cancel
Showing results forย 
Search instead forย 
Did you mean:ย 

ALDE heating and water heating system. Comments welcome.

Reisender
Nomad
Nomad
Hi folks. We are looking at a little trailer for our next RV. The unit has an ALDE hydronic heating and hot water system. It is a Swedish system and seems quite common in Europe. Wondering how many have or have had this system and what they thought of it.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

On edit. Fixed the original question to reflect hot water.
16 REPLIES 16

Reisender
Nomad
Nomad
Wow. Ton of information here. Trying to get my head around all of it. Found some YouTube info as well. Not intimidated but a little more enlightened to whatโ€™s involved.

A big thanks to all who have contributed.

RKW
Explorer
Explorer
I've been lurking on the AirStream forum on a thread called "Much Ado About ALDE". It's over 50 pages long. Lots of good info there. I get the impression that the system generally works reliably, but if there are problems the average American user, because of the novelty, can't readily address the problems on his/her own. My impression is the system seems a bit quirky. It just a whole new ball game. I do think it's the coming future though.
Ryan

  • 2015 Ford F250


  • 2015 Rockwood Signature Ultralite 8280 WS


  • Dual Honda EU2000i Generators




    The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes, it's just a tired feeling.

noteven
Explorer III
Explorer III
obgraham wrote:
Actually Alde USA, which used to be in Vancouver, Washington, is now in Indiana.
The Alde has been in Roadtrek Class B's for a number of years. It takes up less space than a furnace and HWH.
When it works well it is great -- hydronic fluid circulating to convectors and heating the floor directly.
It does, however, require maintenance, including periodic flushing, bleeding the system, and fluid exchange.
On forums devoted to Roadtrek, the Alde is a frequent item that "just doesn't;t seem to be working right". The company's US division has not been very responsive to the consumer, and technicians that know it are uncommon.
In my opinion the Alde is over-engineered for the task it has to do. An RV furnace and water heater are more reliable, if somewhat noisy.


Thanks for the head office correction.

In my Cirrus truck camper the Alde ran fine for the 400+ days I used it. As I mentioned in the post above the water temp was set too high and I had the pressure relief open and lose some antifreeze when camping at 9800ft

I used regular aluminum compatible green antifreeze in mine. Potable antifreeze is recommended because in the event the heat exchanger for the water heating portion were to crack it could allow fluid into the hot potable water. I recognize the taste of glycol so I reasoned I would not drink the hot water and check what is wrong.

The system is unpressurized vented to atmoshphere so some fluid is lost to evaporation over many hours of operation.

"Bleeding" - not sure what Roadtrek means - but if the system is installed by an oem such that air that enters the system due to a fluid change or owner neglect needs to be pushed downhill that is troublesome. The one time in 2-1/2 years I did a fluid change I filled the system and ran it, topped it off, then went for a drive with the system running. The rocking and rolling burped it quite nicely.

I did help 3 or 4 other Alde owners by referring them to which page in the owners manual answers to their "issues" could be found :).

The main issue I had was ENDTRH* disorder, kinda like cats get.

*Excessive Napping Due To Radiant Heat

StirCrazy
Nomad III
Nomad III
noteven wrote:
StirCrazy wrote:
Reisender wrote:
Hi folks. We are looking at a little trailer for our next RV. The unit has an ALDE hydronic heating and cooling system. It is a Swedish system and seems quite common in Europe. Wondering how many have or have had this system and what they thought of it.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.


unless somthing has changed there is no cooling in the ALDE system, it would have a normal ac on top of the unit like any other trailer. the ALDE is heating, or heating and hot water. Myself, I wonder why it has taken so long to get an efficent silent and powerfull heating system in RV's that require way less battery power. I am even looking at the feasability of retrofitting one of these systems into my Truck Camper.

Steve


Steve - Alde North America is based in Seattle. I don't believe they are selling components to the non OEM aftermarket (yet).

Alde (and Truma) are very popular in Europe in RV's and boats. There are suppliers in the UK who sell the components.


nope they don't, but they are not the inventers of the system it has been used un europ for a much longer time and some of thoes companies will sell to consumers as they didnt get locked into deals with rv companies. at anyrate finding the system isnt the hard part, its planning a retro fit and ensuring that you can get proper airflows over the radiators and such. the system is more set up for an instalation in a new build but a retrofit can be done with a bit of work haha

Steve
2014 F350 6.7 Platinum
2016 Cougar 330RBK
1991 Slumberqueen WS100

obgraham
Explorer
Explorer
Actually Alde USA, which used to be in Vancouver, Washington, is now in Indiana.
The Alde has been in Roadtrek Class B's for a number of years. It takes up less space than a furnace and HWH.
When it works well it is great -- hydronic fluid circulating to convectors and heating the floor directly.
It does, however, require maintenance, including periodic flushing, bleeding the system, and fluid exchange.
On forums devoted to Roadtrek, the Alde is a frequent item that "just doesn't;t seem to be working right". The company's US division has not been very responsive to the consumer, and technicians that know it are uncommon.
In my opinion the Alde is over-engineered for the task it has to do. An RV furnace and water heater are more reliable, if somewhat noisy.

noteven
Explorer III
Explorer III
StirCrazy wrote:
Reisender wrote:
Hi folks. We are looking at a little trailer for our next RV. The unit has an ALDE hydronic heating and cooling system. It is a Swedish system and seems quite common in Europe. Wondering how many have or have had this system and what they thought of it.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.


unless somthing has changed there is no cooling in the ALDE system, it would have a normal ac on top of the unit like any other trailer. the ALDE is heating, or heating and hot water. Myself, I wonder why it has taken so long to get an efficent silent and powerfull heating system in RV's that require way less battery power. I am even looking at the feasability of retrofitting one of these systems into my Truck Camper.

