Gas vs electric heat

[Bjesquivel]

I'm recently new to this full time rv life, and I still have a few questions. I have a 2016 CY36CRL purchased 4 months ago or so. Can anyone give me some more information on electric vs gas heat. 99% of the time I camp at military rv parks which have free electricity, so I would rather stick to electric heat. I have expierenced a few cold nights to where my heater doesn't kick in (due to the cold air it is taking in, I suppose?) any ideas ladies and gents? Thank you for your time and input!

[travelin' texans]

Provided the temp is around 40 degrees then use the heat pump especially if not paying for electricity, anything below that use the furnace as it has ducts underneath to keep water lines from freezing.

[Bjesquivel]

Could you explain what the heat pump is?

[travelin' texans]

If you have that option, it's one or both air conditioners that also provide heat by extracting warm air from outside & running the a.c. in reverse to provide heat. If your thermostat has "gas heat" & "elec heat" then you have a heat pump. If set to electric heat it will run til the inside temp drops approximately 5 degrees then the furnace (gas heat) will automatically fire up. We run the heat pump when possible, but if the temperature outside is forecast to drop below 35 degrees at night I switch it to gas as it gets too cold before furnace kicks in. Hope this helps, if not I'm sure someone else will chime in & may explain it better.

[Jeff&Karen39MB]

We have gas\ electric heat in bedroom only, but I notice when we use gas side, it only comes out of the roof vents, yet we have floor vents and they do nothing, am I doing something wrong.

[rob_fla]

When setting the to Thermostat Electric Heat, it is the Heat Pump cycle on the roof A/C Unit and you should have warm air coming out of the ceiling vents.
When switching the thermostat to Gas Heat, it should run the gas furnace in the basement which should provide warm air from the floor registers.

[travelin' texans]

If you have both acs with heat pumps only one will start the furnace. Its my understanding that most forward thermostat operates the second heat pump/a.c. & usually will not start the furnace, it will just continue to blow cool air when the temps drop.

[Jeff&Karen39MB]

We opted for gas\ electric heat pump bedroom only, and Ac in front room.
If heat is put on auto in bed room, only cold air blows from vents roof, if on electric it works and blows warm air from vents in roof, and when I switch to gas, it blows heat, but only from roof vents.

[RWJSIM2003]

Not familiar with the MB but in our RL the gas is controlled by the thermostat in the main living area only. The thermostat in the bedroom only controls the elec heat pump and AC. if you are getting any air from the ceiling vents that is not coming from the furnace it would be from the AC/HP on the roof.

[travelin' texans]

Agreed! The furnace IS NOT connected to the ceiling vents!! Furnace which gas heat only has air coming from floor registers only. You only get cool air from a.c. & heat from heat pump/pumps through ceiling vents & furnace air from floor registers only regardless of which RW floor plan you have.

[travelin' texans]

Just had another thought! If those knuckleheads at the factory had a really bad QC issue they may have mounted your furnace on the roof therefore you could get heat from furnace at ceiling vents. With some of QC issues I seen/heard about, I suppose anything's possible.

[hoosierguy]

Originally Posted by travelin' texans

Just had another thought! If those knuckleheads at the factory had a really bad QC issue they may have mounted your furnace on the roof therefore you could get heat from furnace at ceiling vents. With some of QC issues I seen/heard about, I suppose anything's possible.

Now Danny............I think thee be just a little bit facetious!

[mhs4771]

If what you're saying is really true, you have one heck of a messed up MB.
We went with Heat Pump on both ACs, but the bedroom control only has three positions:
Cool - Off - Elec Heat,
the main T-stat on the wall to the Bedroom has four positions:
Cool - Off - Gas Heat - Elec Heat
The Fan Mode should be set to "Auto"

[Jeff&Karen39MB]

The bedroom thermostat has just what yours has, if set to auto, all we get is cold air, the thermostat in lower section shows cool heat.
Problem solved tho, lower thermostat on heat \ auto works the basement heater and blows from floor vents.
Thanks to you all again, you make my day, was really worried returning back to Va next month, with no heater.

[RWJSIM2003]

Glad to hear you figured out the problem.


Keep in mind if you have the bedroom themostat on elec heat and the temp drops down below 35 degs it will blow cold air. If you have the main thermostat on elec heat and the temp drops down below 35 deg and the heat pump cannot keep up it will automatically switch over to gas heat. This only works on the main Thermostat that has gas and elec heat options. You can search the forum there have been many threads on this that can help. Safe Travels

[atom ant]

Not sure if this helps or confuses:

Redwood provides 1 propane furnace controlled by the "main" thermostat, that blows air from the floor. Depending on your order - you may have 1, 2, or even 3 roof AC units, and of those, 1 or 2 may actually be "Heat Pumps" as an option, meaning they provide both cooled or heated air through the roof vents. Roof ACs or Heat Pumps are powered electric only.

You have at least one main thermostat that controls the gas furnace and one AC or Heat Pump. The remaining ACs or Heat Pumps are controlled by additional independent thermostats for each unit. Those may be located remotely, or next to each other based on floorplan.

If one of your thermostats looks like this (A) -



it is the Main thermostat that controls the gas furnace (floor vents), and one rooftop Heat Pump (yep, you did get that option) which is selectable for either AC or electric heat (ceiling vents).

If you have a thermostat that looks like this (B) -



it is serving the 2nd rooftop Heat Pump which is selectable for either AC or electric heat (ceiling vents)....OR,

It is serving as the main thermostat for a coach that did not get any Heat Pump options and the "heat" mode is actually gas furnace.


Any thermostats that look like this:



serve the 2nd AC (didn't get optional Heat Pump on 2nd unit), OR serves the 3rd AC (2016 and newer) if that option was selected.


With the exception of 2016, the two roof units, be it AC or Heat Pump or any combination thereof, mix in the ceiling plenums, so you can cool the coach with either AC or both, and air comes out of all of the ceiling vents. 2016 changed with the 3rd AC option and I'm not sure what they did yet (flat roof models only - not early 2016).

There is more to learn on the system, but for another post as this is already confusing enough

Ultimately now that Redwood is offering 3 rooftop ACs and power management, I assume they may go to a central thermostat like the one below that uses remote temperature sensors but control everything from one thermostat.



It is no less confusing, but it does prevent you from operating the AC at the same time as the furnace like we do occasionally when each of us are running different thermostats.

[johnboytoo]

atta boy AA !!!!

I meant to post pics of the thermostats last night as it certainly tells you which is which from the pics, but got sidetracked

[atom ant]

Jonnyboy, you probably have one like that on the bottom in your Monaco?

[johnboytoo]

Egg-zactly like that with the three heat pump zones...
(and just realized it came with a front AND rear furnace - DOOH !!!)

[Steve & Linda]

Thanks AA. Excellent description with visual aids.