heating problem with Montana

[dlehmann]

2006 Montana 3400RL..takes forever to warm up and hold temperature....almost all the warm air comes through the bedroom vent and warms up pretty fast..some air comes through the vent in the floor near back and no air comes through the other 2 vents in the floor, one about midway and the other by the entrance..talked to Keystone and they said the vent hoses might possibly have come off..there's supposed to be 3 separate ducts that go to those 3 vents..where do I access the furnace from the inside to see if everything is connected as it should be?

[hankpage]

First ..... Welcome to the forum. ......... On the side of one of your cabinets you will see a wooden vent. (guessing around 18" square) The sound of the furnace fan should be a dead give-away to the location. Remove the screws holding the vent. Inside you will see the furnace ..... the plenum has round holes that the ducts twist into ..... there may also be some extra holes blocked by metal discs that may have fallen out. Remove one of these discs and you should be able to see if the ducts on the bottom of the plenum are connected. It is also possible that the floor vents are blocked with debris or need to be retaped to seal holes. Removing the floor registers and looking inside with a flashlight and a mirror may help, or just gently pushing a vacuum hose in to clear them. Hope this helps, Hank

[theeyres]

You don't mention if this is a new problem or if you are new to the trailer. IMHO trailer furnaces are lousy and very slow to heat. You do need to check out the suggestions above to see if you have a problem. But I have had more than one trailer where the heat just plain poops out before it gets to the last ducts. And even if they are all working, a cold trailer can take a long time to warm up. It then takes an equally long time to start maintaining an even heat without a lot of on and off of the furnace because all the walls, floors, etc are cold so the space cools down quickly. Never had one that even got close to doing what a furnace in the house does.

[Roller4Tan]

A higher tech method of inspecting your duct work is to use the camera in your phone. Remove the register and snap a picture in both directions to see what you got. My furnace is under the fridge and the duct work goes down from the furnace then along the floor to the center of the trailer and branches north and south from there. Under the stairs to the bathroom and bedroom it connects with a short flexible duct. This duct I found partially crushed. The end runs of the ducts were slightly curled as an end stop. I installed foam and metal duct tape after the last register on both ends of the runs. Helped increase airflow to the last registers. JMHO

[dlehmann]

found a louvered panel inside that I removed and could then see some flexible ducting but can't reach..found large plastic panel inside the cargo area that is the access to ducting but couldn't remove because of plumbing from shower above and black water valve handle below...tried to bend to get by these but too stiff to do..not sure what to do next...forcefully bend the sheeting and risk breaking? or is there something I'm missing?

[Bob Landry]

Your furnace duct is going to be 4" foil ducting run under the floor and more than likely it is not going to be straight runs. Looking at it with a camera is only going to show from the register to the first bend and then you don't know what's beyond that. You time will be much better spent dropping the coroplast under the trailer and checking out the ducts. That will give you an opportunity to remove the excess and straighten out the kinks. I think that will even out your heat distribution issue.

[jrhaman]

The furnace is behind the wall in the basement on the street side of the rv. If you remove the wall you will be able to see the duct work and if anything came loose from the furnace.

[WaltBennett]

Ours heats fairly well, but I've heard so many stories of crushed, loopy and not even connected ducts that this is one job I'm going to have to tackle some day. Thus far we haven't done any really cold weather camping though, so maybe I can keep putting it off. Good luck!

[dlehmann]

jrhaman, how do you remove that wall? there's p trap from shower above, tank drain handles on bottom in the way and wall is pretty stiff plastic

[Archergodwin]

Check in the 'basement' storage space under the overshot bed. My Fuzion has removable panels to access the 'utility' area.. but not sure you can see your furnace from there.

Your cold air return vent may be the best access point you have.