New Truma Eco A/C retrofit

[Geronimo John]

I have started a new thread on Generators aimed at gathering info and thoughts from owners about their generators.  Especially the new manufacturers out there now.

GJ

[Ralph Mawyer]

On 12/19/2022 at 7:02 PM, SteveCr said:

A slightly less cost approach.......

2021 Elite 2....just completed replacement of my Dometic jet engine with the Truma Aventa Eco.

It was installed by the Lakeland Florida Truma service center.

So far, it seems to work as advertised...no opinion yet using the remote...seems simple.  Hot weather performance test pending!!!

For the heater....the Truma installer recommended we keep/use the Dometic AC control box and thermostat vs a mechanical or Emerson digital thermostat.

I used the propane heater while camping this last week. Using the Dometic thermostat was no issue.

Cost = $2,705 walk out price....includes Aventa ECO, Aventa Air Distributor, Condensate drain kit and installation labor. (included tax was 7%)

Steve, I’m guessing yours was the first Oliver Truma did. Mine was going to be the first, but was a failure. We couldn’t get old unit off.

Did they have trouble getting your old unit off or if not, how did they do it?

[SteveCr]

55 minutes ago, Ralph Mawyer said:

Steve, I’m guessing yours was the first Oliver Truma did. Mine was going to be the first, but was a failure. We couldn’t get old unit off.

Did they have trouble getting your old unit off or if not, how did they do it?

Hello Ralph,

They did not seem to have a problem removing the Dometic. There was one guy on top and another inside. 

Attached is a pic of the Dometic bottom side. There are a couple of thick foam pads with a thin sealer layer of what seems similar to butyl tape. I'm unsure if there was something else stuck to the trailer roof hole. The Oliver was delivered May 2021.

It took them a little less than 3 hours to complete the job.

Steve

 

[Patriot]

5 hours ago, Ralph Mawyer said:

Steve, I’m guessing yours was the first Oliver Truma did. Mine was going to be the first, but was a failure. We couldn’t get old unit off.

Did they have trouble getting your old unit off or if not, how did they do it?

Ralph, I sent you a PM with a few questions regarding your Oliver service experience.

David

[Ralph Mawyer]

Thanks Steve, the tech and I tried it, but didn’t have a lot of room on top. We really put some muscle into and got no movement at all. We were really afraid we’d damage the gel coat or worse. May 2020 delivery. 

[SteveCr]

Ralph,

I used the Lakeland Fl Truma service center.

The tech's name is David Lehman. (d.lehman@trumacorp.com) 855.558.seven.eight.six.two

Steve

[Coach and JoJo]

I contacted Truma.....They told me they are not doing installs on Olivers from now going forward since Oliver Service Center is now doing install upgrades.

[katanapilot]

On 12/24/2022 at 10:47 AM, SteveCr said:

It took them a little less than 3 hours to complete the job.

And Oliver wants 2-3 days to do this? Something is off with that…

[MobileJoy]

8 hours ago, katanapilot said:

And Oliver wants 2-3 days to do this? Something is off with that…

I recently set up an appointment to have an annual service which takes two days to do. I have done an annual service once before and that is what it took. During the same call I asked them if they could install the Aventa. This call happened the day before I received the email advertising the retrofit availability. I was told they would need an extra day for this. I asked service to add it into the estimate and schedule it (all planned for June). So I was surprised to see the above 2-3 day estimate.

[SeaDawg]

11 hours ago, Coach and JoJo said:

I contacted Truma.....They told me they are not doing installs on Olivers from now going forward since Oliver Service Center is now doing install upgrades.

Well, that's disappointing. 

Lakeland is 700 miles closer to me than Hohenwald. 

[ChrisMI]

22 hours ago, Coach and JoJo said:

I contacted Truma.....They told me they are not doing installs on Olivers from now going forward since Oliver Service Center is now doing install upgrades.

This is terrible news!  I can’t help but think this is just Oliver flexing on the supplier so they can charge a huge premium on install. So instead of driving an hour to Elkhart, I can waste another $1k on the install and $1k on fuel to sit around for a couple days while the factory figures it out.

