Alde 3010 combi boiler
- Excellent "wet" heating system
Summary
Having had various motorhomes over the years, inititally with a “gas fire”, then the luxury of a combi boiler giving blown air heating, the Alde wet system out does them all.
We have various Alde extras fitted, namely the heat exchanger (standard “Swift”fit) and also a battery back up for the clock and a load monitor.
User Review
( votes)The 2013 Swift Kontiki comes with the Alde 3010 heating system as standard equipment. The specification of the Alde 3010 boiler is described in the Alde marketing material as “Scandia” spec. This specification sees the Alde 3010 with a three kilowatt electric heating element and also a gas burner. The electric operation of the boiler can be set at 1, 2 or 3 kilowatt settings. The actual power requirements are one heating element of 1050 watts and another heating element with 2100 watts. As a result, when the higher power output is required, both heating elements are in use at the same time. This gives a total of 3150 watts, so just over three kilowatts, equivalent to about thirteen amps. The user may need to bear these figures in mind when on hook up.
However, we have fitted an Alde load monitor, which takes care of regulating the electrical power to the boiler and thus helping to avoid tripping out either the ‘van or the hook up post. Some motorhomes and caravans are fitted with the two kilowatt electrical element as the maximum setting, so check the sales literature carefully is the spec’ of the boiler is crucial to your requirements.
In comparison to the Alde 3010 boiler our Truma Combi 6 in the previous motorhome offered electrical settings of 900 and 1800 watts, so the Alde 3010 boiler is by far a more powerful unit when running on electricity.
The “inside view” shows the key areas within the boiler.
Functions of the Alde 3010 boiler
The Truma Combi 6 provided both central heating and hot water. This could be achieved using gas or electricity or both at the same time. The Alde 3010 is operates in the same manner. The boiler provides central heating and hot water or just hot water, with power choices being gas, electricity or both. The key differences in the two system relates mostly to the central heating.
The Truma boiler heated air within the boiler. This warm air was circulated around the motorhome by a fan, pushing the warm air through a series of heating ducts. The Alde 3010 is a “wet system”. With this type of heating, time the boiler heats the glycol-water fluid within the system and this is pumped around the pipe work and radiators by a pump. There are three pump choices available – a 12v pump within the header tank (see below), a 12v in line pump alongside the boiler or a mains powered 230v pump, again “in-line” alongside the boiler.
Our motorhome has a 12v pump fitted in the header tank. This pump requires only 0.2 amps to power the pump, and so when wild camping and not on hook up, this low consumption should help to preserve leisure battery life. We are however arranging to fit a 12v “inline” pump too, more when known as they say!
Our Kontiki is also fitted with a gadget called a heat exchanger. More information about my understanding of the Alde heat exchanger can be found here on a separate write-up.
For more information on the Alde 3010 system, have a read of the Alde website.
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