Furnace Issues with new Gateway 3650BH

[adlaird]

Hi all - I'd love to post a "We're so happy with our new Gateway 3650BH" as my first post but instead I am compelled to vent and ask "has anyone experienced something like this?".

First off- end of November -the day we did our pre-delivery on our 2014 unit, the furnace fan was found to be broken. Several fan blades had broken off. This is a plastic fan on this particular Suburban Furnace. The dealer replaced the fan that day.

Within a week, early December, we turned on the Furnace - it ran for an hour or so and then started shaking violently. A remote technician came out and found that the fan had a defect that caused it to wobble. He ordered a new one and replaced it (which actually was its own ordeal that lasted about 8 days due to ice storms).

Within another week or so, the day after Christmas, we came home to our RV (we're visiting family) and turned on the heat and immediately heard a terrible noise. The noise, you might guess: the furnace fan falling apart.

So in just about a month we've now had 3 furnace fans go out.
I've called in to the dealer to find out what our options are as I don't see any point in simply replacing the fan again. They haven't returned to me with any options but I'll follow up with them tomorrow.

In the meantime - anyone have any sage advice?
thanks!
-Austin

 

[danemayer]

Re: Unbelievable and discouraging problems with brand new Gateway 3650BH and its Furnace

Hi adlaird,

Sorry you're having so much trouble with the furnace. Having a problem that doesn't get fixed is one of the most frustrating situations. There must be something that's causing the fan to break, and given that this is the 3rd time to repair the same failure, Suburban may be willing to send you a new furnace. It might be worth a call to Suburban this morning to see if they agree. (423) 775-2131.

 

[RoadJunkie]

Re: Unbelievable and discouraging problems with brand new Gateway 3650BH and its Furnace

Unbeliveable? No. Discouraging? Certainly. Sounds to me there may be an alignment problem that puts stress on the fan to a point that causes failure. Work towards the expecation that your heating unit is replaced. It must be very frustrating to be in the dead of winter without a working heat system...hang in there and good luck.

 

[marvmarcy]

Re: Unbelievable and discouraging problems with brand new Gateway 3650BH and its Furnace

These things happen. I went through four water pumps in the first year - very inconvenient when dry camping a lot. i also highly recommend you contact Suburban. They may want you to have a dealer remove and inspect the furnace, and if the cause isn't obvious, they will likely authorize replacement with a new furnace at no cost to you. It also is good to get Heartland involved and keep them informed. Don't rely on any dealer to be particularly concerned about your problem or it will take forever to fix.

 

[jmgratz]

Re: Unbelievable and discouraging problems with brand new Gateway 3650BH and its Furnace

These things happen. I went through four water pumps in the first year - very inconvenient when dry camping a lot. i also highly recommend you contact Suburban. They may want you to have a dealer remove and inspect the furnace, and if the cause isn't obvious, they will likely authorize replacement with a new furnace at no cost to you. It also is good to get Heartland involved and keep them informed. Don't rely on any dealer to be particularly concerned about your problem or it will take forever to fix.

Remember the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Keep after them to get it repaired in a timely manner or your rig will keep getting put back.

 

[adlaird]

Thanks everyone for the excellent feedback. I will post back on the outcome.



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[CHarwell]

I also have a 3650 BH that and I'm having the exact same problem. During our walk through at the dealer the blower wheel melted so the dealer replaced the heater and delivered the RV to me since I was an out-of-state buyer. When I receive it I turned on the heater and within 10 minutes it started to do it again and at that time I realized that the drawer above the furnace was getting smoking hot, so hot that I could not touch anything inside of it without burning myself. Before the fan blade completely went out I noticed that not all of the registers where blowing air and at this point I realized that the problem was the heat exchanger was overheating for lack of air flow. I moved the duct work around in the floor and was able to get air flow out of all of the registers. I informed Heartland about the problem and they sent me another blower wheel. I replace the blower wheel today and within 10 minutes it did it again! There is definitely a design flaw somewhere and the heater should have a high temperature limit switch to prevent it from melting itself down. I'm going to get in touch of my dealer, heartland and suburban on Monday. I'm going to remove the unit from the fifth wheel tomorrow and see if it indeed does or does not have a high temperature limit switch.

