Heater air flow - Montana Owners Club

Montana_2341 · 01-11-2005, 04:55 AM

I have a question concerning air flow out of the heater vents. We get great air flow out of the vent in the bed room. In the living area the air flow is reduced and the vent at the kitchen sink is very low. Is this normal in a 2005 3670? When I asked my salesman about this his reply was that usually just the opposite was true. That the bedroom vent was noted for low air flow volume. He also said there might be some blockage to the vents in the living area. As you might know that to get to these vents requires the belly being taken apart. Any comments on this would be appreciated. I'd like to know what is normal before I take the unit back in.
Boyd and Shirley

Chester · 01-11-2005, 06:24 AM

In our Monty the bedroom airflow was definitely the worst of all. We had lots of airflow in the main trailer area. I wonder if you don't have a collapsed pipe. Unfortunately the only way is to look underneath. Good luck in your search.

jh1802 · 01-11-2005, 06:50 AM

The furnace in my mountaineer TT is located in the kitchen witch is in the rear. That vent has alot of airflow and the bedroom is on the opposite end of the TT so it hardly has any airflow. I think it's just like water, the air takes the path of least resistance. I purchased some of the lexan closeable vent covers from Lowe's like someome suggested on this forum and shut the kitchen off. The air did not come out any better at the other vents. I think it more just went down to the underbelly. The air comming out of the furnace was so hot that it started melting the closing flaps on the kitchen vent. So I remove the flaps because they were ready to fall off anyway and I started getting more heat from my bedroom vent. Go figure, I guess the vent without the flaps offered enough resistance that more air flowed past it to the other vents down the line.

sreigle · 01-11-2005, 03:06 PM

Both of our Montanas are/were the opposite of yours and are as the others above described theirs, if that makes any sense. Since your 2005 model is in warranty I'd ask the dealer to drop the pan and find out what's wrong. He should do this under warranty. If not, call Keystone direct and ask if they can intervene with the dealer. Let us know how this turns out.

Bill Hill · 01-12-2005, 03:30 PM

Heater vent inefficiency was one of the minor repairs we listed when we took our 2980 in last week. We get pretty good airflow in the bedroom, great airflow from the vent at the rear living area, so-so airflow at the vent by the kitchen counter, and almost non-existent airflow at the vent by the entrance, which is also the second closest to the furnace itself. Hopefully we'll get an answer when we pick it up. Funny that the vent furthest from the furnace gets the best airflow.

Montana_2341 · 01-13-2005, 03:04 AM

Bill your air flow sounds exactly like ours. Keep me posted on what you find out from the dealer. Perhaps this air flow situation is how they are all going to be in the new model year. I want to have ours checked by I am going to wait till we use the Monty a few times incase there are other problems that need addressed.

Bill and Ann · 01-13-2005, 03:42 AM

In our 3670 the airflow to the bedroom is the lowest. More air comes from the rear vent than the one by the stairs. We also close the door to the bed/bath area as the hot air rises and the bedroom ends up being the warmest. We also changed the floor vents to ones that can be closed.

Bob & Lee · 01-13-2005, 03:48 AM

our air flow in the livingroom in almost none,the heater is in the kitchen and the living room in the front all the other vents put out a lot of heat all the way to the rear, so I looked in the storage where the pipes run and no blockage I then removed the stairs to see if the line was off but it was ok Iam going to replace the cheep flex line with insulated ridged line just it insulate it so the air we do get is warm, I got a closeable vent ant put it at the base of the stairs about two feet from the livingroom vent and close it off and the heat is no better, I was wondering about a in line booster fan ?

Montana_657 · 01-13-2005, 04:18 AM

Our 3670 puts a lot more air into the living room. Pull the vents and look down there. They used aluminum foil duct tape on ours and it can come loose an plug the duct. Plus any construction debris... perhaps running the vacum hose up there might help.

We got rid of the floor vents the factory put in. Lowes sells a heavy duty flat flush vent that doen't hurt bare feet like the factory issue.. and don't seem to bend either.

Because we want to keep maximum air flow through the heater we removed the dampers in the vents. A vacum cleaner can close them on you and you don't even notice.

RC and Samantha · 01-13-2005, 09:15 AM

Our bedroom has minimal air flow from the heat ducts, so it's much cooler up there. I am sure some of it has to do with the amount of cold air that circulates under there. The bedroom would be a great place to install a fire place but of course there is not room for one.

I'd like us to change to the hard duct work and also add a duct by the closet (my side of the bed) and in the water closet too. We do a considerable amount of Winter Camping so it can get a bit rough. When we can we use the supplementary heat of a ceramic heater up there perched on the dresser by the closet.

It will be interesting to see what your dealer says. Basically ours said it is what it is.

Wishing you all the best,
Patty

Montana_657 · 01-13-2005, 12:51 PM

That's cause he didn't want to undertake a re-design of the system.

I don't know which model you have so I'll speak of my 3670. The front compartment is not insulated and is open to the outside air. The bedroom heat duct and aluminum heat register is exposed to the outdoors.

You can find where the heat duct leaves the basement and comes up into the bedroom. Wrap the exposed pipe with insulation.

The front side of the bed is over the hitch... the insulation below was installed by someone on drugs... the fiberglass has huge voids.... no attempt was made to prevent air infiltration.

I have not removed the front from the 5er and redone the mess. The wife is cooler then me... so I now sleep to the front, she closer to the heat duct.

This won't solve the problem but may give you folks an idea or two. If I ever open up the spaces, I will publish photos.

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