Propane heater

[wmnenwheels]

We have a 93 Dodge Roadtrek 190 I. Used the heater one night and it worked but didnt get much heat out of it. Is there an air filter I can clean? Can I open the registers and clean them as well? How do I get in there? TIA

[Deano]

Check for bug/bee infestation getting in from the outside vent.

[hbn7hj]

It should be able to fry you out of there so something is wrong. Battery voltage at 12.6 or so for proper fan speed? Take the front panel off. Does it have a view port to see the flame?

Post the brand and model number of the furnace. It turns on so all you need is proper air flow and propane flow.

Propane pressure should be what is called 11 inches of water. Perhaps the propane regulator is faulty. Do the stove, water heater, and propane refrigerator work properly? If they do you can probably focus attention on the furnace.

[wmnenwheels]

Stove and fridge work fine. We havent used the hot water heater yet. Filling the tank is a separate mystery. We are very new to this. Not so concerned about the water. We're removing the toilet anyway. One mystery at a time... I'll look around the furnace and also try to find the registers. Thanks

[SteveJ]

My brother also has a '93. The furnace is located under the bed. It has a tendency to over heat and trip the high temp cut off for the burner due to getting too hot under the bed. He has set up a fan to circulate the trapped hot air from underneath the bed.

A picture of your furnace area as you were using it would be most helpful.

[wmnenwheels]

Thanks so much. I will post photos soon. It's in the shop atm. We just bought it. It's getting shocks, front brakes, a transmission service and if we can find them replacement headlights. Hope to have it back Tuesday. I'll post pics then.

[jakegw2]

Propane regulators fail regularly. When this happens the Suburban furnaces can overheat their burners and fail, this happened to us once. I would get that checked before doing anything else as it can create a dangerous condition elsewhere as well.

[wmnenwheels]

Thanks. I will. Now that I think about it, I never checked to see if there was an actual flame. Could be the registers were just blowing cold air...

[joeski]

I took mine out and cleaned it. I have a 2001 Dodge 190. Not too hard to do, just take your time.

[wmnenwheels]

Originally Posted by joeski

I took mine out and cleaned it. I have a 2001 Dodge 190. Not too hard to do, just take your time.

Thank you for the suggestion. What exactly did you take out and clean? Did you pull the whole assembly out from the outside port? or did you just go in from under the bed and clean everything you could get to that way? That does look fairly easy. I've been working on other projects so haven't quite gotten to it. Possibly today.
Thanks so much
WW

[joeski]

I took the exterior exhaust ports out and I took the entire furnace out in the interior. Mine was located behind the driver's seat below the wardrobe. I took it apart on my bench and cleaned it and put it back in.

[wmnenwheels]

I got in there today. I didnt want to screw around with the wiring or gas lines. Vacuumed everything as best I could. It's putting out heat but it has to go around the tub. Our heater is behind the shower/tub closet. There is heat coming out of the exhaust ports outside as well. Is it supposed to do that?

[joeski]

Yes that's what mine does also and it seems to be pretty hot.

[TaxWonk]

According to the RoadTrek owners manual your furnace is a Suburban (if it has not been replace). A good source of service and repair information is https://myrvworks.com/manuals/
He also has a bunch of YouTube on how to maintain all sorts of RV related appliances.
I have a 2009 RoadTrek RS. Just took out my furnace and cleaned the burner. The metal box, the furnace is in, can stay in place and you pull the guts out. When I bench tested the unit it appeared that the control board was bad. I replaced the control board and it work for the few times I test it. While it was out I cleaned the burner with a wire brush. Cleaning the burner made a large difference in the flame, much bluer now.

Actually running the furnace a week later on a trip, it would intermittently not switch on when the thermostat would call for heat. I could put pressure on the thermostat, like when you rest your hand on it to change the temperature, and it would sometimes come on. So I now think the thermostat may be my problem. The thermostat is a home unit(Honeywell RTH5100B 1025) and I think the contacts on the back and base plate, actually pins and sockets are not making good contact. I cleaned the pins and used some DeoxIT on the sockets, it appears to be working but we have not been on a trip since I worked on it.