Thanks for showing how easy this is. Im reading some places want £400+ now to change to G13?! I already have an unused 12v pump to flush through with (I bought 2 as redundancy in case the one i use to fill my fresh water water tank ever failed). I just need to read up on how much fluid I need to buy for the 3010 system. Logically the main place for air with be the bathroom radiator as its the highest point, I dont have such easy access to the other 2 bleed points you showed in your motorhome. From what Ive read though, on the header tank, the MAX marker is only for when the system is running and the expanded fluid is up to full temperature. So when changing the fluid on a cold system it should be topped up to the MIN mark rather than Max. Great video. Thank you
Just finished mine following your video, £49 total cost, antifreeze , de ironside water and pump, hoses I had anyway, took a couple of hours, going to do a friends in a couple of weeks, quite an easy task really. Thank you again.
Watched your video a little while ago, very inspiring. Completed my van last week, I used pond hose and fittings which kept the hose diameter similar to both the Alde and the pump. One thing to watch out for, was that I couldn’t get the fluid to pump out. Eventually swapped the hoses around and found it worked perfectly. Called Alde help line the next day, before I got my question out they guessed my problem. The van has been built with the inlet and outlet pipes fitted the wrong way round to the expansion tank. Works fine when in heating mode, however the none return valve stops you flushing the new fluid through. They said it’s a very common issue…………………
I found it best not to drain any of the old antifreeze out. First syphon out the fluid from the header tank and take it off. Then attach your pump and hoses as in the video. Then pump water through until all of the old antifreeze is replaced by water. Once water is coming out or the return hose, start to pump the new antifreeze through until if comes out of the return hose as in the video. Replace the header tank' top up and then bleed the system as in the video. Job done.
Well! I’ve only gone and done it! Yes, me, a mere female has done this job with the aid of your fab instructions. Fairly straight forward, I still have a little air in the system but will fire it up tomorrow and clear that out. Thank you for a clear instructional vlog, which has saved me a couple of hundred pounds. Cheers ! 👍
Excellent Video, my dealer wants £200 I thought no way, I will find out how to do it myself.. Some videos and write ups make it sound complicated. Your Video shows how simple a job it is.. Thank you Bud.. Just finding the bleed valves is all I need to do before I attempt mine. big thumbs up from me!!!
Hi Thanks watched this video and used it as a guide to replace the glycol in my Bailey Unicorn Cabrera went with out a hitch just like the video. Virtually the same pump cost NZ$27.00 or £13.00, the G13 fluid came in at NZ$137.00 or £68.00, however I erred on the safe side and I have two 1.5 litre concentrate bottles left for top up. Bleeding it was no problem did it about three times round the bleed points until no more air,. Heating running sweet for another 5 years, again thanks for the excellent video Cheers Ken
Hey Ken I need to do my glycol swap and am also from NZ. What pump did you use and where did you buy it. Just want to make sure I don't get a pump that is too weak or too strong. Cheers
Excellent video Geoff, I just purchased an ACE SUPREME TWINSTAR with the Alde Heating System,, I watched this video and set about changing my fluid. I used the 20mm plastic tube that is used for plumbing the toilet overflow from wickes and one of the caravan multi water filer pipes( the ones that are tapered rubber to connect my pump), also same pipe from wickes connected to return and into a waste bucket. After draining the system of 2 year fluid and running clean water through I used XsteamGG40 5 year antifreeze and deionized water from my car spares shop...,, all Alde compatible. to refill the system, easy to do.
Thank you so much for this video. My dealer wanted £297.00 to do this. It cost me about £60. One thing, my lunar clubman ck caravan had the top-up tank glued as well as screwed to the van, making it more tricky to remove the pipes for flushing and filling. Once again thank you.
