TheDudeMan
Member
Just writing to share some notes from the past week of my experiences with the all to famous sail switch issue.
I've been following this forum for years, and it has always been so helpful. I hope my first post can give back a fraction of all I've learned from everyone here.
I have a month-old Hawk with the Dometic furnace. Heater worked fine multiple trips down into the low 20s. I've probably used my furnace for 10 nights since I purchased it, and a few days of running in the driveway. That said, I've been expecting this issue to pop up.
Just last weekend I was out in 36 degree + rain weather, and woke up to a cold camper. I pulled the ducting, and that didn't seem to fix it. When I got home, I went through all the hoops and checked the sail switch. I found a small piece of fuzz lodged in the switch. After cleaning it, I reinstalled it thinking I found the culprit.
Fast forward to yesterday, I fired up the heat to do some work in the camper and thought I'd let the furnace run for a bit to see if it errors again. Sure enough, I came back to a furnace that was failing to light. Similar cool/rainy conditions, definitely had me thinking maybe there is something environmental to the problem.
Fortunately, I had called Dometic support earlier in the week and ordered an extra sail switch + limit switch to keep on the truck. I swapped in this brand-new switch, and with both in hand, noticed that it felt like the new one had less friction in switch operation.
I'm not sure if this is a result of that switch having been inside, or if there is something that gunks up the innards of the switch, but swapping the new switch and it has been running without a problem for 24 hours.
I've now begun wondering if a lot of these switch problems can't be rectified with a bit of electrical contact cleaner sprayed in the switch. Perhaps there is something from the factor that causes them to not operate properly?
I've been following this forum for years, and it has always been so helpful. I hope my first post can give back a fraction of all I've learned from everyone here.
I have a month-old Hawk with the Dometic furnace. Heater worked fine multiple trips down into the low 20s. I've probably used my furnace for 10 nights since I purchased it, and a few days of running in the driveway. That said, I've been expecting this issue to pop up.
Just last weekend I was out in 36 degree + rain weather, and woke up to a cold camper. I pulled the ducting, and that didn't seem to fix it. When I got home, I went through all the hoops and checked the sail switch. I found a small piece of fuzz lodged in the switch. After cleaning it, I reinstalled it thinking I found the culprit.
Fast forward to yesterday, I fired up the heat to do some work in the camper and thought I'd let the furnace run for a bit to see if it errors again. Sure enough, I came back to a furnace that was failing to light. Similar cool/rainy conditions, definitely had me thinking maybe there is something environmental to the problem.
Fortunately, I had called Dometic support earlier in the week and ordered an extra sail switch + limit switch to keep on the truck. I swapped in this brand-new switch, and with both in hand, noticed that it felt like the new one had less friction in switch operation.
I'm not sure if this is a result of that switch having been inside, or if there is something that gunks up the innards of the switch, but swapping the new switch and it has been running without a problem for 24 hours.
I've now begun wondering if a lot of these switch problems can't be rectified with a bit of electrical contact cleaner sprayed in the switch. Perhaps there is something from the factor that causes them to not operate properly?
