Gotta get to the furnace - it's not blowing hot air! Alaska's too cold for this!!!

[SueJean]

Wow! New smilies......I like it.

Hi Ya'll

It's been a while since I've been on-line and a lot has happened since I was last on.

Our latest news is that we're planning on "wintering" in Alaska........... We've been working on doing a whole lot of "things" to keep warm and we're in the warmest place in AK. This place is actually known as the "Banana Republic of AK".

Things have been going well so far with the winterizing until last night when I noticed in the middle of the night that the blower on the furnace has stopped working. I get up early to try and figure out what's going on and I find that we've been disconnected from shore power (not sure for how long) and have been running off of our batteries all night.

I get us re-hooked up (the plug had literally just come unplugged, there's no tension on it to keep it plugged in and the slightest bump unplugs it) and try to get the furnace going, but it's still not blowing. I look for a manual and find only an installation booklet with minimal info.

I checked the fuse for the furnace and then I started trying to FIND the furnace. It's in the crawl space under the shower.

There's a little hole about 1' x 3/4' wide and I can't reach the furnace to take the panel off to take a look inside.

I'm now trying to disassemble the stairs to see if I can get a larger access way but I can't figure out how they're screwed to the floor.

YES! I have a call in to someone that's supposed to be an RV furnace expert, but he's no where to be found and we're out in the middle of no where and we just about finished doing all the underpinning so our rig is basically nailed to the ground and we just can't pick up and drive it to some dealer somewhere far away to get it fixed and ..........................

I did read all the posts about all the other problems that ya'll have posted about and I did get a copy of a manual and I did try to take off the access panel on the outside of the rig, but it appears to be "glued" on..............

Anyway, my basic question at this point is how to I get the stairs out so I can get to the furnace?

Any help/ideas/prayer would be appreciated!

SueJean

 

[Cyclone Traveler]

May not help, but if our furnace depletes the propane we have to cycle thermostat switch off and then back on to reset the protection circuitry before it will work.

 

[amkuntz]

We had a time getting the panel off the outside, but that was because of the way the exhaust ports(think that is what they are called...the two openings on the bottom) have sleeves that are really snug and you have to rock and wiggle the panel to get it off. I had to do this every evening for a couple of weeks to get it to work so it would take the chill off for the night, then use the fireplace for maintaining. There is a reset switch on the top of the blower that had to be tripped every time before the thing would cut in.

Marilyn

 

[Terry H]

The stairs are screwed to the stair frame. The screws are inserted through the carpet and are hidden by the carpet. If you see a slight depression in the carpet, that is where the screw is located. Another method is to drag a strong magnet over the stairs to locate the screws.

 

[wdk450]

Cyclone Traveller(s)
Have you thought about electrical heaters as an adjunct/backup?
You need to improve the electrical supply plug/jack connection to your rig. If you can, have the campground inspect the socket on the utilities hookup. You might want to put a slight "S" curve in the flat blades for better contact and adhesion to the outlet. You might think of using a bungee cord around the service post and plug to hold the plug in. Some contact spray on the blades and in the socket might help with making a quality electrical contact.
I found a generic Suburban furnace manual HERE: http://manuals.adventurerv.net/Suburban_Dynatrail_NT-_Series_Furnace_Service_Manual.pdf

By my analysis of the circuit (Fig. 6 in the manual), the controlling element for the motor is the time delay relay. High current relay contacts are a common failure point, as the contact surfaces arc and pit with each contact closure. I would also make sure that the voltage getting to the circuit board is a good 12 volts. I would not be surprised if a modern circuit board shuts everything off if supplied with low voltage.
If you can access the positive wire to the motor, you could remove the time delay relay and apply 12 volts to that wire to see if the motor runs. If it does, the problems is probably the relay.
Good luck!!!

 

[boatto5er]

I think Bill (wdk450) meant for his reply above to be addressed to SueJean.

 

[SueJean]

Thanks for all your replies!

I REALLY, REALLY appreciate having someone out there when things get hairy out here! :angel::angel:

$90 and lots of stressful hours later and our problem is resolved. There are still some unanswered questions that may never be resolved, but I'm getting used to that.

Bit of background: We're working on putting a "skirt" around the bottom of the rig to keep the wind/cold out from underneath. A couple of days ago, I wake up to the sound of the furnace and it's not putting any air out the registers. The rig is warm, but the furnace is just quietly running without the usual "sound of rushing wind" (NAH!) ....

I think the blower isn't working. I found out later the inverter for the solar system had kicked in and the frig had kicked over to propane so at first glance it seemed everything else was working normally.

By morning, the batteries were getting low and as I'm checking this out, I find that our shore power had gotten kicked loose at some point and we were just running off our batteries. When I rehooked up the shore power the batteries went to "bulk charging". Still no air coming out of the registers so I think I have a furnace problem.

