Having spent some time poking around the insides of my heater and hot water heater, I have been less than impressed with the design and workmanship. But more importantly, the designs are all straight out of the 1970's - single speed fans, single output burners, no diagnostics for when things go awry and the water heater is directly exposed to the outside of the camper, which can be a problem in cold weather. Modern furnaces have come a long way with the variable heat output levels, variable fan speeds and digital controls that monitor and diagnose the system.
The Truma has 3 heat levels, variable fan speed, digital controls with built in diagnosis etc. Combining the furnace and hot water heater saves a bunch of space and weight. Probably the best feature of the Truma is the multi stage output - the Attwood is a little bit loud, and cycles on an off all night when it is cold out with pretty large temperature swings that can wake me up. With the Truma, it runs on high when you first warm up the camper, but then it switches to a low burner setting and fan speed to maintain the temperature with near silent operation. If you have electricity it will also work as both a heater and water heater off AC power.
In general it seems that RVs/Campers in Europe are a little less mass market and not built to the lowest dollar per square foot specification, leading to more modern and better designed equipment and campers. Much of the higher end camper equipment (Truma, Victron, Propex, Seitz etc) comes out of the European camper market. Given the premium we pay for FWC campers it is nice to see they are switching to some premium components (Blue Sea electrical, marine grade outside ports etc), but it would also be nice to see them ditch the last of the 'RV' grade systems.
The Truma has 3 heat levels, variable fan speed, digital controls with built in diagnosis etc. Combining the furnace and hot water heater saves a bunch of space and weight. Probably the best feature of the Truma is the multi stage output - the Attwood is a little bit loud, and cycles on an off all night when it is cold out with pretty large temperature swings that can wake me up. With the Truma, it runs on high when you first warm up the camper, but then it switches to a low burner setting and fan speed to maintain the temperature with near silent operation. If you have electricity it will also work as both a heater and water heater off AC power.
In general it seems that RVs/Campers in Europe are a little less mass market and not built to the lowest dollar per square foot specification, leading to more modern and better designed equipment and campers. Much of the higher end camper equipment (Truma, Victron, Propex, Seitz etc) comes out of the European camper market. Given the premium we pay for FWC campers it is nice to see they are switching to some premium components (Blue Sea electrical, marine grade outside ports etc), but it would also be nice to see them ditch the last of the 'RV' grade systems.
