The Atwood furnace in my camper hadn't worked in at least a year -- but I got it fixed today.
The symptoms of not working: When the thermostat called for heat the fan turned on and the sparker sparked, which indicated that the fan was turning fast enough to activate the sail switch and allow the sparker to spark. But the flame didn't flame, and after 3 tries the furnace stops trying.
As is my way, I ignored this problem
...and went camping in the winter anyway; I was able to ignore it because I also have a Wave 6 catalytic heater, and that works well. And don't think that a cat heater doesn't work well -- it kept my FWC Hawk comfy inside (assisted by Reflectix on the soft-sides) when the outside temperature dropped to 2°F last December in northern Nevada. I proved to myself that I can be comfortable in winter without the noisy and electrically-demanding furnace.
HOWEVER: the forced-air furnace -- though noisy and electricity-consuming -- does a good job of heating up the camper fast...there's no denying that. It's nice to be able to crank it up first thing in the morning to "take the chill off" quickly. I decided that I really would like to have a working furnace again -- for the convenience it offers, and since I'll be starting on another camping trip next week NOW is the time to get the furnace working again.
I figured that maybe the automatic propane valve wasn't opening...or something, but I didn't feel qualified (or motivated) to try to fix it myself.
So, I took it to Jerry's RV here in Bend. It took the service guy 2 hours to troubleshoot and fix the problem, he had to remove the furnace and take it into the shop...and -- sure enough -- it was a bad valve. There was also some clogging of orifices by "rust".
They only charged me for one hour labor...not sure if that's because that's their customary time-charge for furnace service or because he felt bad that it took so long (he apologized, in fact) to diagnose and fix the problem (since "bad valve" was my guess right from the start). The cost of the new valve was the most expensive part of the charge anyway. He said that a bad valve is very rare...maybe that's why it took him so long to figure it out. After re-installing the furnace he fired it up and it poured out heat!
Anyway....now that I have a working furnace AND my Wave 6 (and my snow-roof-rake), I'm ready for anything that winter in the Great Basin can throw at me!
The symptoms of not working: When the thermostat called for heat the fan turned on and the sparker sparked, which indicated that the fan was turning fast enough to activate the sail switch and allow the sparker to spark. But the flame didn't flame, and after 3 tries the furnace stops trying.
As is my way, I ignored this problem
HOWEVER: the forced-air furnace -- though noisy and electricity-consuming -- does a good job of heating up the camper fast...there's no denying that. It's nice to be able to crank it up first thing in the morning to "take the chill off" quickly. I decided that I really would like to have a working furnace again -- for the convenience it offers, and since I'll be starting on another camping trip next week NOW is the time to get the furnace working again.
I figured that maybe the automatic propane valve wasn't opening...or something, but I didn't feel qualified (or motivated) to try to fix it myself.
So, I took it to Jerry's RV here in Bend. It took the service guy 2 hours to troubleshoot and fix the problem, he had to remove the furnace and take it into the shop...and -- sure enough -- it was a bad valve. There was also some clogging of orifices by "rust".
They only charged me for one hour labor...not sure if that's because that's their customary time-charge for furnace service or because he felt bad that it took so long (he apologized, in fact) to diagnose and fix the problem (since "bad valve" was my guess right from the start). The cost of the new valve was the most expensive part of the charge anyway. He said that a bad valve is very rare...maybe that's why it took him so long to figure it out. After re-installing the furnace he fired it up and it poured out heat!
Anyway....now that I have a working furnace AND my Wave 6 (and my snow-roof-rake), I'm ready for anything that winter in the Great Basin can throw at me!
