# Carrier Air V Heater Doesn't Stay On



## shooter57

We have a used 23 KRS, didn't get any manuals with it. The TT has a Carrier Air V Model 68RV0010KA.

The first time we used the heater it worked fine the first night, but next morning we started seeing the problem we have now. The fan comes on and I think the heater is working but it doesn't run for more than a few minutes, and never gets to the set temperature. We turned on the A/C and it blows cool air, seems to work fine.

Gas stove, oven and water heater work fine.

The unit appears to respond to the remote commands properly, with single and double beeps for ON and OFF. The red light inside the unit flashes steadily. Pushing the "EMER FURN" (sp?) button on the unit itself gets the same result, short run time with little increase in ambient temperature.

I'm pretty handy, and capable of doing basic diagnostics, but I'm not sure where to start looking for the cause of this fault. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

One last question, just to satisfy my curiosity: Why does it show this model as a "Cool Only" in all of the manuals I've found online?


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## H2oSprayer

From one stand point; it sounds like your furnace is working correctly. Under normal operation, the thermostat calls for heat, the blower kicks on for a few seconds to purge any stray gas from the burn tube, the gas valve will open, the ignitor will spark and the furnace light. If the furnace does not detect that the burner has lit, it will shut the furnace down; which sounds like your case. Now on to some troubleshooting. After the blower motor turns on for a few seconds, do you hear the ignitor clicking, trying to light the furnace? If if you do, but it fails to light, a very common problem would be a spider web in the burn tube. You could simply try blowing compressed air down the tube in an attempt to clear the tube. You can probably find information on your furnace here --> Atwood Heating Systems

I believe the reason that the unit that you Goggled shows "Cool Only" is that you are researching the AC unit. Although the AC and the furnace work off the same remote control thermostat, they are two different units.


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## egregg57

H20 is right.

Some simple things that have tripped people up are...

The Carrier Air V itself is an Air Conditioning Unit.

You need the following things for the furnace to work.

- Propane, valves checked open 
- Good spark (Good 12 volts from battery, or from converter panel with camper plugged into shore power)
- Gas lines purged of air

Having difficulty with the furnace coming on after sitting for a while is not uncommon. Several tricks have been used besides cleaning and checking the obvious. One thing that seemed to help some is to make sure your stove burners have been lit, purging the lines of air up to that point, and the hot water heater lights, on GAS ONLY. If there is a problem with air in the gas line after not being used for a while these two items normally correct it.

Try the furnace again. If it still does not operated and and you have checked the things H20Sprayer mentioned, you may have a faulty unit.

BUT these furnaces are pretty reliable! I would bet you get the furnace running!

Eric


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## shooter57

Well I have to admit I thought it was a heat pump A/C combo unit! I guess the combo remote threw me. That, and the heater ducting in the floor.

Found the heater unit under the refrigerator. Suburban SF-30F. I see the gas line going in, a puck that's either a temp sensor or fan sensor with wires going to the rear of the unit. I did hear the igniter clicking but sounds like it's not getting gas to it. Do I have to pull the unit to get at everything else?


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## egregg57

shooter57 said:


> Well I have to admit I thought it was a heat pump A/C combo unit! I guess the combo remote threw me. That, and the heater ducting in the floor.
> 
> Found the heater unit under the refrigerator. Suburban SF-30F. I see the gas line going in, a puck that's either a temp sensor or fan sensor with wires going to the rear of the unit. I did hear the igniter clicking but sounds like it's not getting gas to it. Do I have to pull the unit to get at everything else?


Do you have gas to your stove, refrigerator, water heater?


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## #40Fan

Pull the panel on the outside of the trailer.


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## egregg57

#40Fan said:


> Pull the panel on the outside of the trailer.


 There isn't a panel on the outside for the furnace. Only an inlet and exhaust port. You may be thinking of the Hot Water Heater.

Eric


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## Joe/GA

This is a pretty short stay. Is everyone staying through the 21st or leaving on the 21st?


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## egregg57

Joe/GA said:


> This is a pretty short stay. Is everyone staying through the 21st or leaving on the 21st?


 Hmmm... An inadvertant hijack!


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## Insomniak

I think I'll be leaving on the 21st....


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## shooter57

egregg57 said:


> Do you have gas to your stove, refrigerator, water heater?
> 
> 
> 
> shooter57 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gas stove, oven and water heater work fine.
Click to expand...

Refrigerator works fine too.

Looks like I pull the unit and run it where I can observe operation. Thanks, all.


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## H2oSprayer

shooter57 said:


> Looks like I pull the unit and run it where I can observe operation. Thanks, all.


One more scenario to run by you before you pull the unit; how full are your LP tanks? A couple years ago, we had what I thought was an issue with our heater. We were camping in northern Wisconsin in the late fall. We fired up the heater and were toasty warm...for about 30 minutes. What I found was that although there was enough LP pressure to run the stove and fridge, and hold the auto change over valve from flipping to the other tank, there wasn't enough pressure to run the heat. Have you tried manually selecting the other LP tank? It may be worth a shot.


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## Joe/GA

Joe/GA said:


> This is a pretty short stay. Is everyone staying through the 21st or leaving on the 21st?


Oops! Sorry. I got lost. Too many open tabs! Hope you got your heater working.


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## shooter57

Update - pulled the furnace (feel pretty stupid in hindsight thinking heat was generated in the A/C unit!), extended the wiring, connected the gas and tested it.

