heaters!

[greatnortherncamper]

I realise this has question has been asked in many forms on many occasions already but wondered whether there is (or could be ?) a definitive guide to the various heaters available and their respective roles for the cali's?

We've just bought a 62 plate SE with the basic climatic air con - we've been away a few short trips already and love it and the night heater.

I'd assuemd that this was all we had but on inspection last night discover we have two diesel burning heater units on the underside - under the drivers seat an eberspacher - this seems to provide the "night heating".

On the passenger side there is a webasto "zuheizer" which seems to be connected into the engine coolant system and has a pair of pipes extended towards the rear - perhaps tot he manual rear heat control.

I assume that this is the "auxilliary" heater that does the engine coolant warm-up in cold conditions that i've read about.

It seems odd that VW have installed two very similar heater units to perform two very similar functions - or am I missing something? Does it perform other functions that I've not yet found or only occur if the weather is cold enough?

If the webasto can use diesel to heat water and augment the "engine" driven heater system why not let it heat the van at night by burning diesel and emitting its heat out of the standard "wet" heater matrices front and rear ?

Furthermore can the webasto (I think it is a "thermo top C" from the coding) be adapted to provide hot water for a simple small shower (via a heat exchanger or similar to avoid bathing in hot glycol!).

Hope you'll forgive the repetition and would welcome any comments....

 

[Andy]

Yes there are two heaters in addition to the standard car type heater.
The 'parking heater' that can be controlled either with the remote or the camping control panel.
The auxiliary heater that comes on automatically at ambient temps below 5 degrees c to heat the engine coolant.
The latter can be used as a parking heater by installing a telstart kit

http://www.carsystems.pl/?a=sklep&q=Transporter&start=0&order=i&dir=a&f=&pk=6&pF=45.00&pT=1449.00

The heater can then be started by remote. If one sets the standard heater controls to defrost & heat then in winter it can be used to defrost the windscreen & you have instant heat when you drive off.

Trouble using the auxiliary heater is it uses heater fans to distribute heat which run off main engine battery which will risk draining it.

There are several threads on the telestart kit.