My son has a 06 Dutchman travel trailer and the heater doesn't seem to heat like it should. There are no wasps in the intake or exhaust. The exhaust blows hotter air than inside the camper.

Has an Atwood heater but did not get model.

Your thoughts?

 

Travel trailers are not really designed for winter use and even the 4-season campers at for the most part that in name only once it gets down below freezing so complaints about heat are common.

If the furnace is firing and it sounds like it is, there is no way to boost output. You can not safely change orifice sizes or increase blower motors, for example. Is this floor ducted and if so, does the outlet from the furnace line up with the opening in the floor and if so, is it sealed tightly against the floor. At times factories do a really sloppy job with that.

There is an off chance the propane regulator at the tank is dying in which case pressure is dropping off, although it if drops too far the furnace will not fire at all. The two things to always check first with every gas fired appliance are voltage and pressure. You need a manometer to check the pressure.

The exhaust, by the way, is always hotter than the air blowing out inside the camper. To heat the air blowing inside, the blower blows air over a heated combustion chamber which heats the air. The inside air in the camper never ever mixes with exhaust air or there would be a genuine danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. The furnace also does not use any inside air to combust so there is no danger of depleting the oxygen in the camper.

If I were a betting man, I would bet there is nothing wrong with the furnace, provided it fires and continues to fire as long as the thermostat calls for heat.. The most common problems with Atwood furnaces are the blower motors and the high limit control, but the symptoms you are describing do not fit those components in any way.

Steve

 

If hooked up to shore power I would suggest a couple of small space heaters to help out during the coolest of temps.

 

The little space heaters will end up doing the job.

 

We winter camp and even with temps down near zero 2 small space heaters the fireplace will keep it at a toasty 74F and the propane never comes on during the day.

 

If you are going to use space heaters, watch the amp draw. When you run up the amps, it does not always blow fuses; it melts things. It melts receptacles out of walls, it melts the end off shore lines, it burns the transfer switches out of very high dollar inverters (I just replaced one last week to the tune of $1,200+.

High amp draws can generate a great deal of heat in wiring, but not enough to blow fuses. The heat just builds over time until something melts. Whether you have a problem depends on the circuit, what's on it, what the amp draw is, what the campground voltage at the pedestal is, etc. I have had to redo partial walls where receptacles have overheated, numerous ends on shorelines, and at times really high-end equipment.

Here's an example. Suppose you have two 1,500 watt space heaters dialed all the way up on the same circuit. That is 1,500/120 = 12.5 amps each. What circuit do you have them on? Then how many amps are you pulling through your shoreline in total if you are running your water heater on electric at the same time?

Electricity is a funny thing. Even when the numbers say things are okay, sometimes they are not.

Steve

 

How is the airflow? All duct work in good order, nothing disconnected or crushed?

 

Some very good points. And to be fair I should have indicated I only run 1 small baby heater at the front and 1 at the rear for this very reason.

 

I keep mine set at the half setting rather than full on, or switch my water heater over to propane since it uses so little anyway.

My sense is the hardest part of thinking about amp draw is remembering it is part of an entire system so there are a lot of variables.

I was going to attach a graphic of a bedroom wall that was burned out at the receptacle from an electric heater, but can't find it in my computer, but here is the link to a graphic on my blog, if anyone is interested. It is the 8/29/2014 blog on page 3

RV Repair & General Information | Mobility RV Service - Part 3

Steve

 

That pic brings it home as to what can happen. I even had one of those happen to an outlet at home.


Also a consideration is the wiring behind the outlet. I need to check mine but I think I am running residential grade wiring. I need to recheck now.