Just done this on my Elddis Affinity 480. Thanks for the video, it gave me the confidence to have a go. A few observations: I got my adapters from a friendly plumber who had them rattling around in his van. I found the 15mm end was very tight on the garden hose which I solved by pouring a drop of boiling water on the end of the hose to soften it. The outlet from the pump is a larger diameter so I needed to use an adapter to go from the larger hose to the garden hose. I started of fixing a long piece of the larger hose but then realized that the pump would need to push a larger volume of water so cut it back to a couple of inches. When I drained the fluid off at the start there was some remaining in the reservoir in the bit at the bottom where the return pipe joins - just need to be careful of spillage when removing the header tank. The pump took a bit of getting going, so needed to lift up the bucket to head height which gave it the kick it needed. Thanks again for the video, I quite enjoyed doing it :) (BTW there was about 12L of fluid so I eventually needed 7L of G13 with a bit left over)
I have reduced the distance between the pump and the pipe and it works. I have run a lot of water through flushing it and am quite happy now. Many Thanks. I never doubted it would work it was just frustrating tnat I couuldn’t make it happen.
Great video, thanks. Having watched it and realising there was no mystery to changing the fluid, I did mine today in the caravan. Dead easy, took 1.5 hours and cost just £40 in antifreeze.
Great video which was easy to follow. Job done really easy. The only thing I did different was I found it easy to run the pipes through the window but it will depend on the model of caravan or motorhome. Just gave me more manoeuvrable space.
Thanks you Geoff for a very informative video. Unfortunately we failed at the step of flushing water through. We are stumped now as we have drained out the fluid, but can get no further. Perhaps we will have to go to our supplier and pay the £265 quoted for them to finish the job!!
Geoff Pegg we connected everything up, but when we turned the pump on there was some gurgling and the water level in the bucket went down a little bit . But despite leaving the pump on for nearly 10 minutes, nothing come out the other end. We tried bleeding the system to see if an airlock was preventing the water coming out, but that made no difference. After 4 hours of trying, we’ve left everything set up in the Motorhome and will try again to tomorrow, but can’t work out why the water won’t flush through
Thank you so much - your suggestion worked. We are taking it in stages, but the system has now been flushed through and the new antifreeze put in. Just got to bleed it now!
Thanks, a really useful video. I don't need to change mine just yet as not even a year old but fluid level has dropped below minimum so I need to top up and bleed the air out. I don't think it could have been bled properly initially as I've hardly used the heating this year and the level was ok when we set out.
Have just completed this on our swift caravan here in New Zealand. All went very much to plan and as you described in the video. Would like to add my thanks to those of many others. You are a legend Geoff! In case this is useful to anyone else - when I switched bucket from flush water to new fluid, the self priming pump would not initially circulate the fluid and nothing came through - I guessed this was caused by air introduce somehow during the changeover and a quick "suck" on the return pipe with a siphon bulb that I rigged up, was enough to start the flow again. BTW I cannot believe how badly placed the bleed valves are on our Swift 565 :-(
Muy buen video! Por fin puedo ver claramente el proceso y el metodo para cambiar el liquido caloportador, sin el oscurantismo y el secretismo de los mensajes oficiales Alde, y de los profesionales del sector AC. Sencillo y bueno para nuestras economias bombardeadas. Thank you Geoff !!
I changed ours last year after watching this vidio. I connected the flow and return as per the video but nothing was flowing, so I put the pump on the return pipe and I worked. I can only assume that when the caravan was built they connected the pipes to the header tank the wrong way round. I cant see that this is a problem as the tank hasn't got any one way valves or the like
Terrific video! Just been in touch with Alde to find out how big a mortgage i need to pay for the service. Can you give me an idea of the flowrate (power?) of the pump I need to buy to do this job. So many pumps available on ebay/screwfix etc for garden ponds, but yours looks a bit more serious. Thanks Ian
Need to get this done. Your video looks very straight forward. Just worried about air in the system. Dealer just quoted £200. I suppose if I just get the heat up and keep bleeding all should be ok.
@@kevinlayzell3960 Yes the G13 antifreeze has a 5 year anti corrosion inhibitor, the same as the Alde branded version, the old blue antifreeze is only good for 2 years. You can also use Comma GG40 spec TL774-J which is G13.
