Question about heater vents - Montana Owners Club

crandallbradley · 06-19-2006, 01:09 PM

Fired up my heater today.I have a 319BHD my kitchen is in the middle along with the heater,one vent in kitchen,one in the back bed room,they produce quite a bit of air.I don't seem to get a good air flow out of the bath or the master bed room,even when I cover the other two vents.Is this right?

8.1al · 06-19-2006, 01:36 PM

Ours is like that but it doesn't bother us as we like to keep the bedroom cool at night anyway

rames14 · 06-19-2006, 03:04 PM

You may want to check for an obstruction in your ductwork. Not sure what it is like on the 3198BHD, but on our 3400RL we get good flow through all of the vents.

gitrdun · 06-20-2006, 01:09 PM

I went to Home Depot and bought vents with registers in them so I could adjust the air flow from each one. Cost about 6 bucks a piece.

Montana_1240 · 06-20-2006, 04:08 PM

I wonder if Keystone frowns on messing with the flow. Has anyone read the manual for the furnace that deeply? I may be confusing it with our old brick & stick house’s air exchange system. That was balanced by the installers with pressure gages.

It could be that the Dometic furnace system is also finely balanced enough that changing the pressure, effectively, might cause problems.

I dunno. But it's worth checking.

Meanwhile, since our dogs had managed to fill the rear main two vents with hairs they’ve shed, I took some of that rubber magnetic sheet stuff and covered the two back vents after vacuuming them out. The bedroom one doesn't get much dog traffic, so it didn't need covering. (We don’t have a bathroom one.) I'd cover the kitchen one, too, but their hair hasn't gotten into that one, much. Plus, that sheeting is bright white and would stand out way too much in the kitchen.

While I had the vents off to vacuum the ducts, I did notice that the duct material is pretty lightweight. The bottom seems to bow upward a lot. It may not be holding its shape all the way to the bath and master bedroom. If it were more or less collapsed, that'd kill the airflow for sure.

Steve

crandallbradley · 06-20-2006, 05:31 PM

I'm thinking my bed and bath vents have been blocked or keystone just never made a good connection when they put this unit together.I just don't they should be this bad.

Montana_1240 · 06-20-2006, 06:11 PM

I doubt they should be that bad, either, since you blocked the main vents to no avail.

The main duct along the body of a Monty is one long piece. When it gets to our steps, and is routed upstairs, (as well as to the bathroom for those that have a duct, there,) there'd have to be junctions in the feeder duct that would be a great place to have leaking, or teh ducting may be warped to the extent that it isn't passing the heat.

Have you poked a mirror and flashlight down into the ducting, (after removing the vent grills,) to see if you can see anything that could be blocking them? In my Monty, they use some silver tape around the duct holes, (which could be a part of the floor covering material,) that I've found sort of flapping loose around the vent cut-outs. Some of that could be hanging down inside the ducts, too. With such narrow ducts, it wouldn't take much to block the flow.

Your 319 may have smaller feeder ducts to the vents that aren't working, than the rest of the ones that are. And it might not be one long piece, and it could have joints with some of that tape stuff.

I hope you get it fixed, though.

Steve

richfaa · 06-21-2006, 02:26 AM

"It could be that the Dometic furnace system is also finely balanced enough that changing the pressure, effectively, might cause problems." I don't think so////Our vent at the the counter in front of the fridge in the 3400 was putting out little heat although when I removed the register and stuck my hand down there ..there was plenty of flow. The solution was getting the air flow into up into the camper..As above went to Home depot and replaced ALL thee vents with the ones with adjustable vanes..now have good flow UP into the camper from all vents where it should be going. Vents were 6 to 10 $ each.

Montana_1240 · 06-21-2006, 04:18 AM

Rich,

Sorry. I was thinking that closing off a vent would change the "balance" of air flow.

Redirecting it shouldn't hurt.

And I feel the same thing at the kitchen vent. There must be such a blast of air going through, that close to the source, that it just doesn't change direction and go out the vent.

Steve

richfaa · 06-21-2006, 06:52 AM

Quote "Sorry. I was thinking that closing off a vent would change the "balance" of air flow". I think it would in a well designed heating system..We are talking RV's here. There are no directional vanes on any of the vents, there is nothing there to cause the hot air to change direction. The vanes protrude down just far enough to redirect some of the airflow..Everyone else still gets their share...I guess they figured ..well hot air rises so it will rise out of the vents.. Theory is good..practical application...not so good...

mtrotte · 06-21-2006, 09:07 AM

The flexable duct hose that they use to connect the vents to the furnace may have holes in them. Your hot air may be blowing out under your coach. That's what happened to me. I plan on running metal ductwork to all my vents.

richfaa · 06-21-2006, 09:55 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by mtrotte

The flexible duct hose that they use to connect the vents to the furnace may have holes in them. Your hot air may be blowing out under your coach. That's what happened to me. I plan on running metal ductwork to all my vents.

Good point..On my tear the camper apart inspection I found that where the flexible duct hose was coming out of the furnace the craftsman who was installing the furnace missed his/her mark and screwed a screw through the duct hose which was leaking a lot of air.. The duct was also bent at a strange angle and the sticky tape that they use to stick it together was also off the mark. Think in time it would have fell off.That whole area in there needed a bit of tidying up and it is not hard to do if you are triple jointed.

DarMar · 06-21-2006, 10:49 AM

Replaced all the ducting to the bedroom of our 2955rl with metal ducting and it made all the difference in the world. That flexible duct hose does not produce good air flow BUT is real easy to work with.

crandallbradley · 06-21-2006, 04:25 PM

The unit is still at the dealer.I know I am driving them nuts and I keep telling then I'm not trying to bi--h but I just want it the way Keystone is supose to put it out.

richfaa · 06-22-2006, 03:33 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by crandallbradley

The unit is still at the dealer.I know I am driving them nuts and I keep telling then I'm not trying to bi--h but I just want it the way Keystone is supose to put it out.

You paid the money,,Keystone promised you a unit quality..second to none..When you are satisfied with it take it home. If more folks did that in the RV industry we might get better quality.

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