Heat only in the bathroom

So we have a new (bought this past summer) 2016 Oakmont 385QB. The nights in Virginia are starting to get quite a bit chillier than we are used to. I went to use the furnace by turning the heat on at the thermostat just inside the front door (near the bathroom). The propane is on and flowing, the igniter kicks on, and lots of heat comes out the vents on the outside of the camper. The only register that gets hot (and I mean super hot) or has any real air flow is the front bathroom. Very little air comes out the registers in the living room, bunk house bedroom, and rear bathroom. What does come out is not hot. Even after an hour of running it. My thought is that the ducting somehow dislodged from the rear of the furnace. Are there multiple ports on the back of the furnace? Or is there just one?

Also, does anyone know how to reach the rear of the furnace to see? Is there an easy way to actually see the ducting from the underbelly? I hate removing panels and messing with stuff just to find out I can't see what I had hoped to see.

Lastly, there is a screen on the wooden casing (next to the fireplace). What is that for? Is that a return for the furnace (within a close proximity) or is that space open for the fireplace?

Hi WAdams,

There are multiple ports on the back of the furnace with separate ducts to various locations. The bathroom is often hottest because it's very close to the furnace with a very short duct.

I'm not familiar with the layout of your Oakmont, but on many floor plans, the rear wall of the pass through storage can be taken down to view the back side of the furnace. Unfortunately, to really check out the longer ductwork, you'll probably have to remove the screws on one side of the coroplast underbelly in order to see the ducts. If they're pinched or kinked, that would cut airflow.

If you do remove the mounting screws for the coroplast, an impact wrench works way better than a ratchet/socket.

Furnace return locations vary by floor plan. Sorry, I don't know where yours would be.

Take down the wall in the basement and you should access to the heater from there. Make sure that the ducts are connected and not pinched off. The first winter we had our Landmark the water froze. I found the heater hose, that supplies hot air to the underbelly, was jammed against another hose. Corrected the problem and no more frozen pipes.

I assumed I would find it behind that wall... Just wasn't sure, so thanks for that! It will have to wait as I'm headed down to SC and then to FL in a few days. I'll be sure to post pictures of the process and whatever findings. Hopefully that will help others with the same issues.

We are having the same problem in our 2015 Prowler.

I took out the basement wall and got a look at the heating ducts, but couldn't reach them from there.

While at the Colorado HOC Rally this past weekend, I took the register cover off in the kitchen (while the furnace was running) and put my hand down inside of it and gave it a good shake, and a huge dust cloud of sawdust and small wood chunks blew out in my face!

The flow was a little better, but still not like it is upstairs in the bathroom and bedroom.

Later today I am going to run my shopvac hose down in there while the furnace is running to see if I can get more of that clog out of there!

I'm hoping I don't have to remove the coroplast off of the bottom of my trailer, although it will be going in for some warranty repair issues in a couple of weeks, so I'll leave that to the dealer if the shopvac doesn't fix this issue!

We have one more campout for the season next weekend, so I'd like to get some heat as the temps are supposed to be in the low 30's at night up in the mountains.

I'll let you know my findings!

The wooden frame screen is most likely the heater return air. Remove it and you will see the heater plenum. At that point you will be able to check all the ducting/connections to every place in the coach. BTW, most coaches...the bathroom heat duct gets the hottest. Replace the BR register with one you can shut off the air flow.
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Bob&Patty said:

The wooden frame screen is most likely the heater return air. Remove it and you will see the heater plenum. At that point you will be able to check all the ducting/connections to every place in the coach. BTW, most coaches...the bathroom heat duct gets the hottest. Replace the BR register with one you can shut off the air flow.
.

Click to expand...

I'll bet that the OP's issue is the same as mine . . .

The heating ducts are full of junk from the factory!

I'll be going out shortly to try the vacuum cleaner fix . . . I'll report back later!

JohnD said:

I'll bet that the OP's issue is the same as mine . . .

The heating ducts are full of junk from the factory!

I'll be going out shortly to try the vacuum cleaner fix . . . I'll report back later!

Click to expand...

I'm hopeful its a quick fix! But I never seem to have that kind of luck!

WAdams said:

I'm hopeful its a quick fix! But I never seem to have that kind of luck!

Click to expand...

I was out earlier running the the vacuum in the heating ducts, but it was warm enough outside that I couldn't get the furnace to run.

I was able to get the furnace fan to run for a short time and was able to get a little more air flow through the heating ducts, but still not up to snuff!

Will try again in the morning when the temps are low . . .

Bob&Patty said:

Replace the BR register with one you can shut off the air flow.
.

Click to expand...

Tried this and ended up with a REALLY hot bathroom register. My dealer inserted a smaller diameter duct into the existing one and added a bunch of flex-duct to reduce the flow. Not the best solution, possibly, but I'm too lazy to crawl in there to try something different.

I ran the furnace last night and put the hose from my shopvac down in the registers . . . got a little bit of sawdust and chunks of wood out, but not enough to make a difference!

Guess I will rely on my dealership to figure it out in a couple of weeks when I take it in for warranty repairs.

See if he fan blades have dirt and lint on them. Pull out furance and vacuum the blades


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rdfsnow said:

See if he fan blades have dirt and lint on them. Pull out furance and vacuum the blades

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Since the OP's and my trailers are both brand new I doubt that is the problem . . .

By the by . . . my Prowler is still at the dealership (5 weeks now - still waiting for awning parts???) . . .

The said that they have fixed the heating issue . . . partially clogged ducts and also had a couple of kinks in the duct run to the living room.

If the ducts where clogged where did the stuff come from? Have them just look at the squirrel cage most of these furances do not have return air filters.Poor design


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rdfsnow said:

... most of these furances do not have return air filters.Poor design

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If you were to add a return filter, it would reduce airflow at the blower. As the filter accumulated dirt, after a while the sail switch would open, shutting down the furnace. How long would this take? Depends on how much dirt, dust, and pet fur you have.

I'm sure that in theory, we could all set up a rigorous schedule to clean the filter. But in practice, it would just mean that you'd wake up at 3 AM trying to figure out why the furnace stopped running.

rdfsnow said:

If the ducts where clogged where did the stuff come from?

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From the factory, of course!

Apparently our Prowler was finished on the clean-up crews' day off!

If you remove the heater from the return air box you can install a room air conditioner filter that you can cut to fit. But yes poor design


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rdfsnow said:

If you remove the heater from the return air box you can install a room air conditioner filter that you can cut to fit. But yes poor design


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Click to expand...

As explained earlier, adding a filter will cause problems.

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Rather set up a maint program then to have dirt and dust suck into blower fins and then the combustion chamber. I clean mine every month and have no problems


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Wonder how the OP resolved the issue??