Although we seldom use our gas heater, the recent posts about leaking batteries prompted me to check ours. As I have the manufacturers' instruction booklets for all the fittings on our van, I first read the instructions only to learn that Truma recommend that you clean dust and fluff out of the fire annually - so I thought I'd give it a go.

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With the front cover removed (lift at the top and pull forward) this is what you will see. I used the two brushes shown to remove that pile of muck from the heat exchanger fins, the bottom of the unit and from the air circulating fan. The latter is difficult to access but it can be reached over the top of the fins with a long, artist's-type brush. It's a bit of a faff as you can't see what you are doing but I was surprised at the amount of fluff that I removed.

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Next I checked the battery which lives behind a slide-up flap in the black box at the bottom left. There was no sign of leakage but I put a new Duracell in just to be safe. I then fired up the system to check that all was well.

Once the gas pipe had purged itself of air, the auto igniter that was clicking away merrily lit the pilot flame but the main burner did not light and the igniter kept working. I then realised that as the day was warm, I would have to turn the thermostat to 10 to get it to fire up and once it had, the igniter stopped clicking.

When I last replaced the front cover (when I fitted the electric element) I had a devil of a job replacing it. This time, having read the instructions, it was easy. Although the edge pressings of the front have rectangular holes at their base, these are not used for locating the panel. The bottoms of the edges simply sit on top of the metal brackets on the heater frame. From that position it is easy to click the front panel back against the spring clips after first slotting the thermostat control rod (where fitted) through the hole in the top of the panel. When all is back in place, you can push the thermostat knob back onto the rod, aligning its indicator with the '0' mark on the housing.

So, all was well with the gas heater with the bonus of no smell of burning dust in the van.

While I had the gas turned on, I thought it would be a good idea to check that the fridge was working on gas too. Again, you need to purge the air out of the pipework for a few seconds before operating the igniter but to my relief it lit without difficulty.

Although we always use EHU with the fridge operating on the 230V supply and heating courtesy of the electric Trumatic element, it is reassuring to know that the gas appliances will work in case of emergency.