All Lagged Up.

John Bland,one of my correspondents and I have been having a discussion regarding heating pipes in the Orion.

John is of the opinion that the front of the Orion is not as warm as the rear and was looking for solutions.

I thought that the grey plastic pipe running from under the rear dinette to the front of the van via the offside wheel arch was the front to rear heating pipe.

This one :-

Of course it is nothing of the sort and John was quite correct in that the heating duct pipe from front to rear is on the other side of the van and runs from the rear dinette entering the van under the TV unit.

This is the correct pipe :-

I was intending to lag the grey pipe but now having located the correct one I have lagged that with ThermaWrap ( link in previous post ),fortunately I hadn't purchased any pre-formed pipe lagging as obviously it would not fit the real pipe.

It is not particularly difficult to do but entails lying on your back for an hour ( ooh er missus ) and sliding under the van as far as you can,or better still get the wife to do it.

The results are as shown :-

Hopefully now there won't be as much heat lost from the pipe and the front may be a bit warmer as SWMBO has also complained of it being a bit cool at times.

( Then again SWMBO would complain of it being a bit cool in the Atacama desert in midsummer,hormones I think, but I digress.)

If deciding to lag the pipe and using ThermaWrap :-

1. It says put the shiny side outwards but it is difficult to tell which is the shiny side as they both look much the same.

If you look closely the "inside" surface on the roll just about looks a little shinier so that went to the outside.

2.Because of the close proximity of the heating duct to the floor of the van you can only apply a short piece of insulation at a time.

3.There is no mention in the ThermaWrap instructions of using tape to fix it,you tend to get the impression that it attaches itself.

It does not,you need some tape. I used some UniBond clear all weather  tape for every piece and reinforced it along the length of the pipe with some further lengths of tape.

4.I couldn't go right to the end of the pipe as the Al-KO ATC module was in the way and I couldn't reach any farther anyway so I went as far as the second zip-tie.

5.I only used one roll of ThermaWrap having of course bought two.

It was getting a bit cold after a while and starting to rain ( aye it's bleak up north and there were't  whippets to feed and clogs to polish ) so I left it at that  but I will return later and add one or two zip-ties along the length to make it more secure.

Hope this assists anyone who wants to lag their heating duct,any questions then drop me a pm.

Ian