NOT COOL OLIVER!

Guess I’ll have to bribe a local shop to lie about what brand of trailer I have. 

[SeaDawg]

Maybe I'll call truma Lakeland after the new year and see what they say.

When our 15 year old suburban furnace dies,  I'm really thinking we'd like the varioheat.

I think it's an awesome upgrade.

[bhncb]

1 hour ago, ChrisMI said:

This is terrible news!  I can’t help but think this is just Oliver flexing on the supplier so they can charge a huge premium on install. So instead of driving an hour to Elkhart, I can waste another $1k on the install and $1k on fuel to sit around for a couple days while the factory figures it out.

NOT COOL OLIVER!

Guess I’ll have to bribe a local shop to lie about what brand of trailer I have. 

I. think this is a bit of a leap. Truma is likely looking out for their OEM customers, not wishing to bite the hand that feeds them. Also, if anyone took advantage of the "free install" coupon for the Aventa, I'm sure Truma will honor this coupon and the installation until 3/31/2023 as stipulated. Regarding Varioheat retros, since these furnaces require specific ducting, replacing original factory installed ducts for an Atwood/Dometic or Suburban would be quite labor intensive. I can understand why Truma would only want to make these furnaces available to OEMs for original installations. Besides, there is yet to be any conclusive performance evaluation of the Varioheat in an LEii . I'm anxiously waiting to hear how they perform in sub-freezing temperatures for extended periods. The specs tell me they're undersized.

 

 

[Rivernerd]

3 hours ago, bhncb said:

I'm anxiously waiting to hear how they perform in sub-freezing temperatures for extended periods. The specs tell me they're undersized.

If you define "extended period" as 6 days, our experience towing our new Elite II home from Hohenwald to Idaho in mid-November is instructive.   We used the Varioheat furnace for 6 straight sub-freezing nights in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, 4 of them above 4000' elevation.  The overnight low on three of those nights was in the teens, and 9 degrees F once (in Colorado).  The Varioheat  adequately heated the cabin with the CP Plus wall control set at 68 degrees F, and more important to us, kept the underbelly of the trailer where the tanks and water lines run, above 38 degrees F.

It ran almost constantly at night, which we suspect is because the trailer is not all that well insulated.  It consumed about 1.5 gallons of propane per night.  We figured that our two 5-gallon propane tanks allowed us to safely heat for 5 nights without refill.

The exterior walls remained cold and sweated a bit, but we do not blame the furnace for that.  That is to be expected where, unlike in a home, the supply air ducts are in the middle of the heated space, not along the walls.  We remained warm enough (and both my wife and I like to sleep warm, so we used sleeping bags), but because we could not get very far away from the exterior walls when sleeping , we did not feel "cozy."

We believe one reason the Varioheat furnace system kept the underbelly at least a few degrees above freezing is the addition of a return air vent from the bathroom to the open area under the front dinette seat.  There has been extensive discussion on another thread suggesting that additional return air ducting from the cabin into the underbelly area will help improve Oliver furnace system performance.  See:

As my wife and I did not purchase the Oliver for winter use, we find the Varioheat furnace adequate for our needs.  We do not believe it is undersized.  We were just happy that it performed well enough to get us home in reasonable comfort, given our mid-November delivery date and the colder-than-average temps we encountered!

 

[John and Debbie]

14 minutes ago, Rivernerd said:

If you define "extended period" as 6 days, our experience towing our new Elite II home from Hohenwald to Idaho in mid-November is instructive.   We used the Varioheat furnace for 6 straight sub-freezing nights in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, 4 of them above 4000' elevation.  The overnight low on three of those nights was in the teens, and 9 degrees F once (in Colorado).  The Varioheat  adequately heated the cabin with the CP Plus wall control set at 68 degrees F, and more important to us, kept the underbelly of the trailer where the tanks and water lines run, above 38 degrees F.

