Truma Combi - Does it need water?

[DumfriesDik]

We are slowly getting to grips with the MH and enjoy sitting in it and reading the manuals.

It is very cold out there and we would like some heat. So, can we plug into the house mains and use a fan heater?

Can the Truma Combi be used just for heating with electricity, like an electric fan or does it need water like the house radiators?

Am I best to fill the water system up and turn the gas on??

 

[poppycamper]

No you can use without water if just using as a heater on gas or leccy.

 

[DumfriesDik]

Thanks poppycamper I will get it fired up very soon I suspect.

 

[poppycamper]

In addition there is some views that it's best to use a fan heater at home to save wear and tear on combi and keep that for when away.

 

[DDJC]

We've got the Truma Combi 6 gas and leccy.

What we did was get an electrician to install a 16amp EHU, on an RCD spur, fixed to the side of the house (about 110 quid, fitted, I think). We plug the bus in and keep the thermostat at about 8 deg, which is warm enough to deter freezing, cold enough to deter damp and not too pricey as to result in an electric bill similar to Heathrow's.

To echo Poppycamper, our van is drained for the winter so no water to the boiler. And if we are working in the bus, we turn it up! Easy!

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[Where to next?]

Hi DumfriesDik. I’m in exactly the same boat (wll MH) as we bought a new van a couple of months ago. I wanted to warm the MH up the other day using the EHU on the drive. Our water tank is empty so I had the same thought but decided to give the heating a go. Anyway, after finally setting the Truma to 24 degrees, and selecting the electric source (which I forgot at first and couldn’t work out why I was getting the error signal) it still took an age to feel any heat coming through. In summary, I found the ideal setting to be 24 degrees, elec2 (forgot there were 2 options and 2 certainly worked much quicker than elec1) and set the fan to max (again I hadn’t realised the impact the fan would have on how quickly the MH warmed up). After 30 minutes or so the van was comfortably warm. Good luck!

 

[silverbolt]

Friend of mine had one of those Truma heaters in his van and asked if i could take a look at it after being quoted hundreds of ££££'s to get it fixed. It was an old rusty POS. I told him to ditch it and fit the heater i use a China 5kw diesel heater cost £100 from ebay or Amazon. Its freed up a ton of space in his van getting rid of the old Truma, and his van heats up from 1C to 21C in just 35 mins and it doesn't keep emptying the gas bottles so he is very pleased. For hot water he only uses the kettle to washup.

 

[nicholsong]

Friend of mine had one of those Truma heaters in his van and asked if i could take a look at it after being quoted hundreds of ££££'s to get it fixed. It was an old rusty POS. I told him to ditch it and fit the heater i use a China 5kw diesel heater cost £100 from ebay or Amazon. Its freed up a ton of space in his van getting rid of the old Truma, and his van heats up from 1C to 21C in just 35 mins and it doesn't keep emptying the gas bottles so he is very pleased. For hot water he only uses the kettle to washup.

No hot basin or shower water then.

Not what many people would want in a MH.

Geoff

 

[TCG]

Friend of mine had one of those Truma heaters in his van and asked if i could take a look at it after being quoted hundreds of ££££'s to get it fixed. It was an old rusty POS. I told him to ditch it and fit the heater i use a China 5kw diesel heater cost £100 from ebay or Amazon. Its freed up a ton of space in his van getting rid of the old Truma, and his van heats up from 1C to 21C in just 35 mins and it doesn't keep emptying the gas bottles so he is very pleased. For hot water he only uses the kettle to washup.

now thats roughing it

 

[Skyway]

now thats roughing it

Did that

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[bigalw35]

We are slowly getting to grips with the MH and enjoy sitting in it and reading the manuals.

It is very cold out there and we would like some heat. So, can we plug into the house mains and use a fan heater?

Can the Truma Combi be used just for heating with electricity, like an electric fan or does it need water like the house radiators?

Am I best to fill the water system up and turn the gas on??

I seem to remember that our truma is a 3400 series and it can ONLY when full of water

 

[IRHP]

No you don't need water in the system just for warm air. You might find the Truma will take ages to heat the van from cold as running on Electric 2 it's only 1800w (I think)
yes you certainly can hook up to a mains socket if you have an adapter and plug in your ehu lead as normal and run a small fan heater. If you don't have an adapter a long extension lead in the window will work as a temp solution. An oil filled radiator works well too if it's big enough and you are leaving it on for a while. There are some small 800w ones around that are next to useless.
It's also silent. I'd do that in stead of running the Truma.

 

[TheCaller]

We are slowly getting to grips with the MH and enjoy sitting in it and reading the manuals.

It is very cold out there and we would like some heat. So, can we plug into the house mains and use a fan heater?

Can the Truma Combi be used just for heating with electricity, like an electric fan or does it need water like the house radiators?

Am I best to fill the water system up and turn the gas on??

You can use a Combi without water. See here. If you have the 'E' model, you can run it on mains only (no gas), although even on the higher setting, they are not super powerful - at least not compared with running it on gas.

If the manual is missing, it can be downloaded from here, but you will need to know which model of Combi you have.

There appears to be an unofficial competition among converters to see who can install a Combi in the most inaccessible place. This can make them difficult & expensive to repair, espacially if you are paying for labour. So if all you need is space heating on the drive, there is an argument for using something cheap & portable, rather than running the Combi.

 

[autorouter]

If you're using more than a couple of amps from the mains hookup, don't forget to fully unwind the hookup cable. Leaving it wound up, the resistive heat generated in the cable can't escape and can build up, leading to melted insulation and in the extreme, fire.