We do have a 100 gallon propane tank hooked up and it's near full, as they come and top it off every two weeks regularly. We also have a monitor to constantly watch our batteries and they're sitting at around 13.1 or so after they recharged which is about normal for them. This is a part of our solar set-up. We also do have two electric heaters as back-ups.

I start trying to figure out how to get to and check out the furnace. (I did download the Suburban furnace manual from another post.) In the meantime, I'm trying to find a "qualified" HVAC person. That person showed up last night and what he found resolved the problem.

This is where the questions start that I can't answer as to how, why, etc. The furnace was not touching the floor along the inside edge (away from the outer wall) and there was a gap. In that gap, there was some kind of "gasket" or "seal" (?) and it had come loose and fallen down inside the duct. He pulled it back out of there and added another screw to hold it in place. He also recommended that we get some "aluminum tape" to seal off that gap better.

This gap was causing the heated air to blow out into the space under the shower area and just recycle back through the furnace. Nothing was coming through the vents.

NOW for the weird...............he found that there was a duct pointing from the furnace up to a metal plate at the bottom of the shower floor. He said he had never seen a "heated shower floor" before and asked if that was necessary as it was directing a lot of heated air against this plate and basically wasting it. I had no idea about this and found nothing about it in my manuals, etc. so we made an "executive decision" and capped that vent closed. This also improved the airflow to the registers throughout the rig.

SO...... my furnace is working correctly and now the air is flowing correctly and I took a shower this morning and I didn't notice any difference in the warmth or coldness of my feet.......

I have noted, however, that my furnace is running less now (and the temperature has been dropping steadily in the last couple of days) and my rig is still warm and I still can't find all the stupid screws on the stairs unit.

The best way to I've found to find a lot of them has been on my post-trip scans to re-screw all the screws that have worked themselves loose.

I did think about the bungie cord idea for the shore power, but the problem is that it will hold the lid open if I do that so I will try crimping the prongs. I think that might work better.

Again, thanks alot for all your help and hopefully, there might be something in here that will help someone some day!

Blessings,

SueJean

 

[irvin56]

It must of took you quite a few hours to write that reply with all the dots-dashesw percents and what ever else you added. It took me 3-4 mins to desiffer it all. glad you got it fixed and have heat again. Sounds like some sloppy work at the factory. Yes you will definatly have to fiquer out how to stop the plug from coming out of power hookup. do you have heaters on your tanks and lines wrapped with heat tape for the winter? take care and keep warm as these units are not ment to be lived in in the cold you'll have up there

 

[SueJean]

Sorry about the extra stuff you had to sort through! The HTML code jumped into the post when I used my back button instead of the editing buttons. It should be a clean post now and yes, it did take longer than I'd planned.

We do have heat tape on the water lines and have invested a small fortune in R-TECH boards and vapor wrap and plastic and quilting and other forms of insulation. We do agree that living in an RV in Alaska isn't optimal, but surprisingly, there are people up here that do it every year.

If you look at the weather charts for Homer, AK vs. say, Chicago, we're right on par with them. It just lasts longer. There are several people that live here in the park where we are and have been here for many years and have nothing bad to say about it. I'll let you know my opinion later.

 

[irvin56]

you also get a lot less daylight in winter. I was working in Tuktoyatuktuk. Yes this is a town on the edge of the Boufort sea up north. And we had 24 dark for a month or so every winter and lots of wind. so your electric bill will be high
Have fun. What takes you up there for the winter?

 

[Willym]

The "weird" duct may have been someone's attempt to get warm air into the tank and plumbing area to prevent freeze ups. The arrangement sure sounds strange and seems wasteful. Our furnace has a 2" dia duct routed down into the tank area to add warm air to this area.

 

[SueJean]

Okay...........we DO NOT have (or did not have) a "heated shower floor" as it was so-called by the "qualified HVAC repair-person".

After he "repaired" this weird installation by capping off this duct that he said was going to a "plate" at the bottom of the shower floor, we noticed that our bedroom was really cold.

Well, that makes sense as I found when I crawled back under there today that what he was looking at was the underside of the duct that led to the bedroom register.

So, I put aluminum tape along the bottom edge of the furnace to seal the gap there ($6.38 a roll at Home Depot) and then I worked the cap off that he had charged us $90 to install and re-hooked up the duct to the bedroom ductwork. I also found that the aluminum duct heading into the bedroom was not closed off or sealed along one edge.

No worries! I got a whole roll of aluminum tape so I just sealed it right up and everything is working great.

Bottom line: I don't think I ever actually had a "furnace problem". While the duct work and the furnace did need some taping/sealing to improve their functionality, I think my real problem had to do with losing shore power and draining my batteries which affected the furnace's ability to run.

Another lesson learned...............

P.S. Irvin, the story of "why Alaska" is probably best answered by a quick scan of our blog as it's a long story. We did enjoy the 24 hour days of summer in Tok, but we aren't all that excited about the 24 hour nights of winter. You were a lot farther north than we are, in fact, than we've ever been! Considering the size of AK, you were almost in another country!