Ouch !!!! £ 1600.00 (1 Viewer)

Patrick

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Boo Hoo, I need a new Boiler, my Alde has developed a hairline crack and can't be fixed so have to have a new one fitted. £ 1600.00 fitted.
They stopped making the Alde 3000 5 years ago. The new one has the pipe work in different locations and the control unit is completely different.:Angry: :Doh::cry:
 

dazzer

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OUCH!!!!!

A top of the range boiler for the house will only cost £1100 fitted :Eeek:

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old-mo

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Why dont you try one of the "Radiator Repairers" factors,, be very suprised if one of them cant fix it..
 

haganap

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Big Ouch Pat.,
At least you will be warm and snug now.::bigsmile:

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Patrick

Patrick

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is the crack in the water jacket patrick ?

whats it made of ?

The Jacket is three chambers, the burner, the heating then the hot water, it seems the leak is from the heating as the coolant used in the Alde is glycol, it should only need topping up once may-be twice a year and mine has to be topped once a month.

The jacket is aluminium and is a sealed unit so cant even get it welded.
 
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Patrick

Patrick

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Didn't I tell you that sledge hammer was just a bit on the big side.

So how are you going to pass the time now instead of lying under the van ?

Work my Ass of to pay for the new one!

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Snowbird

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Why cant it be repaired????
Before shelling out that sort of cash I would sertainly have a go at repairing it.
Am amazed at some of the stuff thats on the market now...guaranteed to repair anything.
 

Wildman

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Aluminium can e welded, and soldered, you can also get a liquid metal to seal it repair first, nothing to lose. And less than £20.
 

pappajohn

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The Jacket is three chambers, the burner, the heating then the hot water, it seems the leak is from the heating as the coolant used in the Alde is glycol, it should only need topping up once may-be twice a year and mine has to be topped once a month.

The jacket is aluminium and is a sealed unit so cant even get it welded.

right!!!!! that blows my idea out the window then.
was going to suggest an ally or cast iron welder.

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Oct 29, 2008
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I read something about folk in Aus putting pepper in car radiators to stop them leaking, may be worth looking into. Or what about radweld?
 
Feb 22, 2008
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Had my old boiler for 40 years this year and still goin strong :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

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Jan 11, 2010
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Well that`s our 13th year & still loving it.
Aluminium can e welded, and soldered, you can also get a liquid metal to seal it repair first, nothing to lose. And less than £20.


Hi Patrick,
As said the depending on the cylinder thickness it could be welded with a TIG process this would be the best way to effect a repair, never had much faith in soldering aluminum but to can braze it with excellent results.
The biggest problem with aluminum is that it melts around 600` depending what other alloys are present but the aluminum oxide melts at 2000` so has to be worked in an oxygen free zone.
You also will need to know what sort of aluminum the parent material is to match a filler wire, ie. maybe 5% silicon or manganese etc etc, doubt it will be pure aluminum.

I wish you luck with this.

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Patrick

Patrick

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Try asking this man he is ex Alde engineer he may help Link Removed#

Dave

Its Graham Cutmore who has been looking at it, this guy worked for Alde for years as there chef service engineer, he came to Liverpool from Wellingbourgh last week swapped out the burner but still couldn't get the thing to fire up; he took the control panel away to test it all then came back yesterday to Liverpool. the boiler fired up, great i thought but when he saw the exhaust vent and the amount of condensation coming from it he shook his head, I asked what he was thinking " you don't want to know" was his reply. After running the boiler for 20 mins with lots of coughing and spluttering he tested the exhaust and said, you have a hairline crack i the central heating jacket, that steam coming out of the exhaust is Glycol. he asked me how often i had topped up the heating expansion bottle, when i told him roughly every other trip away it confirmed what he was thinking. I asked about getting it repaired but when he explained the way the boiler was made, i saw it couldn’t be done economically. The 3000 boiler was made obsolete 5 years ago so would have to have the 3200 which would involve moving pipe work electrics and a new control unit. As we intend to keep this van we can live with the expense but it does hurt when we think of what a tour we could have on £ 1600 squid! it will all be done for Newark!:thumb:

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Braunston

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Hi,

I am nearly certain that your crack will have come from the fact that you are changing water, either due to a leak or perhaps the water is getting to hot and expanding thus discharging out the expansion drain.

If my assumption is correct it will have caused a local hot spot behind the crack due to a build up of scale thus stopping the cooling effect of the circulating fluid/water mixture.

You should get it checked out before you replace the boiler as if its a small leak on the system it will just happen again a few years down the line, if its due to a component failure in the boiler causing overheating then you should be OK as you are replacing the whole thing,

I assume you have checked if you can just get new parts as they used to keep spares for quiet a time, if you want to try a repair like welding etc then I would suggest that you also consider a descale to try and remove any scale that may remain, you used to be able to purchase the complete water section including combustion chamber and internal flue separately e.g. (the complete internal).
 

Road Runner

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Its Graham Cutmore who has been looking at it, this guy worked for Alde for years as there chef service engineer, he came to Liverpool from Wellingbourgh last week swapped out the burner but still couldn't get the thing to fire up; he took the control panel away to test it all then came back yesterday to Liverpool. the boiler fired up, great i thought but when he saw the exhaust vent and the amount of condensation coming from it he shook his head, I asked what he was thinking " you don't want to know" was his reply. After running the boiler for 20 mins with lots of coughing and spluttering he tested the exhaust and said, you have a hairline crack i the central heating jacket, that steam coming out of the exhaust is Glycol. he asked me how often i had topped up the heating expansion bottle, when i told him roughly every other trip away it confirmed what he was thinking. I asked about getting it repaired but when he explained the way the boiler was made, i saw it couldn’t be done economically. The 3000 boiler was made obsolete 5 years ago so would have to have the 3200 which would involve moving pipe work electrics and a new control unit. As we intend to keep this van we can live with the expense but it does hurt when we think of what a tour we could have on £ 1600 squid! it will all be done for Newark!:thumb:


Glad it fixed Patrick, see you at Newark:thumb:
 
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Patrick

Patrick

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Hi,

I am nearly certain that your crack will have come from the fact that you are changing water, either due to a leak or perhaps the water is getting to hot and expanding thus discharging out the expansion drain.

