Sooty but no Sweep (1 Viewer)

Greenacres

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Jan 10, 2013
82
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Stoke on Trent
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Burstner Travel Van t620
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13 years since retirement and many younger years as a Hippy in a VW conversion, roaming the Greek Is
Here on Kefalonia and soot has gathered on the exterior fridge vent. Has any one got ideas why? Took it off and cleaned it and blew inside.Could we have fridge on too high? No smell and no sound from CO2 alarm. Thankyou
 

mjltigger

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Nov 12, 2014
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Trowbridge
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Autotrail Dakota Max
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2012
Here on Kefalonia and soot has gathered on the exterior fridge vent. Has any one got ideas why? Took it off and cleaned it and blew inside.Could we have fridge on too high? No smell and no sound from CO2 alarm. Thankyou
The fridge should be room sealed so I there is a poor burn then it shouldn't cause CO2 in the van anyway.. Other than that I'm sure somebody will be along in a minute to explain the soot. I've never had my covers off but my fridge is very sensitive to level
 

Brisey

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Sep 4, 2007
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223
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Coachbuilt
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Since 2003
Our fridge sooted up whilst in Spain earlier in the year.
We put it down to running it on Spanish Butane gas.
We had the burner cleaned and are now running on
British AutoGas and all is well again.
What gas are you using.???

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GJH

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Aug 20, 2007
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Could well be that your burner needs replacing; the fridge certainly needs servicing.

When we had our habitation service in January the engineer showed us some soot build-up (part hidden by the vent covers and part not spotted by me because the bad weather meant I hadn't cleaned the van since our last trip). He changed the burner for us and that has solved the problem - and kept the old burner to show us how bad it had got.
 

funflair

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Dec 11, 2013
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Too much gas/not enough air gives you the sooty yellow flame., try turning the fridge down a bit if you have it flat out. But as others have said it sounds like it needs a service and quite possibly a new burner, we had the same problem with ours and I rectified it by taking out and cleaning the burner or more specifically the airways to the burner.

How DIY are you?

Martin
 
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Greenacres

Greenacres

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Jan 10, 2013
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13 years since retirement and many younger years as a Hippy in a VW conversion, roaming the Greek Is
Thanks Martin. Not very diy. Just a couple of old girls in a Motorhome. Another question for you. Should I still be able to see water in the drain hole after a shower even though the drain tap is open? We did a bit of diy with bathroom sealant around the outside edge where the plug meets shower tray in case water had got in there!!

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funflair

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Dec 11, 2013
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Hi, shower sounds OK as it will have a trap to stop smells coming back from the tank so there will always be water there.

Martin
 
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Greenacres

Greenacres

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Jan 10, 2013
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13 years since retirement and many younger years as a Hippy in a VW conversion, roaming the Greek Is
Thankyou all very much. We feel a lot more confident that we will survive until our trip ends mid June.
Brisey we are using lpg with a Gaslow system
as you asked.
 

GWAYGWAY

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Sep 6, 2014
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Hymer ML I 580
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It is a bit of a vicious circle the soot builds up and the flow of air slows up causing a rich mixture which makes more soot, ad nauseum.
The answer is a service with the spiral baffle taken out of the top of the tube a cleaned a LONG brush put down the tube and cleaning it out all the soot and rust etc cleaned out the jet and burner cleaned and replaced making sue the tiny jet is there properly. needs a couple of tools and the brush which is much longer than the household ones for boilers. If it is running rich it will be yellow and if running properly it will be blue. It is doing a lot more work there than at home so more chance to build up soot.
 
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Greenacres

Greenacres

Free Member
Jan 10, 2013
82
13
Stoke on Trent
Funster No
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MH
Burstner Travel Van t620
Exp
13 years since retirement and many younger years as a Hippy in a VW conversion, roaming the Greek Is
How do you remove the thin metal plate in front of the burner? The screw points are inaccessible?

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Oct 5, 2012
4,283
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Ayrshire
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23,166
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Carado T132
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5 years, feel free to ask me about the Carado!!
I am not an expert on fridges, but have been told that running your fridge on gas whilst driving can cause sooting. Any views on that ???
 

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