Heater

Took our 2007 2619 out for 1st time over New Years. Heater worked for an hour then blew cold air. Very cold night. Checked propane tank. Removed one tank but it had plenty gas. Replaced tank and heater worked. Later that night, same thing, would only blow cold air. The electric heater was useless too. Any suggestions? Help!

[Bill]

The solution probably lies in the phrase "very cold night". Propane is stored in your tanks as a liquid under pressure. Some of the liquid turns to gas, which rises to the top of the tank where it is drawn off to run the appliances. More liquid then turns to gas to replace it, and so on. Problem is that the evaporation slows down as the temperature drops, and at some point, it doesn't evaporate fast enough to feed your furnace. In other words, as the temperature drops, the pressure in the tank drops, and at some point it "starves" your furnace.

In cold regions, and in the winter, some propane suppliers add a shot of something else (methane?) to their propane, to ensures that it will continue to evaporate as needed. But if you bought your propane during the warmer months, or in a warmer area, or from a supplier that does not do this, you can experience the problem you noted.

It would appear that you drew enought propane from the tank to "starve" the furnace. Then, when you turned off the tank to check the level, it allowed some dead time for the propane to slowly evaporate a bit more. Then it worked, until the furnace "starved" again.

By the way, did you leave both tanks turned on? I would think that when the automatic changeover valve thinks one tank is "empty", it would switch to the other tank, in which some gas pressure has built up.

As for the electric heater, it depends on what kind of heater you had, and what you mean by "useless". Did you have a standalone 1500-watt heater that you set on the kitchen counter? Or were you relying on the "chill chaser" that is part of the air conditioner? The chill chaser would indeed be useless in this situation, but a standalone 1500-watt heater shold have been a great help, and a pair of them should have done the job very nicely.

Assuming you had a standalone electric heater, did it not work at all? Or was it simply unable to keep up with the need for heat? If the latter, I would suggest carrying two of them next time you head out into substantial cold. Run one of them from an outlet in the TM; run the other directly from the campground power post using a #12 extension cord.

Bill

Check the fresh air inlet to see if it's blocked. There must be enough out side air or the burner will not light. Pull the front cover, turn the unit on and watch through the window to see if the igniter ever sparks if not it's probally lack or air. If it lights and then goes out it's the flame senser.

[Bill]

Since he said that it lit automatically, and ran fine for an hour, I'm not sure that lack of air is a good candidate cause of a sudden shutoff. Nor is the ignitor or flame sensor. It is possible that the regulator froze up - but again, it seems unlikely after an hour. If it happens again, wrap your bare hands around the regulator for a minute or maybe two. If it is frozen, that should thaw it enough to get it working - and solve the mystery.

Bill

[scrubjaysnest]

I agree with Bill, we had this happen on a 44000 BTU unit in a small mobil home. Once the outside temps dropped into the 30's the regulator would freeze up. This was on a 100# bottle. When we switched to a 250# tank plus a different regulator it was no longer a problem.

We had a new (05) Winabago Itasca Suncruiser 37'. And the same thing was happening to us all the time. We even took it to the factory in Iowa and they said they fixed it. But that was not so. We even had a propane dealer in the midwest put something in the tank to solvethe problem. They said they did that all the time for folks that live in the country and live off propane in the winter. Back in San Diego (we were on the road for two years) I found a propane dealer that said he could fix it. He connected a long 35' hose and a 20' riser and turned on the gas and just burnt all the propane that was left nthe tank all the time throwing buckets of HOT water on the tank after that we never had a problem. He said that there was mosture in the tank and whe it got close to freezing the reg would freeze up. I took his word for it and as I said never had the problem again.