Heater Vents

[Amishco]

Ok so Laurie and I have been dry camping every weekend since we received our BR first of December. with night temps dropping into the 20's I have used quite a bit of propane, I run about 67 degrees while sleeping and 71 during the day. I am thinking of replacing the floor vents with some that I can shut off when not needed. We like it cool to sleep but have no control overthe temp in our bedroom. I have shut the bedroom door and that just makes it hotter. also in the office area (BR) there is really no need to heat it when I'm not working in there. I think Redwood could have installed vents with shut off's on them.I also noticed my garage area was so hot I could cook a hot dog, I pulled the divider off and our bedroom duct was just laying there as the tape they used to hold it up had fallen off. Come on RW tape?? I fixed it temp by putting a board under it to hold it in place. I will be going to Lowes today to get vents coverswith shutoffs. Hoping a Happy New Years to all.

[SueMar]

We bought vents that close too. But not to close off some vent(s) while leaving others open -- just to keep dirt out of the ducts when the heat's not running. I believe I've read, either here or elsewhere, that closing off vents while the heat is running is not a good idea. It can cause problems to the furnace. I've read that at least 3 vents should always be left open when the heat is running or that none of the vents should be closed when the heat is on (same with the ac vents when that's on). Perhaps others can comment and give us both the real story and implications of closing vents.

[rcflame]

The suberban furnace installation pamphlet lists the minimum sq. in. they require for proper furnace installation. I don't know what harm closing off registers so than there would be less than this would cause. Since we haven't been in extremely cold weather since we bought the redwood we haven't used our furnace much. We had a carriage before this, and we closed off the registers in the bedroom because of the type of thermostat that was in it, we couldn't turn the heat below 60 and it was too warm in the bedroom. In the heating dept. of a home improvement store we found a thin magnetic material that was made for putting on metal vents to close them off. It was just a few dollars for several sheets about 8xll and you could cut them to shape with scissors. We used them for 7 years and didn't have any problems

[rcflame]

I just found this on the Airxcel Suberban Division web site in their question section.



Can I close off a register so more heat goes to another part of the vehicle?


<DIV id=div9>
No, this is not recommended. Doing so will cause improper furnace operation and possible overheating of the furnace.



A person will have to use their own judgement as to if and how many you would want to close. Maybe by expermentingand gradually closing some offwhile keeping a check on the furnace to make sure it is operating correctly and not overheating the furnace.

[par]

Just a comment on closing vents: as with all issues dealing with safety common sense must prevail. Every house I ever lived in, I adjusted the exit flue to get the right amount of heat into the room. I personally cannot see why that would be different in a trailer. Of course if you shut them all off then you will undoubtedly have issues. Naturally this is a situation you would want to avoid, but a properly designed furnace should shut itself off if it gets too hot... my point of view.

[Tobys Home]

Amishco. We have just purchased a quartz heater for dry camping with electric service. Not as much propane required. I use one for work and to keep the room that I am working in warm…works great! If you are really "dry" camping and using a gen at least the propane is used for gen operation and not heat. It's running anyway why not use it to run a quartz heater. Just a thought. Have fun…we miss being in ours.

[snbmcdow]

We have lived in our FB for over a year. Even here in New Mexico the weather can get pretty cold. What we did was to set the furnace thermostat at 60. We used the fireplace heater during the day and the furnace at night to keep the water lines from freezing. Worked well and we also like it cool at night to sleep. Most of the winter we used a 30lb tank every two weeks. When it was really cold, down to 10 and highs in the 20s, it took a tank a week.

[Tobys Home]

Forgot to mention have a Happy New Year!

[mhs4771]

I can sort of understand the talk about proper balance, but if you've ever looked in the belly of the beast and saw those 4 inch ductsjuxt zbout tied in knots kind of shoots a huge hole in their theory of proper balance. We've changed the vents on every RV we've owned so we could have at least a little control as to where the heat went. And has been mentioned, if you don't at least close off part of the vent in the bedroom it would become an oven. These are just my thoughts, you just need to add in a grain of common sense.

[Pete Ross]

I have had my RL for only a month, and am living in the desert. The night time temps only get down to 35 or so. I've had trouble heating the living room with just propane, while the bedroom is an oven. Clearly shows design work on the drafting table and not in the field. I found a piece of aluminum insulative material blocking most of one side of the plenum, which I removed. That seem to help somewhat. Then picked up a closable vent at Home Depot (standard size)and replaced the Redwood installed vent (only in the bedroom). Even closed, some warm air gets through. This seems to work just fine. I also find that leaving a window open slightly lets in fresh air, and keeping the bedroom doors shut helps. There is also a warm air vent in the bathroom, which makes for 3 vents open for the hot air to circulate through the furnace.

Hope this helps....

[Amishco]

I installed thetwo vents, one in our bedroom and one inmy office that I can shutoff. I get much more even heat in the living room/kitchen area now. I shut the vent in the Bedroom and shut the doors and my furnace does not run all the time, it use to kick on and off every 2 minutes driving me nuts. Now the bedroom stays at about 10-15 degrees cooler than rest of the unit. , I went through 30 lbs of propane in one weekend before, this weekend I used about 1/2 of that. temps in the 20's at night

[Pete Ross]

I measured the plenum air temperature with a laser thermometer while the furnace was running. The bedroom vent tempwas 165 degrees, and the living room vent was 125 degrees.This imbalance seems difficult to overcome.

[Amishco]

So, it has been two weekends now since I put vents that can be dampered off on two of the units vents (office area and Bedroom) my propane usage has dropped to almost 2 1/2gallons a weekend from 6.2 gallons before installing them. my furnace does not kick on every two minutes, and I can now sleep in our bedroom. What I do when we are not in the bedroom we will shut both the bathroom sliding door to our room and the main bedroom door and just leave the bathroom door open. at night leave the bedroom door closed and just leave the door to the bathroom door open about 6 inchs, with the slider to the bedroom open, works great.