Furnace reset? - Montana Owners Club

H. John Kohl · 12-25-2006, 01:23 AM

We woke up this morning and it was 47 inside and 38 outside. My logical mind and shivering bones told me something was wrong. We heard the heater come on last night so it was working. It was set to 60 and the electric heaters were off so heat at night would go into the belly to keep the lines from freezing. We run the electric during the day and when we know it will not get below freezing outside.

I check the propane and yes the red flag was up. I got luck and checked the simple things first instead of the hard ones (tearing out the furnace-lol). I flipped the valve and turned on the second tank. Yes that was the problem I forgot to turn it on when I replaced it after filling it.

The heater still did not come on. I check the stove burners and they lite just fine. I check the furnace fuse. It was good but I did notice when I pulled the fuse that the LED above it lit red. I did not realize this DC fuse panel would show you which fuse is blown. Nice job Keystone Montana.
Pulling the fuse reset the furnace and it came on as soon as the fuse made contact. That answered my second question - how to reset the furnace. Read the manual? Are we suppose to do that?
Merry Christmas.

sreigle · 12-25-2006, 02:33 AM

John, I don't have an answer for you but experienced something similar this past Saturday morning, when, of course, our dealer's service dept is closed for the holidays and Keystone's customer service line says they are closed until 12/27, the day we leave here.

Our furnace had not been needed in a few days so had not run. When I turned it on because it was chilly in the morning it would not come on no matter what I tried. Plenty of propane, stove worked, etc., etc.

Finally, I pulled the thermostat off the wall, unplugged it, plugged it back in, reinstalled on the wall, and the furnace started working again and has not failed since. I have no idea why it worked. By the way, the new ones have a plug-in thermostat that uses what appears to be a telephone jack connector. Pretty slick.

Hopefully someone can give us a clue.

noneck · 12-25-2006, 02:58 AM

If you have a link to circuit diagram we can try to figure it out...
Merry Christmas,
Chuck

H. John Kohl · 12-25-2006, 03:05 AM

Pulling the fuse reset the furnace. It sounds as if your pulling the thermostat also did the same thing. The fuse is easier. I just wanted to share the reset option by pulling the fuse and the fact the DC panel now hose LEDs that will tell you when a fuse is blown as long as 12VDC is applied to the panel.
Cheers.

Ozz · 12-25-2006, 03:06 AM

'Lectronics; who can figure them out......
I have made my living working on Rooftop HVAC units, sometimes I reset a unit, and never find out what made it malfunction, I try to find the cause for the call before I reset the power, but can't always.
Safety's are made to fail easily to protect you. I would guess that the system tried a few times to light, then locked out on a relay, resetting the power took the controls back to normal operation.
You shouldn't have to kill power unless a lockout occurs caused by a system safety control.
Ozz

sreigle · 12-25-2006, 05:06 AM

Question. A couple of months ago when our furnace was malfunctioning I tried pulling the fuse. When I put it back in I got sparks at the fuse but it didn't blow the fuse. It turned out to be a bad board in the furnace. It was heavily corroded and probably had been since the furnace was built. Is that what caused the sparks at the fuse? And assuming the board is ok now I should not expect a repeat of the sparks when I put the fuse back in?

Ozz · 12-25-2006, 05:41 AM

Steve, in a 12 volt system, or a 120 volt system , any circuit that has a load on it will spark if a fuse is removed. As you think about this you will be nodding your head, saying, oh, I knew that...The reason you turn the breaker off when plugging in your shore power, is no sparks, or arcs for us!
Just disable the load, in this case the furnace, and you will get no sparks.
This is why it is a bad idea to use the breakers as an on and off switch.
Ozz

Wandering Star · 12-26-2006, 10:11 AM

Ozz

I've worked with tools for many a years as you have and I'm a firm believer in fixing the cause not the effect but there have been times when there is no rhyme or reason why the damed thing is working when I can't explain what I did to make it work. I guess it is like when a owner or operator tell you it is not running right and you pull the print and tell them to try it now and they smile and say you got it now. Physiological repairs!!!

Jon

Ozz · 12-26-2006, 03:38 PM

Good post, Jon, makes the repairs interesting, to say the least.....

Tom Gina 06 · 12-26-2006, 03:50 PM

This happened to me last month and all I did was reset the thermostat turned it on to air for a minute and then reset it to heat. Fired right up I think that the furnace is automatically set to kick out when it doesn't fire up. Once it is kicked out then the only way to get it running is to reset it at the thermostat.

snfexpress · 12-26-2006, 04:04 PM

On the top of the furnace, there is a rocker switch. You can feel it with your fingers. But, as others have said, pulling the fuse is easier.

From what I know, if you run out of propane (or have a gas leak) and the furnace cannot light, then it will "lock" up, requiring a momentary interruption of 12v to reset it.

jrgwdenner · 12-27-2006, 01:49 AM

Okay, all you experts, we were cold this morning, too. We were boondocking at a Cracker Barrel last night so the furnace was entirely on 12v power. The furnace started when we first stopped but some time during the night, it failed and we woke up cold at 3 a.m. Actually, Greta woke us up! It would not start on 12v power so Glen turned on the generator. Then it worked. We're questioning our battery, although the lights were still strong. We had a similar situation last year in British Columbia. Any ideas?

Isn't this forum great! An entire board of experts right at your fingertips.

Ozz · 12-27-2006, 02:43 AM

A guess, but I would go with a low battery, not low enough to dim lights, but low enough to cause the furnace electronics at not function. 1 battery? How old? water topped off?
I'd do a specific gravity test; the tube with floating balls. You need a quality battery indicator, as a percentage of a volt means much on batteries.
Good luck.
Ozz

jrgwdenner · 12-27-2006, 03:31 AM

we plan to check out the battery as that's what we suspect, too. When we were in BC the cables were corroded so that problem was easily corrected. Thanks for the input, OZZ

snfexpress · 12-27-2006, 05:32 AM

I agree with Ozz...

Bill and Lisa · 05-21-2007, 06:15 AM

I "think" we may have a similar problem. My batteries were low (since my converter still doesn't work). Not sure what everyone meant by "furnace doesn't work". In our case, the blower comes on and the unit tries to light. The unit ignites for 1-2 seconds and then goes out. (Flame doesn't stay on)

I couldn't find a way to visually observe the flame and the probe and didn't feel a rocker switch on top. I did try again after charging the batteries but same symptoms. I think I may need to "reset" the unit using one of the above methods but will have to wait until I can get back to the unit.

Do my sysmptoms match what everyone else was experienceing?

Bill

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