Atwood Furnace

[jsmith948]

While camping at Bullard's Beach SP in Bandon, OR recently, our furnace took a dump. Thermostat calls for heat, fan comes on, no ignition. Tried resetting, checked for gas flow, but no joy. I decided to wait until we were home to try troubleshooting/repair.
Read through several of the many threads on here regarding problems with Atwood furnaces. The sail switch checked good and was free of dirt/pet hair. The limit switch checked good. Ordered a Dinosaur board, and that fixed the problem. Don't know why the OEM board went bad after only 1 1/2 years - the Suburban furnace in our Cougar never gave us a hint of trouble over the 6 years we owned it.
The furnace is located in the bottom of the pantry. To access the furnace, had to remove the bottom shelf of the pantry - remove the false wall/partition to which the return grill is mounted. Had to then remove the four flex conduits, and the gas line. There was enough slack in the wiring harness that I could pull the furnace out and stand it on end in order to get to the switches and control board. All in all not really difficult - just time consuming and you have to sort of stand on one foot and hold your mouth just right to slide the furnace out
It would have been way easier and faster to repair if the furnace had an exterior access door like I have seen on many RVs. BTW, nearly all of the UTube videos about control board replacement are on a camper with the outside access panel. This Dinosaur board has a 5amp fuse that can't be accessed without removing the furnace - again
But, for now at least, the furnace works - so life is good

[Logan X]

That is good information, thanks for sharing!

[LHaven]

Like yours, the furnace in my rig is semi-hidden, with no external access. Also the water pump. Worse is the converter/charger, which seems (from the sound) to be located directly behind the fuse panel, and I have no idea how I would access it at all if I needed to. My last rig spoiled me in that all these units were very easily accessible inside cabinets, under beds, or externally. I admit to a certain amount of trepidation over the current arrangement.

[RagingRobert]

Maybe an interesting note...I have an Atwood furnace in our 22RBS. I received a service/recall notice a while ago to repair an issue with the wiring being to close to the hot exhaust which could cause a problem. Apparently a protective sleeve over the wiring is the simple fix.

[sourdough]

Jack, our control board on ours failed on our 2nd trip and the trailer was maybe 6 mos. old. Replaced under warranty and no further issues.

Thankfully they made ours so that we have a slatted panel maybe 22" square that is secured with 4 Roberts screws. Pull it out and right behind it is the furnace and to the side the converter!! Really nice. Around the corner is the service/fuse panel; remove it and I have a nice big compartment full of "stuff". We were lucky.