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In defence of Alde boilers. Better than stoves and diesel heaters?


doratheexplorer

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i have  the old alde comfort ,and at the time i was going to use it more for the milder weather .as i have  reflek s for the colder weather .i had my alde serviced 3 years ago by some one from a well know  hire boat company . and its never been used since or even worked properly since .so if any one knows of a good and reliable alde gas engineer i would be grateful  regards stay safe

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8 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Your Alde is different to mine.  Mine has a control dial going from 1 to 7.  I've found that setting it to 5 heats the radiators much the same as 7 but uses less than half the gas.  Lots of experimenting has led me to this.

 

 

 

I think Alde suggest 3 to 4. That confirms what I said about incorrect operation.

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42 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

To be honest life is way too short to even ask about gas prices ont boat. Humping a cylinder into some town aint happening :D I use whoever is bang alongside canal or coal boat and always have.

Agree 100%.Burial shrouds don't come with pockets,so paying a bit more for convienience is worthwhile.

I am sure our kids won't mind their inheritance being a few quid light.

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5 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Agree 100%.Burial shrouds don't come with pockets,so paying a bit more for convienience is worthwhile.

I am sure our kids won't mind their inheritance being a few quid light.

I kind of agree, but the whole point of my post is that the cost of running an Alde is overstated, and often not enough to outweigh the advantages.  But you're right, if you get through 3-4 bottles a year, you're probably talking about an extra £30 or so which isn't really significant.  It certainly doesn't explain why someone would install a solid fuel stove AND the remove the Alde, rather than keep both.

19 minutes ago, haza said:

i have  the old alde comfort ,and at the time i was going to use it more for the milder weather .as i have  reflek s for the colder weather .i had my alde serviced 3 years ago by some one from a well know  hire boat company . and its never been used since or even worked properly since .so if any one knows of a good and reliable alde gas engineer i would be grateful  regards stay safe

What's wrong with it?

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well the ignition flame wont stop on for one, among other things, to be honest i think it wants striping right down  and most of the parts want replacing .as it as only been looked at once .and even then the guy was done in half hour 

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When mine did that I found two things. One is fluff and muck in the pilot light burner and the second was a build up of carbon on the tip of the gas supervisor probe.

 

I removed the little window, two screws out, loosen the bottom one and let the "frame" twist down but don't drop the little mica window.

 

I used an aerosol type can of air duster with the plastic tube on it to give the pilot burner a good blowing out, especially through the air hole.

 

Then with a torch shining through the hole and various small screwdrivers and bent wire I scraped the carbon off the probe.

 

It is important to put the window back before trying to ignite the pilot. If you don't the flue can cause sufficient draft to stop the pilot light igniting

 

Note - at no time did I mess with anything involving gas, I just blew the burner out although in the past I have taken the whole burner assembly out but that involves gas joints.

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51 minutes ago, haza said:

well the ignition flame wont stop on for one, among other things, to be honest i think it wants striping right down  and most of the parts want replacing .as it as only been looked at once .and even then the guy was done in half hour 

You could call Graham Cutmore.  I'm sure he'd be very helpful or steer you in the right direction.  A back up heating option is a useful thing.

http://www.grahamcutmoreengineering.co.uk/

 

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5 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

I can only conclude their boiler was faulty.  A new bottle every couple of days is ridiculous. 

 

I also have a Squirrel.  The two options complement each other well.  As I originally said, the Alde works best in milder weather.  Turning to dial down from 7 to 5 doesn't extend the life of the bottle by around 20%, it actually more than doubles it, but the difference in the heat of the rads is negligable.  When running the Alde flat out, it sends most of the heat up the flue.  The sweet spot is actually around 3-4 on the dial which works really well on cool mornings in late spring and early autumn, when lighting a stove is overkill but the cabin is chilly.

 

I agree with what Alan said, when I moved on my boat, ex hire with no fire, I used a bottle a week, but I was at work all day and spent two nights off the boat, I had the heater on 7 and thermostat on 20, due to the boat being an ex hire boat it wasn't really built with deepest winter in mind, so the alde struggled to get/keep the boat above 18c when it was sub 0 outside, I fear if I had been on the boat 7 nights a week and really wanted the whole boat toasty then I wuld have used up two bottles with ease.

 

Spring and Autumn was where it shines.

 

Now days I only use it with all rads off except the bedroom.

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1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

But you're right, if you get through 3-4 bottles a year, you're probably talking about an extra £30 or so which isn't really significant.  It certainly doesn't explain why someone would install a solid fuel stove AND the remove the Alde, rather than keep both.

