How do I get to the furnace - Montana Owners Club

Bornbroke · 01-06-2013, 02:42 PM

The Rv is winterized now but how do I get to the furnace on a Mountaineer 285 RLS.
We cannot get enough heat to the bedroom and bath area. I want to check if the duct-work. is hooked up to the furnace, or could the problem be to much heat going down to heat the tanks. I could cut that heat off to the tanks because we don't use the rv if it's that cold.

**DQDick** · 01-06-2013, 03:32 PM

Take off the cover behind the convenience center. But, as several recent threads have pointed out, the heat in a Monty works great but doesn't seem to have a huge flow at any one given time.

steelpony5555 · 01-06-2013, 05:28 PM

Mine does seem weak too. But at the registers closest to the furnace it barely blows. I was gonna dig into mine too and see what gives.

Ishler · 01-07-2013, 01:00 AM

When I was re-plumbing my bathroom heat I noticed that the connections to the furnace were not taped and leaking a lot of air. That may have some impact.

jimcol · 01-07-2013, 01:19 AM

I had the same concerns when I first got the 5'er in 06. I learned from the service manager at the dealership about a difuser that is placed in the floor pan duct between the furnace and the first outlet register. The difuser is a piece of sheet metal that attachs to one of the side walls of the pan duct and sticks out into the duct four or five inches. It's purpose is to allow some of the airflow from the furnace to get past the first register so that the next registers in that duct run gets heated air for distribution to the rest of the trailer. Without it you will get a rush of air at the first register but very little down stream. I believe the same technique was used in the bedroom duct run. That is why the air coming from the registers seem very weak as DQ Dick is alluding to. I believe it was Oz who posted awhile back that rapid air flow from a duct creates a draft and somewhat defeats the feeling of warmed air. (Just feel the airflow coming out of your house registers. It is not a gush) You can see the difuser if you remove the first register off the furnace, drop a flashlight into the pan duct pointed towards the furnace, stick a mirror into the pan duct, and get your head as close to the floor as possible and look into the mirror. You might have to move the mirror around a bit but it is there. Or at least it is on mine. This still doesn't negate the need to check the ducting in the belly insuring it is all hooked up and void of big air leaks but may help in explaining what some are taking as poor air flow. Jim

Ozz · 01-07-2013, 03:16 AM

Good post Jim.
The proper way to engineer this system would be a larger 'trunk line' at the furnace, (The exit of the air from the furnace) then a slightly smaller duct after the first, or second air outlet, then a smaller one serving the end outlet. BUT, a small system like this works fair just pressurizing the duct they install.
For those of you that changed the original air outlet grills, the replacement usually has a damper on them. Take that off. It just restricts the air. I took mine off, it helped.
Also, if it was designed correctly, the air would come out under the windows, at least where it can, based on the layout. In the middle of the floor is not the best for comfort.
Electric heat would be the best system, strategically placed strip heaters with a small quiet axial fan blowing the heat out gently.
But, that isn't practical, or economic either.
I would like to see a high efficiency Propane furnace as an option on these rigs. 60% of your Propane fuel energy is not good. I think.. don't quote me on this but I think they are only 60% efficient. Probably real close to that. the info should be on the furnace.

sreigle · 01-07-2013, 11:36 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Bornbroke

The Rv is winterized now but how do I get to the furnace on a Mountaineer 285 RLS.
We cannot get enough heat to the bedroom and bath area. I want to check if the duct-work. is hooked up to the furnace, or could the problem be to much heat going down to heat the tanks. I could cut that heat off to the tanks because we don't use the rv if it's that cold.

This may be of no help but if nothing else works....

When we bought our very first new Montana, a 2001 2880RL, back in January 2001, we had the same problem. Too much heat upstairs and not enough downstairs.

Our dealer removed the lower horizontal step going up to the upstairs. Under there were two furnace duct hoses branching off the main duct. One to upstairs, one to downstairs. He pulled the hoses and found one put out significantly more airflow than the other. I have no idea why. So he swtiched the hoses so the higher flow went to the downstairs and our problem was solved. I know our 2003 and 2007 Montanas do not have that distributor box (wrong term??) in that location but it's possible your Mountaineer does. Or in some other location.

Gkerlin · 01-07-2013, 12:15 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Ozz

I would like to see a high efficiency Propane furnace as an option on these rigs. 60% of your Propane fuel energy is not good. I think.. don't quote me on this but I think they are only 60% efficient. Probably real close to that. the info should be on the furnace.

Ozz, Now you got me thinking.... I hate when that happens.

I just went out an pulled off the cover and couldn't find an efficiency rating.

I did see that input BTU was 34k and output BTU was 26k.

If that means 34k of propane btu equals 26k of heat - then 26/34 would be 76.5%.

Is that how it would be measured?

Whatever the rating - they are far from efficient. I was standing outside a couple of weeks ago when it was snowing down in Sierra Vista and feeling all the heat being blown out of the exhaust and thinking what a waste of good propane.

I compared that to my HE furnace that I had in upstate NY where the furnace air was pulled in to the furnace in a pipe contained in the furnace exhaust pipe (or vice versa) so that the combustion air was even pre-warmed before going into the furnace.

What a difference. The big home unit exhaust air was merely warm. The air from our 5'ver is HOT. That's BTU's down the drain.

PackerFan · 01-07-2013, 02:38 PM

Ozz: If you build one...I am sure they will come....and buy it.

I would for sure.

bobcat92 · 01-08-2013, 12:02 PM

I pulled the panel in the pass through and looked at the duct work. The duct for heating the belly was crushed because of pex pipe and electrical wire laying on top of it. I pulled the duct off the furnace and rerouted it. Used HVAC foil tape to re-tape all the connections at the furnace. Wasn't very impressed with the workman ship. Haven't had issue with heating down in the 20s but will find out next week when we head to Q. Good luck.

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