Geoff Pegg Well Geoff I've done antifreeze change today and used your technique, the only thing different I did was flush straight away with new antifreeze and it's worked a treat. Just a bit of messing getting air out but a few hrs persevering and done all hot and running.. If anyone watches this video and thinks I can do that then save yourself some money and give it ago. Cheers Geoff
Eventually I got the drain plug out. Only about a pint came out. My pump doesn't seem to be powerful enough to push through the system. Working in plan B.
Excellent video. Bleeding was a pain - finding and then accessing bleed valves was hard in my motorhome. Surely Alde could have come up with a better way to change the fluid?
Hey Geoff, great video. When you flush just the water through to flush out the old glycol. Do you use just tap water for that or mineralised water also for that stage.
Hi, I used ordinary tap water for the flushing, you could use de-mineralised water but new G13 mixture would certainly remove all tap water during the refilling.
Hi I've only just watched your video you make it look so simple. I'm about to change my fluid I thought about flushing out with fresh water first but spoke to alde they say should not use tap water only de ionised ..I am mixing my anti freeze with de ionised water but would like to flush out first with tap water ..your thoughts please.
Don’t worry about flushing, when you pump the antifreeze mix thru the system it flushes it anyway, it’s not like rads at home, there won’t be any debri or sludge to worry about.
@@geofus cheers all sorted very easy job when you get down to it.Although I had to bypass the radiator in the shower as their is a leak but its under the shower tray .They build these vans with no forward planning at all ..thanks again.
I’ve watched a couple of times and am getting ‘tooled up’ to do it. Only complication is that the van is new to me but the existing liquid stinks to high heaven. I hope I don’t have too much trouble with residual smells once I run clean water through. I don’t fancy running disinfectant through the pipework to kill any lingering bacteria and smell.
Why not use a product like www.amazon.co.uk/Puriclean-Caravan-Motorhome-System-Cleaner/dp/B0028IBK1U To clean you system first, that should do the trick.
Thanks for the video - very useful. How much did you get out via the drain plug and therefore how much was left to flush? Just a thought - what about keeping the drain plug in place and just using the flush to remove all the old fluid? Would that work or would there be old fluid trapped? Thanks again.
@@geofus Thanks Geoff, Yes I think draining first is easier, if only because trying to get the header tank off or drain just that first could be messy!
Just done the change on our 2015 Elddis Affinity 550, which has the Alde 302 system, and all went well. The drain plug was on the offside about a 1/4 way up from back of van. One difference was that the pump sits in the header tank so this has to be put back before the system can be turned on and bled, which then means it has to come out again for top ups! Also found it useful to have a funnel to get fluid into the header tank once fitted back as it was quite difficult to get clear access to it at the back of the wardrobe. I didn't do the flush with clean water just went straight for the new pink G13 (used Comma Xstream GG40) and it was easy to see when the colour changed. Bleeding was OK - only found 2 valves, one by the boiler and one on the towel rail in the bathroom. I also didn't turn the pump up - just ran at normal setting and seemed fine. We bought the van last year at 3 years old so obviously the fluid hadn't been changed at the recommended 2 years mark but hopefully it will be OK for another 5 now.
Great video, just bought the same make of pump but I see there are two capacities. I have the 20Ltr/min at 40w the other size is 30Ltr/min at 60w. Do you think the pump I have bought will be sufficient? The discharge size is 15mm
Hi Geoff, how is the heating? Do you still have your motorhome? I'm thinking of doing the same with my caravan, just had a price of £250 to do it when it's in for a service. Pump is £10 off ebay and I think the liquids are roughly £40 -50.
Hi, I have now sold the Motorhome but would expect everything to be working 100%. It really is so easy with the submersible pump, it’s very rewarding to do, I even used the same pump to change the ATF fluid on my Mercedes transmission, saved £100’s.
Geoff, The 19mm to 15mm pipe fitting you describe in your video that you have left over from TRV's. Is that what would normally connect to a standard radiator. I can find 15mm x 1/2 Inch BSP fittings on ebay. Just want to make sure I get the right size, thanks.
Hi Geoff. I have the same problem as Davina Scholefield in that I drained the system but I cannot flush it. Nothing comes out of the waste pipe. I have disconnected the pump from the flow pipe and it is pumping water. I have tried raising the bucket and pump as you suggested to Davina but nothing comes out of the outlet hose. The pump like yours rated at 12v 1.5amps with a flow rate of 12 litres/ min. I would welcome any ideas on this.