If my assumption is correct it will have caused a local hot spot behind the crack due to a build up of scale thus stopping the cooling effect of the circulating fluid/water mixture.


You should get it checked out before you replace the boiler as if its a small leak on the system it will just happen again a few years down the line, if its due to a component failure in the boiler causing overheating then you should be OK as you are replacing the whole thing,



I assume you have checked if you can just get new parts as they used to keep spares for quiet a time, if you want to try a repair like welding etc then I would suggest that you also consider a descale to try and remove any scale that may remain, you used to be able to purchase the complete water section including combustion chamber and internal flue separately e.g. (the complete internal).

With this system you can run the heating without water in it as each is a separate heat exchanger. We tried the system with no hot water at all just the glycol in the heating system, it still showed lots of vapour from the exhaust. I did do a full water treatment hot and cold when we first got the van in September. I have asked about a replacement boiler/heat exchanger, they don't do one! they have only had this fault 11 times in the long history of the 3000.

I was wondering if I would get away with some sort of rad-weld?????????????????

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Braunston

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Hi,

The glycol acts as 2 things, one the medium to transfer the heat from the boiler to the rest of the system to get the motorhome warm, and on the other side a protection/cooling agent to stop the heat exchanger from burning, bit like a kettle if you run it with no water it will burn out, so you could think of the water as not only for making the tea but actually keeping the kettle cool, hope that makes sense.

Do you run 100% glycol or has it a percentage of water, the reason I ask is that one of the reasons for heat exchangers in general to crack/leak is quiet often down to localised overheating which can be attributed to lack of the cooling fluid around the area that has overheated, and in a lot of cases this can be attributed to a build-up of scale (similar to what happens in your kettle because you keep changing the water) that's why when you suggested you were having to replace the water quiet often it would make a link, but I'm not sure that 100% glycol has the same properties that would create scale, in quiet the same way as water .

However, the problem with these types of situation are the old chicken and egg, was there a localised hot spot caused by constant changing of the fluid which caused the crack or is the loss of fluid as a direct result of the crack.

What ever is the case i would strongly suggest that the reason for the origin of the crack is fully investigated before replacement, as for using rad-seal etc i certainly wouldn't recommend it, it may be worth checking around some of the ALDE dealerships to see if they have any old stock as that could be a cheaper option.

Sorry can't be of more help.

With this system you can run the heating without water in it as each is a separate heat exchanger. We tried the system with no hot water at all just the glycol in the heating system, it still showed lots of vapour from the exhaust. I did do a full water treatment hot and cold when we first got the van in September. I have asked about a replacement boiler/heat exchanger, they don't do one! they have only had this fault 11 times in the long history of the 3000.

I was wondering if I would get away with some sort of rad-weld?????????????????
 

Mangled

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To be honest I think I would take the boiler out and take it down to a local prefab shop that also do aluminium welding. I am sure it could be cut and split to get to the centre jacket and then all welded back up again. It won't be cheap but it would be cheaper than £1600, maybe they could even prefab a copy.
 

rainbow chasers

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Caraparts are quite good - they have a shop on ebay too.

I was actually given their number by explorer, as explorer couldn't get a window in for four months - apparently, these guys break and also buy new stock surplus.

Might be worth a try - i got a seitz window half price from there - delivered next day too!

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Patrick

Patrick

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Caraparts are quite good - they have a shop on ebay too.

I was actually given their number by explorer, as explorer couldn't get a window in for four months - apparently, these guys break and also buy new stock surplus.

Might be worth a try - i got a seitz window half price from there - delivered next day too!

I have spent three days on the phone, on the internet...If there was a second hand one i would have found it!

I can't believe there is not a motorhome slavage company....you would think with the thousands of motorhomes in the uk there would be one specialis
t:cry:
 

rainbow chasers

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There are plenty of motorhome slavage companies! It is just that your vehicle is less common in there.

There is a breaker called caravan parts - but i guess you already have been there. They do the spares, but the tank is a call us thing, so imagine that would be the price you had already mentioned.

Not overly familiar with these systems, so just popping some possibilites blind.

Can you not replace the system? A truma heater, with control panel would set you back £250 - 275, going by what i have been looking at. You may not have the same benefits, but if this sytem is prone to probelsm/that expensive to replace - maybe it might be worth replacing it with another system for less money?
 
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Patrick

Patrick

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There are plenty of motorhome slavage companies! It is just that your vehicle is less common in there.

There is a breaker called caravan parts - but i guess you already have been there. They do the spares, but the tank is a call us thing, so imagine that would be the price you had already mentioned.

Not overly familiar with these systems, so just popping some possibilites blind.

Can you not replace the system? A truma heater, with control panel would set you back £250 - 275, going by what i have been looking at. You may not have the same benefits, but if this sytem is prone to probelsm/that expensive to replace - maybe it might be worth replacing it with another system for less money?

Hi and thanks for your input!
I have tried all of the caravan salvage places I can find with no luck. I wouldn’t go back to a blown air system now after having the wet heating. This is a very un-common problem we have had with our system, as Graham Cutmore has said he has only ever seen two boilers have this issue in all his time as head of Alde technical services. This is the van we are going to keep for the foreseeable future and as we use it all year around it will be worth the investment long term.

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