Putting on the heating without water in the system

Hello and thank you for the further replies.

I am a rather 'tail between legs'. It turns out it was working fine but took a very very long time to kick in. 

Last year, we used the caravan several times in the winter, but haven't been able to this time. Maybe that is one reason for the delay (and probably the reason for lots of condensation yesterday morning - never had that before!).

We did take a heater just in case, and it was nice for the 'instant heat' and the warm glow too.

And yes, it was just the water we drained down. 

I really appreciate your time and care. Hope you appreciate the candid confession 😥

Now, the sliding plastic thing on the toilet, that is a different matter. 😠🙄

Hello and thank you for the further replies.

I am a rather 'tail between legs'. It turns out it was working fine but took a very very long time to kick in. 

Last year, we used the caravan several times in the winter, but haven't been able to this time. Maybe that is one reason for the delay (and probably the reason for lots of condensation yesterday morning - never had that before!).

We did take a heater just in case, and it was nice for the 'instant heat' and the warm glow too.

And yes, it was just the water we drained down. 

I really appreciate your time and care. Hope you appreciate the candid confession 😥

Now, the sliding plastic thing on the toilet, that is a different matter. 😠🙄

So sorry I've managed to post more than once. 🤔

one of the downsides with the alde system is how long it takes the radiators to get warm, i can see that you might have thought nothing was happening....thanks for replying

When using it on gas, you should be able to hear it when the boiler fires up, and to check, go outside and put your hand above the flue, you will feel the warm exhaust gases.

The warm up on gas should be reasonably fast, but it is so cold at the moment that the fabric of the van will take quite a while to heat up, hence the reason we always carry a small fan heater to use when we get to a site.

As we have the Alde load monitor fitted, we turn the fan heater to 2kw, and the Alde to gas+2kw (our max) and let the monitor cut it to 1kw as required.

By the time we have connected water and waste etc etc, the van will be reasonably warm and we can turn off the gas.