4250 Heating

I found that only one of my three thermostats runs the furnace. Ok, But it's the one in the bedroom area. It puts out most of the heat in the bedroom and bath room and hardly any air comes out of the two floor vents in the living area. So the bedroom gets to a pleasant temp but the living room stays about 10 degrees cooler. Anyone know what might be wrong?

Hi 56pan,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum.

Yes, one thermostat controls the furnace, and it uses the ambient temperature at that thermostat to turn the furnace on and off to maintain the temperature setting you choose. The furnace is usually located close to the bedroom and bathroom, so those ducts are typically very short and delivery the hottest air. As the hot air goes through longer ducts, to the back of the trailer, it cools down a bit. In addition, most trailers have multiple large windows in the living area, allowing significant heat loss through the glass.

Our Landmark furnace is controlled by a thermostat in the hallway, slightly forward of mid ships. Even so, we usually have a 6-8 degree differential at the back of the trailer. And that's with dual pane windows slowing the heat transfer a bit. On colder mornings, we'll turn on the fireplace in the back to even things out.

You could have a pinched duct to the living area. But before looking for duct restrictions, try using a piece of tissue paper at each register in the back to get a rough idea of how much air is coming through those ducts.

Thanks, I have put a piece of paper over the other vents and hardly any air comes through. This is a 2016 unit and I am the second owner. I'm just worried about the cold weather and the under belly keeping warm so the pipes don't freeze. I can keep the garage warm enough with the heat strip at the rear unit.

Thanks again.

There'll be a separate 2" duct to heat the underbelly. And usually, the furnace itself and all the ducts attached to its plenum, leak enough heat to keep the pump area warm.

But that's only good enough for temps that get a few degrees below freezing. In really cold weather, you'll need tank heaters and other aids to keep the water running. You might take a look at our owner-written Water Systems Winter Usage Guide. The techniques mentioned have been use down to -30 (F).

If you plan on keeping the garage warm in worse than cool temps you'll need to add some insulation under the floor. Enclosing it then with coraplast or something similar will help too.
A big help to heat the living area is putting "pillows" in the roof vents to hold the heat in. Remember, heat rises and the ceiling in your living area is really high so anything you can do to keep it from going right on out the roof will help a lot. Turning on the heatstrip along with the furnace will help keep the air circulating. RV's aren't very efficient when it comes to heating or cooling so you do what you can where you can to get the most from what you have.

Our model CY is similar, with bedroom thermostat being the boss....however, our living room ducts put out more than bedroom/bathroom do.

If all other suggestions fail, pull down the back compartment wall and check the ducting hoses for a pinched/disconnected one.

We have had the same experience with our furnace in our 2018 Cyclone 4200. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we like to keep the bedroom door closed to keep the cats out of the bedroom. What this means is that it gets really warm in the bedroom before we get the desired temperature in the living room. So, I was thinking we might partially cover the bedroom and bathroom vents and hopefully push more heat into the living room. But I don't want to do anything that might harm the furnace. Any thoughts?

Why_Not said:

We have had the same experience with our furnace in our 2018 Cyclone 4200. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we like to keep the bedroom door closed to keep the cats out of the bedroom. What this means is that it gets really warm in the bedroom before we get the desired temperature in the living room. So, I was thinking we might partially cover the bedroom and bathroom vents and hopefully push more heat into the living room. But I don't want to do anything that might harm the furnace. Any thoughts?

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The furnace manufacturer strongly advises against blocking ducts. Doing so can cause the combustion chamber to overheat, which assuming the safety features work correctly, will cause the high-limit switch to open, shutting off the gas valve. The furnace might shut down before the thermostat set point is reached.

That said, a number of people have partially or fully blocked their ducts.

If you do so, make a note so that if in the future you have intermittent furnace problems, you'll remember that blocking ducts may have led to those intermittent problems.

danemayer said:

The furnace manufacturer strongly advises against blocking ducts. Doing so can cause the combustion chamber to overheat, which assuming the safety features work correctly, will cause the high-limit switch to open, shutting off the gas valve. The furnace might shut down before the thermostat set point is reached.

That said, a number of people have partially or fully blocked their ducts.

If you do so, make a note so that if in the future you have intermittent furnace problems, you'll remember that blocking ducts may have led to those intermittent problems.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Why_Not said:

We have had the same experience with our furnace in our 2018 Cyclone 4200. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we like to keep the bedroom door closed to keep the cats out of the bedroom. What this means is that it gets really warm in the bedroom before we get the desired temperature in the living room. So, I was thinking we might partially cover the bedroom and bathroom vents and hopefully push more heat into the living room. But I don't want to do anything that might harm the furnace. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

This is interesting in that we have a 4200 as well a "2017" and the T-stat does kick on the furnace with not having to do it from the bedroom. I wonder if this was a design that was on some and not on other coaches.