Steve


Steve - Alde North America is based in Seattle. I don't believe they are selling components to the non OEM aftermarket (yet).

Alde (and Truma) are very popular in Europe in RV's and boats. There are suppliers in the UK who sell the components.

noteven
Explorer III
Explorer III
I was very satisfied with the Alde system in my Cirrus 820 truck camper.

Alde invented his heating system in 1949.

If you understand convection/radiant hydronic heating (heat moves to cold, heat from the sun gets here without blowing air, the thermostat is not a throttle, the system heats the materials of the interior until everything is at set temperature - floors, table top, toilet seat- , set temp doesn't need to be as high etc etc) you will be happy with it.

It is not capable of supplying endless hot water for steaming 50gallon showers. Normal camping showers are fine.

It will supply heat / hot water on 100% AC shore power electric at 1500 watts, or 750 watt on 15amp AC shore power. If 750 watt is not sufficient, it will supplement with propane so will run on both at the same time. It will run on 100% propane when not on shore power. The combustion and circulator systems are 12v DC from the vehicle.

The circ pump will make a quiet whine when starting, the fluid will gurgle quietly in the resevoir. The gas valve will make a quiet soft thump sound when it closes. To put all this "noise" in perspective when I was camped remote in the quiet desert, the fridge flame drowned out the sound of the heating system.

In -5C early morning hours +15C afternoon cool desert camping with good sunshine, the camper ran on 170watt Zamp solar without operating generator for days in late January - February. Any amount of cloud and a short generator run would be needed daily.

The one advantage a hot air system has (Webastor, Espar, "Chinese diesel heaters", conventional RV screamer furnaces) is knocking down humidity quickly on rainy cool mornings.

Being a hybrid convection/radiant system the Alde does warm the air just not with afterburner speed.

Hope this helps.

bgum
Explorer
Explorer
There is also a forum on the web. Nucamp Tab forum. If you then search tab 400 while on that forum you will note few problems discussed.

Dusty_R
Explorer
Explorer
If you add air conditioning to that, be sure to include dehumidifying also.

Dusty

Reisender
Nomad
Nomad
StirCrazy wrote:
Reisender wrote:
Hi folks. We are looking at a little trailer for our next RV. The unit has an ALDE hydronic heating and cooling system. It is a Swedish system and seems quite common in Europe. Wondering how many have or have had this system and what they thought of it.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.


unless somthing has changed there is no cooling in the ALDE system, it would have a normal ac on top of the unit like any other trailer. the ALDE is heating, or heating and hot water. Myself, I wonder why it has taken so long to get an efficent silent and powerfull heating system in RV's that require way less battery power. I am even looking at the feasability of retrofitting one of these systems into my Truck Camper.

Steve


You are right Steve. I should have said heating and hot water. My bad. I edited the original post. The T@B uses basement/cabinet air so nothing on the roof. . I have talked to a Couple folks and they are happy with the cooling. I was in the trailer and the AC unit didnโ€™t seem noisy. Iโ€™m sure it will be fine.

StirCrazy
Nomad III
Nomad III
Reisender wrote:
Hi folks. We are looking at a little trailer for our next RV. The unit has an ALDE hydronic heating and cooling system. It is a Swedish system and seems quite common in Europe. Wondering how many have or have had this system and what they thought of it.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.


unless somthing has changed there is no cooling in the ALDE system, it would have a normal ac on top of the unit like any other trailer. the ALDE is heating, or heating and hot water. Myself, I wonder why it has taken so long to get an efficent silent and powerfull heating system in RV's that require way less battery power. I am even looking at the feasability of retrofitting one of these systems into my Truck Camper.

Steve
2014 F350 6.7 Platinum
2016 Cougar 330RBK
1991 Slumberqueen WS100

Reisender
Nomad
Nomad
bgum wrote:
We had that system in a Nucamp Tab trailer we had for a very short while. We never fired it up. It was located under the bed. It did have a good bit of maintenance requirements. The RV was so small we just used a small electric heater. We had the camper for less than a year as it was too small for our likes. Not for cooling heating only.


Yah. Itโ€™s the T@B 400 we are looking at. Small is important for our intended use. I found a Facebook page of owners and have listed a couple questions there as well. We are not planning on any winter camping but fall and early spring are definitely in the picture for us. Iโ€™m interested in reliability and serviceability comments.

Thanks for your input.

Reisender
Nomad
Nomad
wildtoad wrote:
What little trailer?


We are looking at a Nucamp T@B 400. It checks most of the boxes for us. Easy on and off ferries, Gets us into the small parks and sites and pullable by the SUV we have selected. We have talked to a couple folks who recently got one but other than the hot water they havenโ€™t had cause to use the heating which we will need. Just trying to touch base with those who have done some fall or early spring camping.

bgum
Explorer
Explorer
We had that system in a Nucamp Tab trailer we had for a very short while. We never fired it up. It was located under the bed. It did have a good bit of maintenance requirements. The RV was so small we just used a small electric heater. We had the camper for less than a year as it was too small for our likes. Not for cooling heating only.