Fired up first thing. I can only assume that something may have gotten across the igniter gap or some other issue. I did find a small chunk of styrofoam floating around inside the furnace near the squirrel cage blower, I'm gonna blame that unless I find something else or it fails again.

Thanks to all who contributed, this forum has been an outstanding resource for this newbie TT owner. Funny, never ran into this kind of problem when backpacking (but then again, I didn't sleep as well either!)

Side note, I've collected owner and repair manuals for almost all of my appliances. Keeping the binder in the trailer so's next time I'll be ready.


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## CamperAndy

Loose wire are a common fault with trailers due to the bouncing down the road thing so maybe that was it?


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## egregg57

No need to worry about the confusion. No ones going to give you a hard time. Ya got it fixed! Good to go!


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## shooter57

'nother update. Reinstalled and same issues. I'm going to look into the thermostat signal. It's pumping heat, but only for a short time. Wasn't sure if there was something causing it to shut down, but the manual states that there must be at least 1/2" overlap on the intake tube. I don't have that, and can't get it with factory configuration. Not sure if I have the 1 1/4" overlap for the exhaust, need to check that. I ran it for a short time with the front panel unscrewed and it was generating plenty of heat, much more than ever seemed to come out of the registers. I'm kinda wondering if the installation is part of the problem.


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## CamperAndy

shooter57 said:


> 'nother update. Reinstalled and same issues. I'm going to look into the thermostat signal. It's pumping heat, but only for a short time. Wasn't sure if there was something causing it to shut down, but the manual states that there must be at least 1/2" overlap on the intake tube. I don't have that, and can't get it with factory configuration. Not sure if I have the 1 1/4" overlap for the exhaust, need to check that. I ran it for a short time with the front panel unscrewed and it was generating plenty of heat, much more than ever seemed to come out of the registers. I'm kinda wondering if the installation is part of the problem.


Gilligan has been known to cut holes in the wrong place and to incorrectly attach the ducting. Airflow will cause your issues that is for sure. Sounds like you have a better idea of the issue, just hope you can fix it.


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## shooter57

OK, so I'd like to know the details of the interaction between the A/C unit and the Heater, how to find out about this?

We have a common remote, if demand via that remote is for cooler than ambient A/C unit gets the call (local call). If demand is for warmer than ambient, heater gets tasked (long distance). Does the A/C unit send the heat command to the heater? Does the temp sensor in the A/C unit determine if the desired temp has been achieved?

Seems like no matter what the thermostat is set for, I'm only getting one shot of heat from the heater. Have to turn the A/C off, then on again to get another shot (problem has now come full circle).


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## CamperAndy

The hardwired part of the thermostat is in the AC unit. The remote tells the hardwired thermostat what temp to maintain and it then tells the AC or Furnace to do its thing.


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## Idaho Spud

Thanks a million for your advice. I kept having problems with my propane heater any time I ran the propane completely out. After refilling the tanks, I couldn't get the heater to fire back up. The gas stove would fire up, but the heater would not. The trick was to switch to the gas water heater at the same time the stove was lit. Within seconds the heater came on! (I was worried there was something wrong with the remote controller or something else that would require service and be expensive to fix.)Purging the gas line of air was the only reason the heater wasn't working.



egregg57 said:


> H20 is right.
> 
> Some simple things that have tripped people up are...
> 
> The Carrier Air V itself is an Air Conditioning Unit.
> 
> You need the following things for the furnace to work.
> 
> - Propane, valves checked open
> - Good spark (Good 12 volts from battery, or from converter panel with camper plugged into shore power)
> - Gas lines purged of air
> 
> Having difficulty with the furnace coming on after sitting for a while is not uncommon. Several tricks have been used besides cleaning and checking the obvious. One thing that seemed to help some is to make sure your stove burners have been lit, purging the lines of air up to that point, and the hot water heater lights, on GAS ONLY. If there is a problem with air in the gas line after not being used for a while these two items normally correct it.
> 
> Try the furnace again. If it still does not operated and and you have checked the things H20Sprayer mentioned, you may have a faulty unit.
> 
> BUT these furnaces are pretty reliable! I would bet you get the furnace running!
> 
> Eric


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## Idaho Spud

CamperAndy said:


> The hardwired part of the thermostat is in the AC unit. The remote tells the hardwired thermostat what temp to maintain and it then tells the AC or Furnace to do its thing.


My heater used to come on and off automatically; now, it just goes off automatically! I have to hit the remote OFF button, and turn the heater back ON to get any heat. I thought there was a thermostat problem, but you have stated that the thermostat is hardwired into the AC unit. I had the control board in the AC unit replaced during the summer when I couldn't get the AC to work. Could the board be bad again???


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## Jay Tee

Idaho Spud said:


> Thanks a million for your advice. I kept having problems with my propane heater any time I ran the propane completely out. After refilling the tanks, I couldn't get the heater to fire back up. The gas stove would fire up, but the heater would not. The trick was to switch to the gas water heater at the same time the stove was lit. Within seconds the heater came on! (I was worried there was something wrong with the remote controller or something else that would require service and be expensive to fix.)Purging the gas line of air was the only reason the heater wasn't working.


I may be having the same problem with the furnace in my Outback K28RS...except it's now winterized and I can't fire up the hot water heater to purge the gas line for the furnace.

Anyone have advice how to work around this? I thought I was going to call RV repair shop, but think this can be fixed "locally"...

Thanks in advance!!!


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