The 2013 Swift Kontiki is fitted with the Alde 3010 compact boiler. The boiler provides both hot water and central heating to the habitation area. In addition, the motorhome is fitted with the Alde heat exchanger. What exactly is this and what does it do?

In a nut shell, the Alde heat exchanger takes heat generated by the motorhome’s engine (in the form of the “coolant”) and uses this to heat the glycol fluid within the Alde 3010’s system. This heated glycol then moves through the Alde system, powered by the Alde pump. As a result, this warms the radiators and heats the hot water. There are various plus points to this – hot water on arrival at destination, ideal for that quick shower or even pot washing after a lunch stop, central heating on the move at no cost – so a warm and toasty ‘van throughout!

A look inside the Alde heat exchanger

The Fiat “fluids” (coolants) do not touch or mix with the Alde fluids. They are kept separate within the heat exchanger. This side view shows the many chambers that the liquids flow through, but as you can see they are kept separate. In basic terms one “layer” of the Alde heat exchanger contains the Fiat residuals, whilst the chamber adjoining it contains the Alde glycol. This “sandwich” effect continues throughout the Alde heat exchanger.

The surface area within is greatly increased by the design of the internal features of the heat exchanger. My words were “it’s a bit like your stomach and intestine then!”. The photo’ above shows this in practice and I was able to take this pic whilst visiting Alde.

Starting with cold water in the boiler, it took only twenty minutes driving to get the water piping hot. On a slight downside, it is not possible to obtain “hot water only” whilst on the move – the heat exchanger must provide central heating to the habitation area in order to provide hot water for domestic use.

There’s lot more info and pricing details on the Alde website