travels.
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Old 02-17-2017, 03:38 PM   #64
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Huh, we take showers each morning. One right after the other, since I made the adjustments back in December we've never run out of hot water. Long showers, short showers makes no difference. Kohler handle is almost always at between 9:00 and 10:00. Water is hot. I've yet to heat water using propane. We have only used propane to heat while driving, then when set up turn it off and run of electric only. Entire system works great so far.
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Old 02-17-2017, 04:14 PM   #65
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James - thanks for the very informative post. I have done all the steps you have mentioned with the exception of adding in the Gas to use propane. I will give it a try. I have been waiting until the Sanitary temperature reaches 153 before stepping into the shower and that does work much better.
Since replacing the mixing valve the shower situation is good and I am concerned about messing with it unnecessarily but I will keep it in mind in case I need it in the future.
Again, thank you for taking the time to post a detailed description on how to maximize the shower component of the Alde system for me and for others that may need it.
Lauri
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Old 02-21-2017, 06:19 AM   #66
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paiceman View Post
Huh, we take showers each morning. One right after the other, since I made the adjustments back in December we've never run out of hot water. Long showers, short showers makes no difference. Kohler handle is almost always at between 9:00 and 10:00. Water is hot. I've yet to heat water using propane. We have only used propane to heat while driving, then when set up turn it off and run of electric only. Entire system works great so far.
Bud, where you camping?

I'm curious about you not having to use gas suppliment heat for Heat or Sanitary. Does your heat circ pump run pretty much constant where you are, or do you just take showers while the thermostat is calling for heat?

Sounds like you have the best install of everyone for hot water supply and Temps.

Thanks. James
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Old 02-21-2017, 06:46 AM   #67
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James. Our heat is not on. When I shower I don't call for additional hot water on the control panel, I simply turn the shower on let it get hot get in and shower. All on electric. What I adjusted was the Alde control valve, it's basically set as high as it can be, then I incapacitated the Kohler anti-scald feature on the shower handle. That's it. My wife turns on supplemental hot water when she showers, I often get in right after her shower, neither of us have run out. I turn the system off during the day, back on about 4:00pm and noticed a small amount of water being released by the Alde pressure control valve. I am guessing that while sitting in warm to hot weather we may loose the air bubble in the hot water jacket more quickly than once a month as suggested in the Alde owners manual, so I dump the hot water once a week while sitting in hot weather which takes all of two minutes.
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Old 02-21-2017, 02:10 PM   #68
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I am also NOT using heat, in fact I have the AC on today and since replacing the mixing valve last week I have plenty of hot water now. All I need for a real shower and then some. No more problems.
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Old 02-22-2017, 02:16 PM   #69
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I'm guessing the ground water temp or on board water temp in winter camping areas mixing with the 2.5 gallons of hot water is going to give a some different shower durations than where you sound like you're parked in warm weather. No big surprise for such a small volume. Both my water sources are about 45 degrees right now.
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Old 02-22-2017, 02:19 PM   #70
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Did not for us on our trip south last month, January. 28 degrees outside and did not even check hot water or heat temp. Just had heat set to 73 and took showers with no loss of hot water. It did t
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Old 02-22-2017, 02:20 PM   #71
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Quote:
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Did not for us on our trip south last month, January. 28 degrees outside and did not even check hot water or heat temp. Just had heat set to 73 and took showers with no loss of hot water. It did t
It did take longer for hot water to flow, but never ran out.
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Old 08-16-2017, 10:19 AM   #72
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Alde option?

I'm a f/t Airstreaming camphost. Winter in Utah is challenging especially for water tanks and lines. Has anyone considered using an Alde option as an immersion heater in the water vault? I'll be taking a year off to renovate and considering an Alde as my go to heat source. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
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Old 08-16-2017, 03:53 PM   #73
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Hi Frey and welcome to the forum and thank you for being a full time camp host. I wanted to acknowledge your question but unfortunately I am going to leave the technical stuff up to Bud, James and Bob and other how are more familiar with heating systems than I am. If you don't get a reply I don't think they would mind if you PM them to ask. Good luck, maybe someday I can get out to say hi. Haven't been to Utah yet but will get there someday.
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:03 PM   #74
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Hi

There are a lot of ways to get heat into the water tank. An Alde would be one of the more expensive ways.

The bigger issue is how much heat it takes to keep the tank above freezing without a lot of added insulation. Next is that the tank is not the weak point in the system. The lines into and out of the trailer are much more exposed (freeze faster). None of this is simple in a house in "ski country".

More or less what you need to do:

Skirt the entire bottom of the trailer with foam blocks. That way you don't have as much heat flow out of the bottom of the trailer. Many systems on the trailer will be happier this way. Heat the entire underside with whatever system is easy to set up. If electric is available full time, use it.

Next heat whatever you will be using as a water source and sewer dump line. This includes the route into / out of the trailer. Probably some sort of "wall" around these areas is going to be needed.

If all goes well, you now have a trailer that (until you run out of energy) will not fail due to water freezing. It still will have water condensing all over everything (walls, windows, skylights, doors ....). The only good way around this is bringing in outside air.

The trailer also will be a bit heating challenged since the AC units will not run as heat pumps when it really gets cold. You will need to add more heat. How much more depends on how cold you expect it to get. Is 10F the low you expect or is it -40 F? The trailer is set up to be comfortable at 40F.

Sorry if this is a bit off the Alde topic.....

Bob
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Old 08-17-2017, 04:20 AM   #75
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Frey:

I doubt the effort to do as you indicated would produce the results you are looking for with the tanks - my guess is you are concerned with the grey and black and not the fresh water.

As Uncle Bob suggested, skiriting the underside would produce some significant pay back. I'd also consider heat tape around the fresh water hose as well as the sewer hose and then wrap them both in foam and if possible straw. Heat tape might also help the tanks by wrapping around them both ways, and a switch or switches to control off and on functions. Then if you are renovating as you say, before replacing the protection around the tanks I'd consider insulating them as well over the heat tapes.

The duct work on the Airstreams has an open duct pointing down into the tanks which will also help significantly and I would make sure that the furnace is used instead of heat pumps as again UncleBob said they will not function below 40 F.

After the service I went back to college in Upstate NY and we lived in a mobile home - we had very similar issues and basically above is how we solved the cold weather. Our pipes did not freeze, we had no tanks but our sewer line was protected as outlined and it never froze either and we would regularly hit - 10F to -20F.

Best of luck.

Bud
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