 

[danemayer]

I also have a 3650 BH that and I'm having the exact same problem. During our walk through at the dealer the blower wheel melted so the dealer replaced the heater and delivered the RV to me since I was an out-of-state buyer. When I receive it I turned on the heater and within 10 minutes it started to do it again and at that time I realized that the drawer above the furnace was getting smoking hot, so hot that I could not touch anything inside of it without burning myself. Before the fan blade completely went out I noticed that not all of the registers where blowing air and at this point I realized that the problem was the heat exchanger was overheating for lack of air flow. I moved the duct work around in the floor and was able to get air flow out of all of the registers. I informed Heartland about the problem and they sent me another blower wheel. I replace the blower wheel today and within 10 minutes it did it again! There is definitely a design flaw somewhere and the heater should have a high temperature limit switch to prevent it from melting itself down. I'm going to get in touch of my dealer, heartland and suburban on Monday. I'm going to remove the unit from the fifth wheel tomorrow and see if it indeed does or does not have a high temperature limit switch.

Hi CHarwell,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum; sorry it's under trying circumstances.

Suburban furnaces have a hi-temp limit switch in-line before the sail switch. When temps get too high inside the furnace, the switch is supposed to open, shutting the furnace off. Sounds like the switch is failing to open.

The restricted airflow is causing the overtemp condition.

Both problems need to be fixed.

 

[Fishinadam2]

I also recently purchased a 3650bh and have had issues with the furnace/heating. I full time and my wife and I had our daughter 2 weeks before picking up the camper. Setup the camper and within 18 hrs it went through one 30lb tank of propane and never managed to get the camper over 67 degree. The counter top and surrounding walls around furnace were extremely hot. Had very little airflow out of floor registers. I called a mobile mechanic out and we dropped parts of the underbelly to find about 30' of unnecessary kinked vent hose. We called heartland warranty and they acknowledged they have a problem with it and offered to cover any expense other than the mobile service fee. We removed all excess vent hose and made sure nothing was kinked which helped tremendously. I've since also replaced all floor registers with less restrictive ones which also made a big difference. Now no hot countertop and walls. I'm still a little confused why with such a large camper they opted for a 35,000btu furnace and not the 42,000btu unit. I would think with what they label a luxury unit they wouldn't cut corners in comforts such as heat.

 

[danemayer]

We removed all excess vent hose and made sure nothing was kinked which helped tremendously. I've since also replaced all floor registers with less restrictive ones which also made a big difference. Now no hot countertop and walls.

Hi fishinAdam2,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum. There's a lot of useful information here along with a great bunch of friendly and helpful people. As you browse the forum, you're likely to find answers to things you've wondered about. But also feel free to ask questions that may come up.

One thing I'd suggest about your furnace: you might want to call Suburban at (423) 775-2131 and ask them about the operation of the high-limit switch. If the combustion chamber gets too hot (I'm not sure how hot that would be), it's supposed to shut the furnace down. Restricted airflow through the ducts can do this.

I'd suggest discussing the symptoms with Suburban's furnace experts. As the furnace manufacturer, if they think the operation was abnormal, they may want to pursue further to ensure your furnace is operating correctly. You could have this discussion with Heartland Customer Service, but I'd suggest going straight to the furnace experts so nothing gets lost by having someone relaying information back and forth.

 

[CHarwell]

UPDATE. ....We found that the plenum on our furnace was wide open at the bottom. Looked like it had a panel that didn't get installed. After making a panel and fastening up the plenum better with some drill screws (like it should have been from the factory) and taping all the seams with foil tape we have great airflow everywhere. The furnace a was basically pulling most of the supply air right back into the return side and the blower section isn't designed to handle that much heat and that's why the bower wheels kept melting.

 

[Gsxr130]

CHarwell
did you access the plenum from the kitchen?

 

[cwelder]

adlaird, feel free to email me, we bought a Heartland gateway 3650BH may 2014, we had major gray tank/plumbing separation, water everywhere. got it fixed and seems the rear tank leaks from time to time. rear ac leaks water all over the fold out couch, turned the furnace on one time and within 2 minutes it kicks off and blows a fuse, turn all breakers off, insert new fuse, blows fuse when turn breakers back on. not to mention outside porch light cover getting hot and melting, as well as the trim molding around the slideouts pulling away from the wall when sliding in/out. Our most recent Major issues, front under belly is full of septic because something has came loose or broke. as well as ALL OVER THE GROUND.C'MON!!! PAY THIS KIND OF MONEY AND HAVE ISSUES LIKE THIS, HEARTLAND WON'T EVEN PAY FOR US A HOTEL IF WE TOOK IT TO GET WORKED ON, THEY MADE A SALE IS ALL THEY CARE ABOUT, LESSON LEARNED ON BUYING A NEW CAMPER, NEVER A HEARTLAND AGAIN, THANKS SO MUCH, NOT A SATISFIED CUSTOMER AT ALL!! extremely disappointed!!!