Caravanning - Carver Cascade 2 water heaters and SB1800 heaters - some technical advice, repair details, testing gas systems and gas safety warnings.
A number of different topics are discussed in the following pages. At present the section is limited to discussion of Carver SB1800 and Cascade 2 water heaters and AL-KO towing hitches. This section of SeeRed was originally produced simply to be helpful to other caravan owners and to highlight the business practices of some dominant companies. Installation manuals are provided in various formats - select the one most suitable for your needs.
READ THE GAS SAFETY
NOTES BEFORE UNDERTAKING ANY WORK.
Only 'competent persons' must work on gas systems.
An occasional page: added June 2008. Concerns are being expressed about the gearboxes and clutches on the new X250 Sevel chassis - as used by FIAT and Peugeot and utilised as the basis of many motorhomes. Some links are here. Is it time motor vehicle dealers stopped treating the public like idiots and owned up to design problems?
Important note added June 2006.These pages, including over 50 detailed images and diagrams of strip down and repair procedures, used to be 'free to view' on the web - then certain individuals on ebay started stealing and selling the photos. Ebay were slow to react and the people involved did not have their accounts suspended. Furthermore, ebay refused to allow me to give my webpages away for free via their systems. Other sellers argued that as my webpages were free to view they could not be copyright - which is incorrect. However, in order to stop people profiting to excess, I have had to alter my website. The pages are no longer free but are for sale as genuine 'SeeRed' webpages and for a lot less money than the people made who stole them! If you know of my webpages and images being sold elsewhere please tell me about it.
Therefore, apologies you now have to pay, but it is only a small sum (£1.50) and will help to keep the SeeRed site in business. You can either buy them off ebay adverts (search on www.ebay.co.uk for items for sale by steve10665) or (preferably) send me a paypal payment (see details below) for £1.50 directly to this email address: stevewozniak42@hotmail.com - simply state you wish to view the caravan pages - and make sure you get the email address right!
Please use paypal as follows:
log into your paypal account, then click on 'send money'
select 'personal' payment (not the default goods and services) and click 'other' in the personal box.
this should send your payment to me free of charge rather than incurring a charge of 25p which paypal deduct for any 'goods and services' transaction.
You can also pay £1.50 cash into any branch of Lloyds TSB in the UK - this will clear immediately and enable me to send you the information. Please email me for details of how to pay this way, or by bank to bank transfer.
If you need to pay by cheque or postal order, email first to ascertain the address to send it to - sometimes it may not be my home address.
Here is one of many endorsements:
Dear steve10665,
Hi Steve!
Thank you very much for your wonderfully helpful resource. It was well worth the money -
unlike the £1.49 I paid for a copy of the Carver Trumatic SB1800 User Manual (from that
rogue ebay user 'xxxxxx'), and actually
received just an emailed, poor quality (diazo print) pdf file of the Fitting Instructions!
In view of the horrendous features of the SB1800 that you have brought to life, perhaps it
should be re-named the 'Traumatic'!
Best wishes,
P.S. Your website is priceless!
A separate webpage details the unhelpful attitude of Truma (UK) towards owners of Carver heating products. Some material from the Patent Office is reproduced. A couple of patents on the Cascade 2 expired in January 2005 and new 'lookalike' units are now available, and despite everything that Truma and their lawyers tried to do to be unhelpful. More historical information will be added here later.
Almost everyone you speak to in the caravan world detests the high prices and/or non-availability of spares for many older products - in effect manufacturers are forcing consumers to buy whole new systems instead of a few reasonably priced spare parts. This is wholly against the tenets of reuse and recycling yet, regrettably, a parallel situation exists in the automotive world generally.
Index for this section.
Carver SB1800 heater - an example of poor installation. The Carver (Truma) SB1800 is one of the simplest caravan heaters. However, it suffers from some safety issues, the best known being corrosion of two steel gas pipes beneath floor level. These are the large pipe (supplying gas to the control valve) and the smaller one (feeding gas from the valve to the burner). The small pipe is the most likely to fail, and in the proximity of the burner. Many photos are available of repairs.
Carver SB1800 - internal components
Carver SB1800 - repair, reassembly and possible problems. ALSO SAFETY WARNINGS!
Carver 1800 installation and operation instructions - pdf format (2 min download at 56k)
AL-KO towing hitches - repairs to a seized draw tube assembly (now working perfectly!)
Carver Cascade 2 water heater - strip down and repairs: The photos on this page show a Carver Cascade 2 caravan water heater being stripped down. The common faults with these units include frost damage (which is often easily repaired), corrosion of the aluminium cylinder (which can often be repaired or if not, replaced) and failure of the central tie rod. Electronic failures in the burner module may mean a service exchange or new unit (about £100) but repairs can sometimes be effected (see below).
Patent Office document discussing Cascade 2 - the behaviour of Truma (UK)
Carver Cascade 2 installation and use manuals - copies of the original as large jpg files
Carver Cascade - instructions, pdf format (5MB, 28 mins on slow modem)
Carver Cascade - user instructions, pdf format (1MB, 7 mins on slow modem)
Carver Cascade - template to cut wall, pdf format (0.6MB - 5 mins on slow modem)
Carver Cascade 2 instructions - simplified version (no diagrams)
Repair of Carver Cascade and other water heaters
Photos of flame and pressure testing - DO NOT try this unless you are fully competent. New page Nov 2007
Corrosion of Cascade cylinders and repairs - New webpage Nov 2007 - more photos later.
Gas leak testing for caravans and motor homes - procedures for competent owners. Low pressure leak testing of the fixed gas pipes in caravans is a good idea as part of annual servicing, and is readily undertaken at home if you know what you are doing (and if you don't know, then don't try it!). I use a standard set of procedures regularly. Commercial testing often costs £40 to £60 and consists of little more than a cursory inspection, a pressure check and the often unnecessary replacement of good quality flexible hoses. How to test these systems is outlined in detail. Remember -
READ THE GAS
SAFETY NOTES BEFORE UNDERTAKING ANY WORK.
Only 'competent persons' must work on gas systems.
If you buy my Caravanning pages you get access to all of the above pages and all the images - for only £1.50!
Other ebay sellers charge £1.50 for just one emailed manual!