Globi at Gautschi Tech

5/17/23 to 6/5/23

The heating and air conditioning of the living cabin will be overhauled.

Replace heater

Unfortunately, after eight years and after we replaced various heating pumps, the combustion chamber of our Webasto heating system gave up the ghost in the high Andes. Hans, our Swiss specialist, believes that we once let bad water into the heating circuit, which is why the many heating pumps died and the temperature sensor in the heating combustion chamber. Everything was eroded and a lot of rusty water came out of the heating pipes. On top we knowingly drove for a long time with almost no antifreeze in the heating water, which also contributed to the many damages. We didn’t manage to get anti-freeze into our circuit, now Hans has built us a system with which we can get anti-freeze into our system without external pumping help. The Webasto heater is all new and should now last for years to come if handled properly. It also has a fully automatic control so that it switches itself on and off depending on the temperature.

Revise air conditioning

The air conditioning in Globi is a tragedy. The original air conditioning system that the German builder installed ran on a three-phase motor. The three-phase current was connected to the necessary three-phase current generator in such an unprofessional manner that the compressor motor of the air conditioning system never got to work. We drove all over Africa without air conditioning and seriously wondered if we really needed one. After Africa, Hans built a great technical solution for us: an air conditioning system with a combined compressor motor that runs on direct current. However, after a year and a half of the pandemic, this system suffered damage due to idle time so that we replaced the system again in Uruguay in 2022. Unfortunately, the installation wasn’t quite perfect, and all the fans were completely covered by dirt. Hans disassembled everything and stored the compressor in such a way that it is no longer audible. Now we have what is probably perfect air conditioning and hope to get back to areas where we actually can use it.