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forced air furnace and power


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#21 fuzzymarindave

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Posted 02 January 2022 - 10:53 PM

I suffered several years with intermittent heater problems, failure to fire until I removed the foil duct hose and cut out about 6 inches of excessive hose. The air from the hose now has a more direct path through the vent rather than making a slight turn. This simple task completely eliminated my problem. No more sleepless nights wondering if the heater is going to work.

Good idea.  More direct path for air and maybe also stretched out the duct corrugations making even smoother airflow.   


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#22 craig333

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Posted 03 January 2022 - 02:39 AM

Something isn't right if your S.O.C. is 20% in the morning. I'll run my heater all night and not go below 85% S.O.C. and rarely see under 12.8 volts. My guess would be they aren't real deep cycle batteries and or they aren't happy with the charging conditions they see. 


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#23 pvstoy

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Posted 03 January 2022 - 02:49 AM

and my battery was down 20% by morning.

 

Craig I might read that as it dropped 20% to a morning value of 80% battery left.  Though I just started reading recently......


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#24 wicked1

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Posted 03 January 2022 - 03:41 AM

Craig I might read that as it dropped 20% to a morning value of 80% battery left.  Though I just started reading recently......

Correct, 80% remaining.  I could be falling back asleep w/ it running w/out realizing it, so it could be on longer than I think..  I'll get a current reading while it's running tomorrow while I'm cleaning up the camper. 


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#25 craig333

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Posted 03 January 2022 - 05:00 PM

Yeah, I could have had a senior moment there :) Is reading misconprehension a word?


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#26 wicked1

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Posted 03 January 2022 - 08:01 PM

I'm from the midwest, so may not string my words together in the same way normal people do, heh...

And yeah, as others have said, power draw is right around 3 amps.  Guess if you fall asleep w/ it running for hours, that adds up. 

 

(My thermostat is not good, so I have it set up pretty high, and usually just manually control it when I need it..  Otherwise.. Today for example, I went out to heat up my camper.. It's got to be 60 degrees in there for at least 1/2 hour, but my thermostat still says it's 20 degrees!  I have no idea what thermal mass needs to warm up before it finally is correct.. but it must be huge.  I've even looked at the circuit board, and am almost positive I know which component is the thermal resistor.. and it's just hanging there in the air like any other thermostat.. No idea why it's so slow to react to the temp changes.)


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#27 UmkaAndHawk

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 12:37 AM

I, too, had to make adjustments to the ducting to get sufficient airflow, in my case *at altitude!* Furnace would not start at altitudes around 9000 and above. Anything that took off back pressure on the single fan of the dometic furnace got it working. I wound up removing the louvers and replacing with a simple metal mesh because I didn't love the idea of removing the metal ducting entirely (even though the torturous path it goes through is clearly a design problem (there's absolutely zero reason the duct isn't located near to the furnace output...FWC could simply design/buy a duct with the opening closer!)

 

I've met other FWC owners on the road who appeared to share the same issue.

 

The other trick we used is a low temp thermostat so that, at night, we can leave the furnace on, but keep the camper at ~45° instead of ~60°F. This reduces cycling, but not as much as I might have hoped. Together, I can confirm we get about three nights of battery life with two AGM batteries, and little other use (phones, iPads, LEDs, that's it.)

 

Good luck, stay warm out there!


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#28 DarinH

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 02:24 AM

I’ll jump on the bandwagon with that suggest removing the vent hose. The first cold night I tried to run my heater in my ‘21 Grandby, it wouldn’t stay lit running off a fully charged battery (twin 6v AGMs), but it would stay lit if I was idling the truck. Removing the vent hose did the trick and I haven’t had a problem with it since.

I’m annoyed as h*** that FWC keeps putting those POS temperamental furnaces in new campers, when there are other options out the that work like they’re supposed to.
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#29 craig333

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Posted 21 January 2022 - 05:19 AM

In FWCs defense, my guess is they bought a couple thousand to get a discount before they realized there was a problem. I'm sure they're not happy with the issues.


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#30 DarinH

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Posted 23 January 2022 - 05:56 PM

In FWCs defense, my guess is they bought a couple thousand to get a discount before they realized there was a problem. I'm sure they're not happy with the issues.


… does not justify putting a faulty product in their campers, because they got a quantity discount IMO (if that actually is the reason. We can only speculate since they won’t tell us). I couldn’t get anyone at FWC to help with my issue, and the video on their youtube channel didn’t work for me. I finally got the solution from the guy that installed my camper at the Bozeman dealership.
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