It ran almost constantly at night, which we suspect is because the trailer is not all that well insulated.  It consumed about 1.5 gallons of propane per night.  We figured that our two 5-gallon propane tanks allowed us to safely heat for 5 nights without refill.

The exterior walls remained cold and sweated a bit, but we do not blame the furnace for that.  That is to be expected where, unlike in a home, the supply air ducts are in the middle of the heated space, not along the walls.  We remained warm enough (and both my wife and I like to sleep warm, so we used sleeping bags), but because we could not get very far away from the exterior walls when sleeping , we did not feel "cozy."

We believe one reason the Varioheat furnace system kept the underbelly at least a few degrees above freezing is the addition of a return air vent from the bathroom to the open area under the front dinette seat.  There has been extensive discussion on another thread suggesting that additional return air ducting from the cabin into the underbelly area will help improve Oliver furnace system performance.  See:

As my wife and I did not purchase the Oliver for winter use, we find the Varioheat furnace adequate for our needs.  We do not believe it is undersized.  We were just happy that it performed well enough to get us home in reasonable comfort, given our mid-November delivery date and the colder-than-average temps we encountered!

 

Similar experience for me also.  No sweating on the walls, but it was only me.  Walls felt cool, but not cold in 5-10°

John

[GAP]

7 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

If you define "extended period" as 6 days, our experience towing our new Elite II home from Hohenwald to Idaho in mid-November is instructive.   We used the Varioheat furnace for 6 straight sub-freezing nights in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, 4 of them above 4000' elevation.  The overnight low on three of those nights was in the teens, and 9 degrees F once (in Colorado).  The Varioheat  adequately heated the cabin with the CP Plus wall control set at 68 degrees F, and more important to us, kept the underbelly of the trailer where the tanks and water lines run, above 38 degrees F.

It ran almost constantly at night, which we suspect is because the trailer is not all that well insulated.  It consumed about 1.5 gallons of propane per night.  We figured that our two 5-gallon propane tanks allowed us to safely heat for 5 nights without refill.

The exterior walls remained cold and sweated a bit, but we do not blame the furnace for that.  That is to be expected where, unlike in a home, the supply air ducts are in the middle of the heated space, not along the walls.  We remained warm enough (and both my wife and I like to sleep warm, so we used sleeping bags), but because we could not get very far away from the exterior walls when sleeping , we did not feel "cozy."

We believe one reason the Varioheat furnace system kept the underbelly at least a few degrees above freezing is the addition of a return air vent from the bathroom to the open area under the front dinette seat.  There has been extensive discussion on another thread suggesting that additional return air ducting from the cabin into the underbelly area will help improve Oliver furnace system performance.  See:

As my wife and I did not purchase the Oliver for winter use, we find the Varioheat furnace adequate for our needs.  We do not believe it is undersized.  We were just happy that it performed well enough to get us home in reasonable comfort, given our mid-November delivery date and the colder-than-average temps we encountered!

 

Sounds like a great experience.  Glad to hear it but your post does bring up a couple of follow up questions:

-  You state that you used about 1.5 gallons per night and have two 5 gallon tanks.  My experience with the Dometic furnace in similar situations (but likely colder daytime temps) was burning around 15 gallons/day off a 30 gallon tank.  I'm surer the Truma is more efficient but would be surprised if the difference was that much.  The two stock options for tank sizes on the Olivers is either a 20 gallon tank ( similar to what you would find on a gas cooking grill) or a 30 gallon tank.  A 5 gallon tank is about the size of big guy's head.  Is that what you actually have?

-  You shared the belly temp of 38 degrees on a night where it was single digits.  That's great and, I agree, is likely an improvement due to the new return placements.  Out of curiosity, where did you take this reading?  The area of most concern for me, which is likely the most vulnerable, is behind the garge at the very rear of the trailer as that is where the lines to the exterior shower run.

I would bet your "sweating walls" was condensation settling on the walls as they and the windows are so much colder than the rest of the csbin.