Hi, have you tried swapping the flow and return pipes at the header tank, someone mentioned they have a non return valve fitted, this may restrict the flush.
I guess as long as your pump is running you could bleed ok. You don’t need the heat on but you will need the water flow to push any air to the top of the rads, otherwise could take longer to bleed. How can you draw air into a sealed heating system ?
@@geofus That's what I wondered too! Quite a few people mention it on the Swift forum. I know zero about the process / system so assumed they were correct. Interestingly they also mentioned having to raise one end of the van when bleeding!
Our van is less than 5 years old, but the anti freeze level is below minimum. I think this is what must be causing a scraping noise in the boiler. Can we just top it up with a 50/50 mix of glycol and ionized water?
Yes you can, the mixture should be G13 after 5 years, so just mix or buy premixed glycol to top up, the old glycol and the newer G13 spec are miscible.
This is a great demo. I’m looking to do mine soon. How do the black clips around the rubber connectors unlock please? I can see at about 8:40 ish you reconnect them with a pair of grips. Just not sure how to loosen them. Thanks.
Hi, the spring clips are easily unlocked by compressing them with a pair of grips, they can then be slid down the pipe to remove the header tank, its exactly the the same as when reconnecting.
Does anyone know the approximate amount of undiluted coolant i need to buy? Don't want to come short when filling it back up, but also don't have a need for 5 liters of unused coolant. I have a large caravan with about 4 cilinder shaped radiators.
That depends on the size of your system, ours had around 10 litres of coolant. So if you do a 50/50 mix 6 lites of concentrate will give enough for 12 litres.
I have followed the instructions here. However I am unable to set up a continuous flow. I have the pipes the correct way round, I think. Any other suggestions as to why it won’t flow?
Do you mean your submersible pump will not pump clean water through your system ? Make sure its connected the right way round and is self priming, also raise the bucket as high as possible with a funnel to create a head of water.
@@akaday The G13 has a purple/violet colour and has the same exceptional cooling and antifreeze performance as G12++. The main difference: it is manufactured using glycerin instead of glycol. Glycerin is much less harmful to the environment than glycol.
Thank you for taking the time to record and uploading this video, great job! Thanks again! ☺
Thanks for showing how easy this is. Im reading some places want £400+ now to change to G13?! I already have an unused 12v pump to flush through with (I bought 2 as redundancy in case the one i use to fill my fresh water water tank ever failed).
I just need to read up on how much fluid I need to buy for the 3010 system.
Logically the main place for air with be the bathroom radiator as its the highest point, I dont have such easy access to the other 2 bleed points you showed in your motorhome.
From what Ive read though, on the header tank, the MAX marker is only for when the system is running and the expanded fluid is up to full temperature. So when changing the fluid on a cold system it should be topped up to the MIN mark rather than Max.
Great video. Thank you
Just finished mine following your video, £49 total cost, antifreeze , de ironside water and pump, hoses I had anyway, took a couple of hours, going to do a friends in a couple of weeks, quite an easy task really.
Thank you again.
Thanks, it’s easy isn’t it. Some directions make it sound confusing with certain methods, in reality it’s simple. Glad you sorted it for little cost.
Watched your video a little while ago, very inspiring. Completed my van last week, I used pond hose and fittings which kept the hose diameter similar to both the Alde and the pump. One thing to watch out for, was that I couldn’t get the fluid to pump out. Eventually swapped the hoses around and found it worked perfectly. Called Alde help line the next day, before I got my question out they guessed my problem. The van has been built with the inlet and outlet pipes fitted the wrong way round to the expansion tank. Works fine when in heating mode, however the none return valve stops you flushing the new fluid through. They said it’s a very common issue…………………
I found it best not to drain any of the old antifreeze out. First syphon out the fluid from the header tank and take it off. Then attach your pump and hoses as in the video. Then pump water through until all of the old antifreeze is replaced by water. Once water is coming out or the return hose, start to pump the new antifreeze through until if comes out of the return hose as in the video. Replace the header tank' top up and then bleed the system as in the video. Job done.
