First Night in New Hawk. Furnace Question

[Slowride]

somewhat, in the fact that the first trip I tried it before we left, it came on and I shut it off. On our trip, turned it on in the morning, it fired up for a bit and shut off, never to fire up again. I started digging through everything. The other couple we were with has an older Fleet and he has been through the whole “it’s the sail switch” thing from day one with his rig. So after swapping propane tanks, opening the back we tried opening the front. Bingo! It came on and stayed working the rest of the 4 days out, with the face plate off.
It took me several tries to get the duct work tight enough not to cross over, I didn’t want to cut it and risk “voiding the warranty”. The only thing left to see is if this will still work at altitude. But that is going to be awhile off cause I live in Texas.

Thanks for the insight

I'm not ready to do anything until I can replicate the problem....otherwise how do you know you fixed it right?
If nothing works, this would be easy enough to try and I'll keep this in my bag of tricks.

None of this explains why turning the truck on started the furnace again (I don't think). That to me means it needed more juice. Yet it runs fine with LESS juice now...

Maybe I just need to head to the hills with my tools and go for it. (what a chore lol)

 

[ffs]

I wonder if a Lithium battery wouldn't solve this problem. Not a cheap solution, but they maintain almost full voltage until it drops off to almost zero.

 

[Dphillip]

Here are some photos of how it looked after I scrunched the duct and one showing how the furnace sits off to the right with only a little space for the duct to go to center.

My heat vent was also somewhat obstructed by the duct tubing being bunched up. I removed the duct tubing and cut about 6 inches of excessive tubing off. It’s hard to believe something so simple will keep my furnace running all night but it’s certainly worth a try.
I also removed and visually checked my sail switch and it appeared clean and normal looking.
I don’t have a trip planned until March so real world testing will have to wait.

 

[JWL]

Well it is a problem, and it is a design flaw. The various FaceBook pages have multiple comments about this.
The thing that got me to think about it was that we just got a new “smart” clothes dryer. We kept getting a fault code, or sometimes we would and sometimes we wouldn’t. The fault was for restricted air flow, it was a complete PIA, I checked the vent to the outside, cleaned it all out, got a new “better” flexible duct, that worked, for a bit. Finally the solution is our dryer sits out about 8 inches farther in our laundry room so the duct is not restricted in any way. I think this might be what is happening with the new furnaces, if it senses any restriction in air flow it shuts off. Yes maybe an increase in voltage might kick up the flow a little but not enough to keep the furnace from operating. I have had a self contained camper van and two travel trailers in my life and have never had a sail switch problem, a voltage problem or a vent problem. Just saying...
All I know is this worked for me and has now worked for several others. If you run into this problem give it a try.

 

[steve whiteside]

Well it is a problem, and it is a design flaw. The various FaceBook pages have multiple comments about this.
The thing that got me to think about it was that we just got a new “smart” clothes dryer. We kept getting a fault code, or sometimes we would and sometimes we wouldn’t. The fault was for restricted air flow, it was a complete PIA, I checked the vent to the outside, cleaned it all out, got a new “better” flexible duct, that worked, for a bit. Finally the solution is our dryer sits out about 8 inches farther in our laundry room so the duct is not restricted in any way. I think this might be what is happening with the new furnaces, if it senses any restriction in air flow it shuts off. Yes maybe an increase in voltage might kick up the flow a little but not enough to keep the furnace from operating. I have had a self contained camper van and two travel trailers in my life and have never had a sail switch problem, a voltage problem or a vent problem. Just saying...
All I know is this worked for me and has now worked for several others. If you run into this problem give it a try.

I had exactly the same problem. Like JWL and Dphilip said I think it is related to the dryer vent tubing just behind the front plastic cover. It is easy to remove the front cover and then to remove the corrugated dryer vent material. See if this solves your problem. It did for me. I ended up leaving that corrugated piece out so that my heater works fine. I dont see much downside to removing that heater vent section. Maybe less directivity to the hot air flow but not really a problem for me. Steve

 

[Idahojolson]

Here are some photos of how it looked after I scrunched the duct and one showing how the furnace sits off to the right with only a little space for the duct to go to center.

So the first picture is the problem and the second picture was the fix?

 

[Happyjax]

Love the pic! Also love all the info I am storing in my (sometimes faulty) memory banks in case I run into this problem Lotsa experience shared on this site....love it!