As you all know, a couple weeks ago during the night my furnace decided to stop working. So I went into town and bought an electric heater. At which point my furnace started working just fine.
For a week.
Then it stopped working again.
So on Monday morning I called around and found a place that said bring it in and they’d look at it to see if they could work on it or not. I think telling them it was installed in an RV made them a little nervous.
So Tuesday I drove to Phoenix.
Here’s my little RV in Thermo King West’s big shop.
Once I showed them where the furnace was they laid blankets on the floor to protect it. Actually Coda handed me the blankets and I pulled them into position because he didn’t even want to walk on the floor enough to lay the blankets down.
Then he hooked up their diagnostics computer.
This plugs into a wire harness on my furnace. It then reads what is happening and posts codes for the workers to tell them what it sees as a problem. Then it tells them what fix they should do.
Here’s Travis trying to remove my furnace from the cupboard that apparently was built after the furnace was installed.
He got it out and cleaned out my carburetor. Didn’t fix it. Another computer run. Try changing this part. Didn’t fix it. Try running some kerosene through the system to clean it.
Didn’t fix it.
I don’t actually know how many things they tried. I just know they did eventually get the fan running and the system producing heat both at the same time.
Yay!
Then Travis had to put it all back together again including hooking up the exhaust hose to that little silver outlet by his left knee.
No charge for any of that given that the furnace is only 2 months old.
No explanation as to why my carburetor should be so dirty in such a short time either except to say these are usually installed in trucks and truck drivers don’t run their furnace as many hours as I do.
So I headed west again only making it about 13 miles before stopping at a Cracker Barrel for a very late dinner. Spent the night in their parking lot. It was nice to have heat again.
For the first part of the night.
At 64° my furnace shut off. Once again the fan would blow but the heater would not ignite. So the fan would turn off, wait a few seconds, then try again. Tired of listening to that I shut the furnace off. No electricity for my space heater in Cracker Barrel’s parking lot. So I put on a sweat suit, a polar fleece jacket, and a knit hat. And put my lap rug over my comforter and crawled into bed. It was nice and cozy.
But, when I had to get up the next morning it was not so cozy.
So, I drove back to Thermo King and they tried again.
This next part is SO embarrassing. The reason my furnace stopped during the night? It ran out of fuel. I knew I only had a half tank when I went to the shop the first day but I was so tired when I left there I didn’t look to see how much fuel they burned during their tests. When my diesel tank gets down to 1/4 tank, it stops feeding the furnace to be sure I have enough fuel to drive to the next gas station.
Boy, do I feel dumb.
Warm but dumb.
TTYL,
Linda
lol. and well, glad you got it fixed and no charge! yay … no fun being cold … picture me and ol Homer always wearing a bad stuff ~ motel time~
This easy fix, even if a bit embarrassing, is a lot easier than having to tear the furnace apart again. Is your water heater tied in to this system, too?
Oh heck, we all do dumb things. I am sure they had a laugh at your expense but then it didn’t cost you a penny.
Hope it is truly fixed and will stay that way! We just had a couple minor water leaks repaired and this evening and 75 miles down the road, we have a worse leak than we ever had before.
We all do things like that. Funny but not our fault. We need to find someone else to blame. Staying warm is important especially now with all that cold weather heading our way. See you soon.
Glad I’m not the only one who makes embarrassing recreational vehicle mistakes! Sometimes I think they need to take the keys away from me.
Oh Linda. That’s not near as bad as last year when we took off and the fifth wheel wasn’t hitched tight and fell on the bed of the truck. All a part of life. And now you are warm and that is all that matters. Especially since it’s going to be so cold the next five days or so.
aren’t new RVs fun to figure out?!!! My View didn’t come w/labels on it’s water heater bypass valve, so the first Spring when I couldn’t get hot water to come out of the sink even though the water heater seemed to be working fine (and water was coming out of the faucet fine), I thought there MUST be something wrong with the heater. Pulled into a nice RV dealer and 3 minutes later the Tech had diagnosed that I still had my bypass valve in “bypass” mode. Yep, I sure felt dumb!
what nice people RV’ers are! all those upbeat happy comments.
my first thought was . . . this is a brand new custom rv!!! please. why would you be having so much trouble? take it back to the dealer! and blah blah blah. all geared to only raise one’s silly blood pressure. LOL.
i like your other commenters comments better!
i hope you’re taking good notes to write your book. or is this your book!?
the title should be ~ rv braveheart lives and learns! ~ or rides and realizes? or . . . ????
i once was so cold when we lived in minnesota (40 below zero for days and days on end) that i wore 5 layers of clothes and then put a sleeping bag between the covers and a quilt on top. and that was with the heat on in the house! LOL. i apologize to all minnesotans – but i don’t like your winters. too long. too cold! sorry! xo
New RVs are fun to figure out !!!
Everyone goes through a learning cure to learn how things work and how to fix them . Glad everything turned out . How your weather is nice. Are weather in Mn is cold and go to get even colder next week.
Have fun and take care.
Jeff Hop