Well! I’ve only gone and done it! Yes, me, a mere female has done this job with the aid of your fab instructions. Fairly straight forward, I still have a little air in the system but will fire it up tomorrow and clear that out.
Thank you for a clear instructional vlog, which has saved me a couple of hundred pounds. Cheers ! 👍
Thanks very much, I was a little apprehensive at first, but i shows its not really as difficult as people think.
Excellent Video, my dealer wants £200 I thought no way, I will find out how to do it myself.. Some videos and write ups make it sound complicated. Your Video shows how simple a job it is.. Thank you Bud.. Just finding the bleed valves is all I need to do before I attempt mine. big thumbs up from me!!!
Hi Thanks watched this video and used it as a guide to replace the glycol in my Bailey Unicorn Cabrera went with out a hitch just like the video. Virtually the same pump cost NZ$27.00 or £13.00, the G13 fluid came in at NZ$137.00 or £68.00, however I erred on the safe side and I have two 1.5 litre concentrate bottles left for top up. Bleeding it was no problem did it about three times round the bleed points until no more air,. Heating running sweet for another 5 years, again thanks for the excellent video
Cheers
Ken
Thanks, glad it went so well for you.
Hey Ken I need to do my glycol swap and am also from NZ. What pump did you use and where did you buy it. Just want to make sure I don't get a pump that is too weak or too strong. Cheers
Cheers Geoff, your great video gave me the confidence to change my 2.5 year old antifreeze and heating is running better than ever ! Many thanks.
Excellent video Geoff, I just purchased an ACE SUPREME TWINSTAR with the Alde Heating System,, I watched this video and set about changing my fluid. I used the 20mm plastic tube that is used for plumbing the toilet overflow from wickes and one of the caravan multi water filer pipes( the ones that are tapered rubber to connect my pump), also same pipe from wickes connected to return and into a waste bucket. After draining the system of 2 year fluid and running clean water through I used XsteamGG40 5 year antifreeze and deionized water from my car spares shop...,, all Alde compatible. to refill the system, easy to do.
Glad it worked so well for you, it’s not as hard as people make out and very rewarding to know it’s been done properly and saved £100.
Thank you so much for this video. My dealer wanted £297.00 to do this. It cost me about £60. One thing, my lunar clubman ck caravan had the top-up tank glued as well as screwed to the van, making it more tricky to remove the pipes for flushing and filling. Once again thank you.
Glad it worked for you, its not as hard as they make out.
Just done this on my Elddis Affinity 480. Thanks for the video, it gave me the confidence to have a go. A few observations: I got my adapters from a friendly plumber who had them rattling around in his van. I found the 15mm end was very tight on the garden hose which I solved by pouring a drop of boiling water on the end of the hose to soften it. The outlet from the pump is a larger diameter so I needed to use an adapter to go from the larger hose to the garden hose. I started of fixing a long piece of the larger hose but then realized that the pump would need to push a larger volume of water so cut it back to a couple of inches. When I drained the fluid off at the start there was some remaining in the reservoir in the bit at the bottom where the return pipe joins - just need to be careful of spillage when removing the header tank. The pump took a bit of getting going, so needed to lift up the bucket to head height which gave it the kick it needed. Thanks again for the video, I quite enjoyed doing it :) (BTW there was about 12L of fluid so I eventually needed 7L of G13 with a bit left over)
Great, glad it went well for you, my pump was self priming so worked at any position. but its not a difficult job as you have found out.
I have reduced the distance between the pump and the pipe and it works. I have run a lot of water through flushing it and am quite happy now. Many Thanks. I never doubted it would work it was just frustrating tnat I couuldn’t make it happen.
Great video gives you information and confidence to change fluid . Well done 👍
Great video, thanks. Having watched it and realising there was no mystery to changing the fluid, I did mine today in the caravan. Dead easy, took 1.5 hours and cost just £40 in antifreeze.
Great video which was easy to follow. Job done really easy. The only thing I did different was I found it easy to run the pipes through the window but it will depend on the model of caravan or motorhome. Just gave me more manoeuvrable space.
