Furnace Issues

[Montana_243]

Took my first trip of the season last weekend. Furnace worked fine from Thursday thru Sat night. Sometime early Sunday morning it started blowing cold air. Kind of a shock. Outside temp mid-30's with furnace blowing cold air. Brrr!

Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

[RVWheels]

Did you run out of propane? Sorry I do not mean to sound flippant but just wondering about the obvious. At 30 degrees that would be Brrr!

If you do have propane then you may have control board gone bad.

RVWheels

[Montana_243]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think the furnace runs on propane. In fact, I guess it's not a furnace but a heat pump. Am I wrong?

[sreigle]

As far as I know they all run on propane. Ours is also a 2003 model and I don't recall seeing an option to a propane furnace on the options list.

[fulltimedreamer]

cdrr,
To my knowledge all the furnaces in Montanas/Mountaineers run on liquid propane. There may be an electric heat strip that could be added to an airconditioning unit. If you have a heat pump it is my guess that it would have been added after it left the factory. Somebody else chime in here if you are aware of anything different.

[Montana_243]

I'm sure you guys are right. I'm so stupid I didn't even think about propane. It is a 2003 so I'm sure it's a propane unit. I'll check that before I really show my ignorance by taking it to the dealer.

Thanks for all your help.

[sreigle]

Rick, you're not stupid. You just didn't know. You'd be amazed at how many things I, and many others here, learned just the way you did. I hope I didn't offend with my post. It wasn't meant that way. I've heard of a few high end brands having a heat pump option and would like to learn more about that. One problem is we'd probably have to always be hooked up in order to run the furnace. With the propane unit you can run it without electrical hookup so long as your battery is strong enough to run the control board and the fan. Again, sorry if I offended.

By the way, our children live in Lenexa, Merriam, and Mission. We consider Campus RV Park in Independence to be our "homebase". With kids and grandkids in that area we get back there a couple of times per year. My memory is terrible, so if you see me say we'll be in the area and would like to get together, let me know. We'd like that.

[Montana_243]

Steve--Didn't take offense at your post. No problem. I couldn't find the owner's manual for the furnace. Found a warranty document from Duo-Therm that was titled, "Limited ... AC and Heat Pumps." Guess that's where I got the heat pump idea.

Next question is, why didn't the gas regulator switch to the other tank? I don't think both tanks are empty. Any ideas for that one? And is the regulator valve pointing to the tank being used or away from it? Haven't been able to figure that out either.

[Bob & Lee]

Last winter was our first, the tanks were not changing correctly so I went to the dealer and he told me he would replace the changover regulator but, with the cold and the high demand of the heater if the tank was below half it would change over to the one with the higher pressure to meet the demand for gas it would change to the tank with the pressure to supply the gas.I have now been running on a 100 Gal tank and havent had the problem. I find with the lever I put it to the tank on the street side and when it changes (turn red) I remove the empty tank and get it filled and then change the lever to the new full tank.

[Montana_243]

Thanks for everyone's help. I do appreciate it. What a great group we have here.

[sreigle]

Cdrr, we've had Bob & Lee's situation in very cold weather, too. It's probably not that cold in the KC area right now, though.

The handle points to the "primary" tank. The red/green flag indicates whether that primary tank is empty (red) or not (green). One thing I didn't understand for awhile is about that handle "pointing" to the primary, I thought it was to be like an arrow and the head would point to the primary. But it doesn't work that way. It's the handle that points to the primary. When the flag is red, the primary is empty (except as Bob & Lee noted above). Then move the handle over to the other side and close the primary tank (so you don't forget to close it before you disconnect for refill). Just be sure the tank on the other side is open. I keep both of ours open all the time they're connected and not empty. Some folks prefer to have only the primary side open and will open the other when the primary is empty. I personally don'tlike to wake up to cold so keep both open. Hope that helps.

[rames14]

We ran out of propane this past weekend - lower 30's in Illinois. The new furnace will try to light and then times out and stays off. Had a heck of a time getting the air bled out of the lines. Being color blind, the red/green indicator doesn't help me much.

[sreigle]

Ron, it sounds like you need a remote changeover indicator like I have. Unfortunately, I got it through Campers Choice, who was just taken over by Camping World. I don't see this on CW's site. It is a black box I mounted on the wall in our bedroom. When the red indicator pops up on the regulator, this light flashes, quite noticeably. It won't wake me up but when it's flashing I think about it and that keeps me from getting back to sleep until I go out and flip the handle on the regulator. This thing runs on batteries. The first set lasted over a year. It's not difficult to install at all. The hardest part is running the wires up to the bedroom and even that wasn't all that difficult. Maybe half an hour to install. It could have been done in ten minutes if I'd known in advance how I wanted to run the wiring.

Just found the same thing on this page:
http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/parts/l...ator-valve.htm
The multi-colored thing in the top half of the picture must be the packaging. The bottom half is what you get.

By the way, I mounted ours so it faces the closet mirror doors. This way when it starts blinking I can see it in the mirror from the living room.