Is it fixed?
Yes it’s fixed. On Wednesday 7th October I arrived at Alde UK in Wellingborough after spending the night in the van on their car park.
We motormoved the van into their workshop and a diagnosis was made within 5 minutes!
After advice from Alde UK we had booked the van in for a definitive diagnosis and repair with Alde UK themselves. What a service they gave? Wow! I wish all of the caravan industry would take a leaf from their book.
I drove the 3 hours from Manchester to Wellingborough on Tuesday evening arriving just before 8pm. Using the supplied gate code I opened the barrier and let myself into the car park. Put the legs down and plugged in the electric to their free supply. TV on chilli in Microwave and settled down for the night. My appointment was at 08:30 in the morning.
Just before 8:30 I toddled round to reception and signed in, was shown to a waiting area and told help yourself to drinks etc…..
My technician Terry appeared in a couple of minutes and rooke me through to the workshop where we opened to door to find our caravan parked right outside.
We got the van inside and he covered the carpets, moved the cushions and clicked the buttons to start the heating. It tried to light and he said. “Faulty Flame Sensor”
He told me that you can hear all of the different parts when on gas, there should be a clunky(gas valve opening) a ticking (ignitor lighting gas) the exhaust fan ( extracting burnt gass). But then there was a beep and the gas failure message on the control panel. He said everything is working but the flame sensor is not detecting a flame so it shuts the unit down so that we don’t fill the caravan with gas. Good idea really.
Apparently you can change just the flame sensor but it’s not an easy job so they change the whole burner unit. Give us an hour and it should be done he said.
Just as we thought all was well and Terry was about to do a flu gas analysis the boiler click off because it was up to temperature. Oh no we will need to wait for it to kick back in. At which time he noticed that the return pipe was cold compared to the flow. That told him something was blocked. With the help of a colleague they went searching and found a twisted rubber elbow pipe behind the drawers at the side of the bed. Turns out the radiator under the bed was slightly too far to the right. They moved it over an inch and presto no blockage and a fully functioning system!
The service offered by Alde UK was first rate! No issues with warranty claims etc… just book in and turn up.
If you have an issue with an Alde heating system I can not recommend highly enough that you contact Alde direct. Get advice from the source. Our dealer wanted us to drop the caravan off and leave it with them for 5 weeks for what was an hour’s job! They said they would remove the boiler and send it back to Alde. Alde told me that should not be done unless the boiler is leaking as everything else is a bolt on part and can be swopped out with the boiler is situ.
So while I was there I asked Terry about an external temperature sensor which he kindly fitted.
https://www.alde.co.uk/ for more information.
Although it taken a LONG time to get this fixed it’s for 2 reasons. 1 we didn’t want to stop using the van. Everything worked on electric so we chose to not miss any of our summer trips. & 2. Alde only book in one van per day. That gives Terry a full day to diagnose and fix any issues. The workshop at the UK HQ is not there to make a profit, it’s there purley for goodwill. They want you to be able to get the most from their product!
So are we sure it’s fixed? Well yes, I was present when the old burner unit was on the bench and a multimeter was placed across the flame sensor terminals…. 0, zip, nada, nothing. “Not seen that before says a colleague” so a new unit was unboxed and tested ( our van was already fixed and it’s new burner was happily burning gas) the new unit showed continuity across the terminals proving beyond a doubt that we were just unlucky enough to get a faulty unit. Cest la vie!