Thanks you Geoff for a very informative video. Unfortunately we failed at the step of flushing water through. We are stumped now as we have drained out the fluid, but can get no further. Perhaps we will have to go to our supplier and pay the £265 quoted for them to finish the job!!
Hi, why were you not able to flush the system ?
Geoff Pegg we connected everything up, but when we turned the pump on there was some gurgling and the water level in the bucket went down a little bit . But despite leaving the pump on for nearly 10 minutes, nothing come out the other end. We tried bleeding the system to see if an airlock was preventing the water coming out, but that made no difference. After 4 hours of trying, we’ve left everything set up in the Motorhome and will try again to tomorrow, but can’t work out why the water won’t flush through
Maybe the pump you have is not self priming, you could try to raise the pump and bucket above the level of the header tank to start it flowing,
Geoff Pegg Thank you so much for replying so quickly. We will try that either later or tomorrow.
Thank you so much - your suggestion worked. We are taking it in stages, but the system has now been flushed through and the new antifreeze put in. Just got to bleed it now!
Thanks so much for posting this, it made so much sense and explained how the system worked for me. Cheers.
Thanks, a really useful video. I don't need to change mine just yet as not even a year old but fluid level has dropped below minimum so I need to top up and bleed the air out. I don't think it could have been bled properly initially as I've hardly used the heating this year and the level was ok when we set out.
Have just completed this on our swift caravan here in New Zealand. All went very much to plan and as you described in the video. Would like to add my thanks to those of many others. You are a legend Geoff! In case this is useful to anyone else - when I switched bucket from flush water to new fluid, the self priming pump would not initially circulate the fluid and nothing came through - I guessed this was caused by air introduce somehow during the changeover and a quick "suck" on the return pipe with a siphon bulb that I rigged up, was enough to start the flow again. BTW I cannot believe how badly placed the bleed valves are on our Swift 565 :-(
Muy buen video! Por fin puedo ver claramente el proceso y el metodo para cambiar el liquido caloportador, sin el oscurantismo y el secretismo de los mensajes oficiales Alde, y de los profesionales del sector AC. Sencillo y bueno para nuestras economias bombardeadas. Thank you Geoff !!
Excelente, me alegra que te haya gustado.
Excellent informative video, thanks Geoff very helpful
just finished mine thanks for the instructions helped a lot cheers
I changed ours last year after watching this vidio. I connected the flow and return as per the video but nothing was flowing, so I put the pump on the return pipe and I worked. I can only assume that when the caravan was built they connected the pipes to the header tank the wrong way round. I cant see that this is a problem as the tank hasn't got any one way valves or the like
Terrific video! Just been in touch with Alde to find out how big a mortgage i need to pay for the service. Can you give me an idea of the flowrate (power?) of the pump I need to buy to do this job. So many pumps available on ebay/screwfix etc for garden ponds, but yours looks a bit more serious. Thanks Ian
Need to get this done. Your video looks very straight forward. Just worried about air in the system. Dealer just quoted £200. I suppose if I just get the heat up and keep bleeding all should be ok.
Does the antifreeze you have used have the anti corrosion in it as well. Or is this the same as the Alde branding one?
Bleeding is very easy, just like bleeding a radiator at home, simple.
Geoff Pegg don’t know why Alde say it has to be done with their special Alde filler and bleed pump? I suppose it’s a money thing as always
@@kevinlayzell3960 Yes the G13 antifreeze has a 5 year anti corrosion inhibitor, the same as the Alde branded version, the old blue antifreeze is only good for 2 years. You can also use Comma GG40 spec TL774-J which is G13.
Very well done an excellent guide .
Excellent video Geoff, going to do my Bailey unicorn cadiz saving £160,just bought 7 ltrs antifreeze for £26.Fingers crossed.
Its easy, let us know how you get on.
