Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 20:09:07 EDT
Reply-To: Ssittservl@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: S Sittservl <Ssittservl@AOL.COM>
Subject: Carver P4 - Tech. support notes
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I talked to someone at Tech. Support at Carver this morning,
to ask them a few questions about installing the P4 heater
in my camper. Here's what he said:
I wondered about installing the heater underneath the floor,
ducting it through the floor, and building some kind of box
around it, in order to save the space under the rear seat.
He reccomended against it, and said the box would need to
be watertight, and vented into the van (separately from the
cold air return, I think). I'm not sure why venting to the
outside wouldn't work, but I didn't pursue it. (I'll probably
install mine under the seat, but I thought I'd look into other
options, too.)
The exhaust and intake must be piped to the edge of the van,
as the instructions say. Neither should simply end "in the
middle" underneath the van. I think the concerns were
building up exhaust gases under the van, or sucking in
not-very-fresh air from under the van (causing the heater
to burn poorly).
The minimum separation between the ends of the exhaust and
intake pipes is 200 mm; half a meter is reccomended.
The exhaust should not be right under the sliding door.
About 20 cm rearward of it is sufficient, though. There's
no problem with the exhaust being under the slid-back door
itself (as opposed to the doorway) when the door is open.
Inlet can be anywhere - under the door, or whatever.
The driver's side of the van is preferred for the exhaust,
but not required.
Despite what the instructions say, it is NOT necessary for
the exhaust and inlet pipes to be the same length. He said
it's "better", but nothing to worry about - there'd probably be
no noticable difference in operation with different-length pipes.
They don't need to be on the same side of the van, either.
The heater has an "up" side, although it's not clearly marked
on the case. The drawings in the instructions show the proper
orientation. The heater shouldn't be installed upside-down
(although it can be installed on one side, of course, as shown
in the instructions.)
There's no problem if no cold-air duct is attached to the heater,
as long as there's sufficient air flow into the under-the-seat box.
The heat radiating from the case of the heater itself will probably
not heat the returning cold air enough to fool the thermostat into
shutting off prematurely.
The heater case gets warm, but not too hot to touch.
The shield around the exhaust pipe can get hot enough to
slightly melt the foam core in "sandwich"-style construction,
but not hot enough to start a fire. (The VW seat box floor is
wood and metal, so that's not a problem, but it gives some
idea of how hot the shield gets.)
Yes, the holes to drill for the inlet and the exhaust shield are
specified in the instructions to be somewhat larger than the
actual pipes. In the case of the exhaust shield, that's to
keep the shield from melting anything (assuming the material
it's passing through might be meltable). He suggested packing
the extra space with foil, for watertightness.
Despite what the instructions say, Carver doesn't make a "remote
thermostat" for the P4. (They do for other models.)
Carver tech. support can be reached at 011 - 44 - 1543 - 452122
(that's the full international number from the U.S.).
-Steven Sittser