Thanks much for the informative post

[GAP]

2 hours ago, GAP said:

Sounds like a great experience.  Glad to hear it but your post does bring up a couple of follow up questions:

-  You state that you used about 1.5 gallons per night and have two 5 gallon tanks.  My experience with the Dometic furnace in similar situations (but likely colder daytime temps) was burning around 15 gallons/day off a 30 gallon tank.  I'm surer the Truma is more efficient but would be surprised if the difference was that much.  The two stock options for tank sizes on the Olivers is either a 20 gallon tank ( similar to what you would find on a gas cooking grill) or a 30 gallon tank.  A 5 gallon tank is about the size of big guy's head.  Is that what you actually have?

-  You shared the belly temp of 38 degrees on a night where it was single digits.  That's great and, I agree, is likely an improvement due to the new return placements.  Out of curiosity, where did you take this reading?  The area of most concern for me, which is likely the most vulnerable, is behind the garge at the very rear of the trailer as that is where the lines to the exterior shower run.

I would bet your "sweating walls" was condensation settling on the walls as they and the windows are so much colder than the rest of the csbin.

Thanks much for the informative post

Hey All.  My bad.  Seadawg pointed out I was confusing pounds and gallons.  I need a personal proofreader.  Mabey a new year's resolution in the making?

Edited December 31, 2022 by GAP
typo

[Rivernerd]

1 hour ago, GAP said:

-  You shared the belly temp of 38 degrees on a night where it was single digits.  That's great and, I agree, is likely an improvement due to the new return placements.  Out of curiosity, where did you take this reading?

Under the rear street side bed, on the trailer frame, right next to the exterior faucet.  I wanted to know if those plumbing fixtures were exposed to freezing temps.  The lowest reading from my digital thermometer in that location was 38 degrees F, when the outside temp was 9 degrees F.

[GAP]

12 minutes ago, Rivernerd said:

Under the rear street side bed, on the trailer frame, right next to the exterior faucet.  I wanted to know if those plumbing fixtures were exposed to freezing temps.  The lowest reading from my digital thermometer in that location was 38 degrees F, when the outside temp was 9 degrees F.

That is great.  It's is a vast improvement over what my 2021 would have done before I tweaked the heat system.  Would be interesting to test readings in the rearmost area of the garage as the pex lines there are likely the most susceptible.  I'm earnestly glad for you folks that have the new upgraded system and commiserate with the rest of us of us that  have to do some pretty serious surgery to have trailers that work well (= having access to water) in actual 4 season conditions.

[Geronimo John]

3 hours ago, GAP said:

I need a personal proofreader.  Mabey a new year's resolution in the making?

Amen to that!  If we get at least 30 of us, can we buy the personal proofreader at wholesale?

[SeaDawg]

2 hours ago, Geronimo John said:

Amen to that!  If we get at least 30 of us, can we buy the personal proofreader at wholesale?

I'm in. 😅

It's so easy to misread. I know I've done it, a number of times.

[GAP]

Geronimo John and Seadawg are on to something.  I vote that, as a forum, we pitch in for a dedicated proofreader.  Bet if we spend a few more $, we can even get someone to compose our posts for us.  

[MobileJoy]

Has anyone with the Aventa had to replace its filters yet? How did you get replacements, and how much did they cost? Truma's website doesn't seem to have a way to order them.

[Patriot]

22 minutes ago, MobileJoy said:

Has anyone with the Aventa had to replace its filters yet? How did you get replacements, and how much did they cost? Truma's website doesn't seem to have a way to order them.

Maybe give a quick call to  Mike Sharpe at Oliver Service, I feel sure he could assist you with ordering replacements. Or where you can order them? I don’t think Oliver stocks filters from the new Truma, great question! 
 

Patriot🇺🇸

[Patriot]

@MobileJoy  A quick google search -
You could try ordering these. I would check your model numbers in any info you have for filters prior to ordering.
Also shop around you may find a set for less dollars 💵 cabbage.

here-
https://www.rvonline.com.au/products/truma-filter-set-aventa

 

Yikes this vendor seems to high.
https://apollorvparts.com/products/truma-aventa-filter-set-pair

 

Patriot🇺🇸