Geoff Pegg
My submersible pump has a flow rate of 2050 L/H you rekon that's enuff to flush system
Anthony Bird i used this one. rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F282006928733
Geoff Pegg
Well Geoff I've done antifreeze change today and used your technique, the only thing different I did was flush straight away with new antifreeze and it's worked a treat. Just a bit of messing getting air out but a few hrs persevering and done all hot and running.. If anyone watches this video and thinks I can do that then save yourself some money and give it ago. Cheers Geoff
Brilliant, pleased to help.
Excellent video very good! Thank you
When cold you only want 1cm above the min level once finished
Eventually I got the drain plug out. Only about a pint came out. My pump doesn't seem to be powerful enough to push through the system. Working in plan B.
Excellent video. Bleeding was a pain - finding and then accessing bleed valves was hard in my motorhome. Surely Alde could have come up with a better way to change the fluid?
Yea alot easyer lol
Where did you get your coolent g13 from for that price
Hey Geoff, great video. When you flush just the water through to flush out the old glycol. Do you use just tap water for that or mineralised water also for that stage.
Hi, I used ordinary tap water for the flushing, you could use de-mineralised water but new G13 mixture would certainly remove all tap water during the refilling.
Hi I've only just watched your video you make it look so simple. I'm about to change my fluid I thought about flushing out with fresh water first but spoke to alde they say should not use tap water only de ionised ..I am mixing my anti freeze with de ionised water but would like to flush out first with tap water ..your thoughts please.
Don’t worry about flushing, when you pump the antifreeze mix thru the system it flushes it anyway, it’s not like rads at home, there won’t be any debri or sludge to worry about.
@@geofus cheers all sorted very easy job when you get down to it.Although I had to bypass the radiator in the shower as their is a leak but its under the shower tray .They build these vans with no forward planning at all ..thanks again.
Glad you sorted it, its a very easy job considering they make it sound difficult and fairly expensive at the dealers.
Didn't you drain down again after the flush? I'd be surprised if you managed to get any where near 50% G13 into your system.
I’ve watched a couple of times and am getting ‘tooled up’ to do it. Only complication is that the van is new to me but the existing liquid stinks to high heaven. I hope I don’t have too much trouble with residual smells once I run clean water through. I don’t fancy running disinfectant through the pipework to kill any lingering bacteria and smell.
Why not use a product like
www.amazon.co.uk/Puriclean-Caravan-Motorhome-System-Cleaner/dp/B0028IBK1U
To clean you system first, that should do the trick.
Geoff Pegg hi can you put this through the heating system
Thanks for the video - very useful. How much did you get out via the drain plug and therefore how much was left to flush? Just a thought - what about keeping the drain plug in place and just using the flush to remove all the old fluid? Would that work or would there be old fluid trapped? Thanks again.
I got about hAlf a bucket from draining, you could just flush but it's easy to drain first, this makes sure no old coolant is left in the system.
@@geofus Thanks Geoff, Yes I think draining first is easier, if only because trying to get the header tank off or drain just that first could be messy!
Just done the change on our 2015 Elddis Affinity 550, which has the Alde 302 system, and all went well. The drain plug was on the offside about a 1/4 way up from back of van. One difference was that the pump sits in the header tank so this has to be put back before the system can be turned on and bled, which then means it has to come out again for top ups! Also found it useful to have a funnel to get fluid into the header tank once fitted back as it was quite difficult to get clear access to it at the back of the wardrobe. I didn't do the flush with clean water just went straight for the new pink G13 (used Comma Xstream GG40) and it was easy to see when the colour changed. Bleeding was OK - only found 2 valves, one by the boiler and one on the towel rail in the bathroom. I also didn't turn the pump up - just ran at normal setting and seemed fine. We bought the van last year at 3 years old so obviously the fluid hadn't been changed at the recommended 2 years mark but hopefully it will be OK for another 5 now.
L
Great video
Great video, just bought the same make of pump but I see there are two capacities. I have the 20Ltr/min at 40w the other size is 30Ltr/min at 60w. Do you think the pump I have bought will be sufficient? The discharge size is 15mm
Hi, I used the 60w version, yours would still be ok just slightly less flow rate, it will still be enough to circulate the new mixture.
Can you do all of this with just using the leisure battery and no mains electric.
Yes you can, you don't need mains power to run the heating system.
