Electrical Fire?

[soulmate]

We purchased 2010 3455SA in March, on are 3rd time out the electrical fireplace caught on fire! Was not the camp site, as we had an electrician check it before we assumed it was are beloved home to be. It checked out fine, and in conversation with the electrical tech, he stated it sounded like we had some sort of feed back from the convertor causing everything to have more volts than normal. Called Montana, being it was the week of Memorial Holiday, we could not get any assistance. Five hours away from home, and this happened when we arrived on hook up mode!
To make short story, the dealer has it and acting like u know what! None the less he stated so far, the findings are that it is a bad convertor and the fireplace was bad also. Ok, but what has happened to the safety shut offs, switched etc. that would have prevented this? Dealer stated " this has to be treated with kids gloves" because of Montana warranty? Forgive us for not being totally educated on the complete electrical system and the functioning of it. But we feel there is a short somewhere causing the entire thing also. The refrigerator would'nt transfer over to the electric state after this and we used the propane for it.

Has any of you, ever had anything like this happen? And what would you recommend, it is only 3 months old! We do not feel comfortable with this now, hard to sleep not knowing if its safe?

Pls respond, we do appreciate the input.

[8e3k0]

Very sorry to hear about your loss, did it do much damage to the Monty itself ie Smoke Damage? Likely a power surge where the voltage spiked long enough to caused damage to your electrical system.( I am a Power Engineer and have spent many years with high voltage Power Plants and Systems and seen some extreme fires and explosions do to electrical failures) I would first want a very competent electrical tech to investigate by testing and take as many photos as possible to try and identify etent of damage. Most Dealers do not have good competent electrical techs to do this. If they fix it you will need some reassurance that ALL circuits and wiring have been reviewed and tested to eliminate future problems. Is your insrance company involved and backing you up on what is required?
I would not take 2nd best in a situation like this; keep communicating in a positive mode with the manufacture and dealer and please keep us updated with progress. I am sure there are others in this Club that have expertise and will coach you along to ensure you have a safe and reliable unit before accepting it back. All the Best! Ellis

[HamRad]

Soulmate,
We're sorry to hear of your fire problem. Thankfully you were not injured. That is the most important thing.

Fortunately there have been relatively few reports of fires of any kind by the members of the MOC. That is the good news. The bad news is that there have been a few fires in the rigs. Mostly the fires seem to be caused by wires rubbing againist bare medal. Some wires routed through holes failed to have grommets placed in them. This allows the wire to rub and wear. Eventually a spark is created and a fire starts. Thankfully so far no injuries to persons has occurred.

We have had a couple of reports of surges that have caused the loss of appliances and electronic equipment. Many folks have installed their own surge protectors.

I do not recall anyone specifically reporting "feedback" from the converter causing damage. Several folks have reported that their converter was working intermittently or had stopped working completely. They usually just replaced the bad one with a new and upgraded version.

Since your rig is only a few months old everything should be covered under warranty. The dealer should simply be fixing and or replacing everything that was damaged. There is little or no questions for the dealer to be concerned about. I have no idea what the dealer means when he says "this has to be treated with kid gloves". That simply makes no sense whatsoever! You are within your one year warranty period. Anything and everything that is not a owner responsible item should be covered by your warranty.

Almost everything is covered by warranty during the first year. Simply hold the dealership to the task. Don't buy into their crabbing about dealing with Keystone. Get the rig repaired to your satisfaction.

Many of the appliances have warranties that go beyond the one year that Montana honors. So check them out if and when they go bad.

We have had our electric fireplace heater out for repair. The wiring in it is (in my opinion) minimal! If and when I have it out again I will replace some of the wiring with the next higher gauge. But we do use it a lot and have never had a fire! Hopefully we never will.

One of the things we found on our rig was that many of the electrical connections were loose. They apparently never were tight or had worked loose on the trip from the factory. Once we went through and tightened everything most of our electrical problems were solved.

Good luck and keep us informed of your progress.

Hamrad

[soulmate]

Thanks to memebers who have posted the responses and concern, makes me feel warm and fuzzy! Just to clarify damage inside the Fifth Wheel, electrical smell was gone after about 3 days of opened windows. My husband was able to get the fire out, while I was racing to get the dog to safety and fire extinguisher. We did not see any inside damage ie wood, as the fireplace is set within the entertainment center along with TV. The fireplace has kinda its "own" area within, of which I believe did prevent any HUGE damage. Plus the husband was able to get it under control and out fast. My brother in law Mike, is an engineneer, and he told us to go purchase a battery charger to get by, until we got home. Since the converter was blown, of course the battery would not charge, loosing power on the fifth wheel. NOTE TO SELF, this did work, and very well! We are old enough to have been thru several things in life, but this was OVER THE TOP, and actually made us both "sick" after the fact.
YES, thank God we were not hurt, nor asleep. We had the fireplace on the previous 2 times before this and for long periods of time due to the cold, It was fine then. We will be calling them again Friday to follow up, per husband. Myself wants to DEMAND a new one, the trauma alone should allow that! The dealer also tried to accuse the camp grounds of the problem, we fiqured they would try that route and was ahead of that plan. But we will TRY to be patient and not be demanding YET....

Thks Ellis, we will keep all posted.
Hamrad thks to u 2, YOUR dogs are adorable, made me smile!

And thanks to all who reply ahead of time, knowledge is in numbers...

[BB_TX]

I would not venture to guess what the cause may be. But it is very possible to have an electrical fire without tripping any of the associated safety devices such as circuit breakers. A loose or bad connection can generate a lot of localized heat while still being below the current rating of the circuit breaker and still within the normal voltage range. If caught early, what you will notice is a blacken area around the terminal or end of the wire at the bad connection. If left unnoticed long enough, the heat can build up to the point of the wire or surrounding material catching on fire.
There have been members mention here a number of times about problems with bad connections and blackened wires/terminals in their fireplaces.

