# Furnace Problems - 2005 Fifth Wheel Sydney



## palod (May 17, 2005)

My spouse tried out our new 30 foot 2005 Outback Sydney fifth wheel this weekend (First time). Just one night, in our backyard, with one of the grandkids.

The outdoor temperature got down to about 40 degrees F here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Wife says that the furnace kept cycling on and off all night long, getting the RV temperature up to only about 60 degrees.

I thought that maybe she had the thermostat set too low, or the bedroom register covered, or something. I should know better - she is anything but dumb!

I checked it this evening. The furnace is a Suburban SF-30F. There is VERY little airflow out of any of the three heating registers when the furnace is running. Fan is AUTO only on the thermostat - no options.

Inspection shows that the only way heated air can get into the heat ducts is an opening directly BENEATH the heating chamber assembly. This opening is rectangular, about 54 square inches. NONE of the seven duct openings in the side and front of the furnace has any ducting attached - each is still plugged with the factory plates. Actually, it doesn't look as though ther is any room for ducting to attach to any of these.

I removed the louvered cover, and then the front plate on the furnace itself - just temporarily. This provided one heck of a blast of hot air into the living room, which heated the entire living area pretty fast - only problem is, this is where the return cool air is supposed to flow INTO the system.

It looks to me as though the heated air normally has less han 20 square inches of space to find its way into the ducting. That is, through the narrow openings on the left and front inside the furnace heating assembly (directions are while facing the furnace from inside the trailer).

I would bet that excessive back pressure keeps the heated air from flowing into and through the ductwork. Heat just builds up inside the furnace until it overheats - which automatically cuts it off until it cools down. Then it repeats the process. The living area will NEVER warm up.

Has anybody else run into this problem? Any suggestions? Is this a real safety hazard for carbon monoxide or propane or fire?

I'm going to contact my dealer here in Escanaba tomorrow (and probably the factory as well), and will detail the outcome on this board.


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## Castle Rock Outbackers (Jan 18, 2004)

There are stories here regarding heating problems...specifically squished ducts. Take a mirror and a flashlight and look into the floor heating ducts. If they are squished, that is part of the problem.

Also, since the furnace discharges to the outside, CO risk is limited. I won't say 100% without worry, because anything can happen.

When we have full hookups, we use a "safe heat" oscillating heater / fan. It has a thermostat that keeps the entire trailer nice a warm without the furnace turning on. After you get the firnace issue fixed, I highly recommend an electric heater.

Sorry about the problems. Do keep us posted.

Randy


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## cookie9933 (Feb 26, 2005)

Castle Rock Outbackers said:


> There are stories here regarding heating problems...specifically squished ducts. Take a mirror and a flashlight and look into the floor heating ducts. If they are squished, that is part of the problem.
> 
> Also, since the furnace discharges to the outside, CO risk is limited. I won't say 100% without worry, because anything can happen.
> 
> ...


Randy, I interested in the brand and model of your electric oscillating heater. I'm sure interested in saving propane,being warm and save.







Thanks.
Jan


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## rdowns (Oct 20, 2004)

The things I have noticed with my heater do not seem to be the same as yours. First the thermostat needs to come up higher than you want the temp. (Once the trailer gets to temp it seems to stay there pretty easily. Second, I have plenty of heat in living room and bunkhouse, very little in the bedroom. This is a common complaint an=mong fifth wheels. Some have posted fixes on here, we haven't tried them but dh does plan to do some modding sometime this year, and I will post info if it helps. My heater itself works fine yours seems to not be hooked up correctly. Keep us posted and good luck.


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## Castle Rock Outbackers (Jan 18, 2004)

Jan, 
The brand is "Safe Heat."

rdowns, 
Our furnace works the opposite way. We set ours to about 64 and that keeps the cabin at about 72.

Randy


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## palod (May 17, 2005)

Just an update on my FURNACE PROBLEMS.

Brought the RV into the dealer. They installed a "burner update", and say they readjusted the furnace to duct fitting.

It did no good at all, so I looked at the problem further. I could see nothing that the dealer had done -

I removed the furnace, and found that the first piece of duct immediately beneath the furnace was: 1. Misaligned with the connecting duct; 2. Too short to reach all the way to the connecting duct; 3. collapsed to about half its original size.

I took the bull by the tail, and faced the situation. I completely rebuilt the very poorly constructed wooden furnace support box, and fabricated a new connecting duct out of aluminum sheet. The new duct was (or course) made to the proper size, and sealed with metallic aluminum ducting tape.

This about doubled my flow of heated air. BUT, two times a smidgeon is still just a little bit.









I then thought to pull each of the three registers, and take photos of the interior with my digital camera. The photos turned out really good. They show that the ducting at the rear of the RV was just kind of crushed (probably by someone's foot) instead of being properly terminated and sealed, some badly collapsed ducting, a large pile of crushed, torn, bent aluminum blocking the entire duct near the steps, and a large unsealed area forward of the bedroom register. I would guess that about 10% of the heat was going right back into the cold air return, 80% directlyinto the "basement", and most of the remainder blocked by lousy construction.









Today, I visited the dealer, armed with my photographs. They will be removing the panel from the bottom of the RV, and replacing essentially all of the ducting.









The "enclosed underbelly" as Outback calls it, makes this ducting just too inaccessible for the average customer to open it up and take a peek - and opens the door for shoddy workmanship.

If anybody else out there is having problems getting enough heat through the ducting, try taking pictures of the ductwork through the registers! It really works great!

PALOD
Escanaba, Michigan
2005 fifth wheel model 30FRKS


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