 

I don't think it those who use 3 or 4 cylinders per annum are the ones ripping out their Alde, the ones I know that have done it are those who have been using up to 3 cylinders per week.

They bought the gas from the marina we were in and had it delivered, he was disabled and she had cancer (died 3 years ago). They rarely went out cruising - the last time was with us in 2015 when we had to cut short the trip as she developed 'problems', my wife hired a car to take her to her consultant and her husband  and I bought our boats back to 'base' single handed from Whixhall back to Newark.

 

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I don't think it those who use 3 or 4 cylinders per annum are the ones ripping out their Alde, the ones I know that have done it are those who have been using up to 3 cylinders per week.

They bought the gas from the marina we were in and had it delivered, he was disabled and she had cancer (died 3 years ago). They rarely went out cruising - the last time was with us in 2015 when we had to cut short the trip as she developed 'problems', my wife hired a car to take her to her consultant and her husband  and I bought our boats back to 'base' single handed from Whixhall back to Newark.

 

But if they were fitting a stove, then their usage would have dropped to 3 or 4 a year.  So why take it out?

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35 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

When mine did that I found two things. One is fluff and muck in the pilot light burner and the second was a build up of carbon on the tip of the gas supervisor probe.

 

I removed the little window, two screws out, loosen the bottom one and let the "frame" twist down but don't drop the little mica window.

 

I used an aerosol type can of air duster with the plastic tube on it to give the pilot burner a good blowing out, especially through the air hole.

 

Then with a torch shining through the hole and various small screwdrivers and bent wire I scraped the carbon off the probe.

 

It is important to put the window back before trying to ignite the pilot. If you don't the flue can cause sufficient draft to stop the pilot light igniting

 

Note - at no time did I mess with anything involving gas, I just blew the burner out although in the past I have taken the whole burner assembly out but that involves gas joints.

 

Belfast's Alde was unreliable when we bought the boat. The previous owner showed me how he cleaned the burner through the viewing window using a pipe cleaner and WD40, but he was having problems and clearly wished he hadn't offered to show me! I later removed the whole burner assembly, which involved removing part of the cupboard around it, and then undoing a joint in the gas pipe. Once outside it was easy to clean all the fluff and dirt from the burner, and to adjust the thermocouple tip position so it would be nicely in the pilot flame. Once reassembled it has been much more reliable.

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the only reason i would take mine out is ,if i did not want it there any longer. had no intentions of ever using it again  .seems to me its a very good back up of another form of heating regardless of cost if you are one that worries abt cost, BOAT ,you know what they say that stands for . mr cutmore as retired so i was told ..any one else there who i could call on thanks ,stay safe

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7 hours ago, dmr said:

 

The old one also stores water so does not need a calorifier, but I find the antifreeze does not taste too good. :clapping:.

 

.................Dave

 

You do realise that it is not alcohol based? ??

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6 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

You do realise that it is not alcohol based? ??

 

Alcohol, glycol, sounds close enough to me, but I don't like the colour, it looks like one of those new fangled things that teenagers drink.

 

I've drunk a couple of green beers but draw the line at red and blue.

 

.................Dave
 

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15 hours ago, haza said:

the only reason i would take mine out is ,if i did not want it there any longer. had no intentions of ever using it again  .seems to me its a very good back up of another form of heating regardless of cost if you are one that worries abt cost, BOAT ,you know what they say that stands for . mr cutmore as retired so i was told ..any one else there who i could call on thanks ,stay safe

He wasn't retired a few weeks ago.

13 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Said the cartoon character ?

I've never claimed to be real.

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hi dorathee. i spoke to gray cutmore this morning he  was very helpful .he said he now longer goes out to service  ,but still supply.s parts .he also gave me a number of some one he said is very reliable at doing a service on my alde ..he is calling me back this evening .so thank you also regards 

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On 01/03/2021 at 09:47, doratheexplorer said:

I'm not going to let this thread be diverted onto a side alley which has nothing to do with the main point.  It happens far too often.  The issue of red diesel has been discussed and disagreed over ad nauseum.  It does not need raking over again here.

I'm not familiar with the Ellis boiler, but interesting point.  My Alde is one of those tall thin ones which they don't make any more.  My understanding is that the new models are even more efficient.  If I were having a new boat built to my spec, I would take a long look at having one of them fitted.

My friend has the box one in his caravan and reckons its brilliant in comparison to the tall thin one which he had in a previous caravan. They have no pilot light and variable flame I believe plus a built in calorifier.

In my old boat I had the same as yours along with a solid fuel stove worked well together 

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