[richfaa]

I hope that you will contact Keystone and the fireplace vendor and describe in detail what happened. They need to know about these kind of things. If we do not t ell them they will never know they may have a serious problem. We also had a fire. Different cause but a fire and unsafe condition just the same.

[stiles watson]

My converter went south while I was at the Branson Rally in May 2008. Just like you described, it put too much power through. It took out my Satellite Converter, my BR TV, my DVD and sound system, my microwave/convection oven, the fuse on the fantastic fan, and the capacitor on the ceiling fan. The satellite converter was afire and smoke was coming out of the cabinet above the TV.

My dealer replaced my converter with an Intelli-power PD9180 from Progressive Dynamics, Inc. I put a new fuse in the fantastic fan and a new capacitor in the ceiling fan and the warranty replaced the remainder except for the satellite converter. My satellite provider took care of that.

I have not had any additional electrical events since the new converter was installed.

In my opinion, I would let the dealer work the warranty issues with Keystone unless it appears that they aren't making headway. You want this to be a warranty claim, not an insurance claim. How it is presented may make the difference.

[soulmate]

Hi Guys, Just an update on the fire....Spoke to the dealer on Friday. He stated still no signs of any shortage in electrical system. They are replacing the blower on the fireplace, as that is what was actually on fire, the converter, the circuit board to refrigerator and re-routing the propane hoses etc to it. Also replacing the sweeper inside since it was blown from the fire. The dealer still is questioning the campsite..???? (NOTE; WE HAD THE ELECTRICIAN COME THERE. THE CAMPGROUNDS IS OWNED BY A HUGE ELECTRICAL COMPANY TOO! DUH)
Dealer stated he was NOT turning this into MONTANA even though it is 2010 year and under warranty?? I don't get that. He stated he feels they would not cover it, and is getting all the parts mentioned replaced by the individual maker. My husband got a little verbal, since the dealer is acting "wierd" (we feel) about going straight to Montana. Dealer said they are hard for him to deal with and he can get this done faster his way? We told them we wanted proof of everything replaced and wrote down for any future problems, said ok.
This is are first Montana, we had a Sprinter 26ft before and loved it. WHY would dealer act like Montana is reluctant on a BRAND new camper when it is ligit and covered under warranty?? We did call them when it happened, Montana said take it to your dealer, so we are following the procedure. Should we call them again and explain r concern, or let dealer still handle his way? We would hate to end up EATING THIS ourselves as dealer said they may try to do that to us?? WARRANTY IS A WARRANTY, no foul play here ya know...sorry getting upset again.
Can we demand a new one? He also stated Montana production is very behind, can't get campers now?!

We had a large garage sale this weekend, did well on it. Of course it is first of others to come. I am tired already from that, what a JOB!!! It just gets us more excited and eager to get on the road October!! GREAT feeling to rid stuff, why do we need all of that STUFF??? Ha ha...We have signed up for the 2009 Rally, can't wait, hope they still have room.

So thats the update, as you can probably tell I get heated from that topic..its not like a small toy we can just replace as you all know that!

[stiles watson]

As long as you get it all fixed or replaced at no charge to you, why does it make a difference how you dealer does it. Dometic replaced my microwave/convection oven and Sanyo replaced the TV. The dealer replaced the converter and DVD, giving me better quality units than the OEM versions. My dealer got it done and that's the bottom line for me.

Pragmatically, there could be a question as to whether you had internal component failure or an externally caused power surge. It sounds like your dealer is trying to get your components replaced or repaired at no cost to you. If it is component failure due to some external power surge, it would not be a warranty issue, but an insurance claim with the associated deductible. From what you are describing, your dealer may be trying to act in your best interest.

I am not a dealer advocate. As has been reported on the MOC, there are dealers with questionable character. There are also some very good ones and a bunch somewhere in between.

[soulmate]

We have never had a problem w/this dealer, and bought r first camper w/them. They have always treated us great, we were just concerned about if this is normal process for any warranty issues. We do not want to go down the road, and Montana say "we knew nothing about that fire problem, your not covered since dealer did not report to us". Usually w/a vehicle if something has been repaired/replace while in warranty mode, the dealer covers it AFTER the warranty is out, since it was reported as an issue from get go. Its great that we have the MOC to share and receive info, especailly for us new owners. We are OK with how its being handled, and like anyone else we just want it fixed at no cost to us. Very hard to make sure down the road it will be covered, its only 3 MONTHS OLD!!! We opted out of the extra warranty...probably should have taken it I am guessing! We should have it back this week ending too..

[richfaa]

I think I understand what the dealer is saying. I have found that in most cases it is easier and faster to get the defective vendor provided item corrected by going directly to the vendor. Keystone most likely does not have that item in stock and will order it from the vendor anyway.
We almost always go to the vendor for service and in many cases the warranty is longer on the vendor provided item. I would howver let Montana know about the problem and how it was resolved. After the 1 year bumper to bumper warranty is up you are, execpt for special cases , done with Keystone. Our fire issue was within warranty and corrected by Keystone but we still carry the documentation with us..

[Art-n-Marge]

Hey soulmate. The longer you live and use your trailer the more familiar you will be about the nuances and workarounds. Your advantage is that you joined the MOC where everyone can try and help FREE OF CHARGE.

When I bought my first TT I had what I thought were bonehead issues but learned plenty along the way. You may have to look at it this way - you learn more when things go wrong. I know that is NOT what we would all want to hear, but hopefully there is a balance not to have complete and continuous failures that some of the things we will learn will be from others' events and collectively we will all become capable and very happy RVers.

Good luck and keep up the postings.