Hi Geoff, how is the heating? Do you still have your motorhome? I'm thinking of doing the same with my caravan, just had a price of £250 to do it when it's in for a service.
Pump is £10 off ebay and I think the liquids are roughly £40 -50.
Hi, I have now sold the Motorhome but would expect everything to be working 100%.
It really is so easy with the submersible pump, it’s very rewarding to do, I even used the same pump to change the ATF fluid on my Mercedes transmission, saved £100’s.
Geoff, The 19mm to 15mm pipe fitting you describe in your video that you have left over from TRV's. Is that what would normally connect to a standard radiator. I can find 15mm x 1/2 Inch BSP fittings on ebay. Just want to make sure I get the right size, thanks.
Hi Andy, yes they are called radiator tails and fit perfect with a little PTFE tape wrapped around.
Thanks Geoff. Just cancelled my fluid change and going to do it myself, thanks to your excellent video.
Andy Dullingham. great, rewarding and saves you around £180. Let us know how you get on.
Hi Geoff. I have the same problem as Davina Scholefield in that I drained the system but I cannot flush it. Nothing comes out of the waste pipe. I have disconnected the pump from the flow pipe and it is pumping water. I have tried raising the bucket and pump as you suggested to Davina but nothing comes out of the outlet hose. The pump like yours rated at 12v 1.5amps with a flow rate of 12 litres/ min. I would welcome any ideas on this.
Hi, have you tried swapping the flow and return pipes at the header tank, someone mentioned they have a non return valve fitted, this may restrict the flush.
I've read on a forum that the bleeding can only be done when the heating OFF, otherwise it draws in yet more air. Is that not the case?
I guess as long as your pump is running you could bleed ok.
You don’t need the heat on but you will need the water flow to push any air to the top of the rads, otherwise could take longer to bleed.
How can you draw air into a sealed heating system ?
@@geofus That's what I wondered too! Quite a few people mention it on the Swift forum. I know zero about the process / system so assumed they were correct. Interestingly they also mentioned having to raise one end of the van when bleeding!
Our van is less than 5 years old, but the anti freeze level is below minimum. I think this is what must be causing a scraping noise in the boiler. Can we just top it up with a 50/50 mix of glycol and ionized water?
Yes you can, the mixture should be G13 after 5 years, so just mix or buy premixed glycol to top up, the old glycol and the newer G13 spec are miscible.
This is a great demo. I’m looking to do mine soon. How do the black clips around the rubber connectors unlock please? I can see at about 8:40 ish you reconnect them with a pair of grips. Just not sure how to loosen them. Thanks.
Hi, the spring clips are easily unlocked by compressing them with a pair of grips, they can then be slid down the pipe to remove the header tank, its exactly the the same as when reconnecting.
Thanks for such a quick reply 👍🏻
Thanks Geoff
Does anyone know the approximate amount of undiluted coolant i need to buy? Don't want to come short when filling it back up, but also don't have a need for 5 liters of unused coolant. I have a large caravan with about 4 cilinder shaped radiators.
How much antifreeze do we need to buy ? We have 6 litres . Is this enough? Thanks
That depends on the size of your system, ours had around 10 litres of coolant.
So if you do a 50/50 mix 6 lites of concentrate will give enough for 12 litres.
Any chance of the newest fluid to use the concentrate type
I thought the latest fluid was G13 ?
I have followed the instructions here. However I am unable to set up a continuous flow. I have the pipes the correct way round, I think. Any other suggestions as to why it won’t flow?
Do you mean your submersible pump will not pump clean water through your system ? Make sure its connected the right way round and is self priming, also raise the bucket as high as possible with a funnel to create a head of water.
Would this effect your warranty, if you had problems with your heating later on ?
If I am correct the Alde system only has a 2 year warranty, so this is classed as a routine maintenance procedure.
👍👍👍👍
Wrong coolant, should be G12++
@@akaday The G13 has a purple/violet colour and has the same exceptional cooling and antifreeze performance as G12++. The main difference: it is manufactured using glycerin instead of glycol. Glycerin is much less harmful to the environment than glycol.