Merry Christmas, happy holidays.
Last night temperature dropped in Kingsbury, TX. We are visiting family for Christmas. I set the front furnaces thermostat to 70 and the back bedroom zone to 70 first, after it got hot enough back there turned it down to 60. Outside temperature was I think about 45. Issue was with the front zone, it never quite got to 70 up front. Especially from the dash it was blowing somewhat cool air, not cold but not as warm as mid section or the way it was blowing for the back section when I had it set for 70. So front run all night long as it was set for 70 while back never had to come on set at 60. We were very comfortable but I believe front zone is not working good. If it was down to 20-30 outside it would have been not enough.
We are plugged in and Aqua hot is turned on with electric only. Hot water is hot. Should I have Aqua hot Diesel and Electric turned on at the same time when connected to shore power?
Thank you,
Al
Yes.
Best practice is to leave both electric and diesel on all the time. The diesel won't run unless the electric can't keep up.
Trying to get both the BR and the LR to 70° on electric only at 45° outside is probably not going to happen especially if both zones are calling for heat. We usually have the LR at 68 or so and the BR at 62 or off and can manage down to 40 or so before we add diesel. If electric is not quite enough to get to the comfort level you want turn on the diesel.
Sometimes we will turn on the electric and run the diesel through a cycle to get the AH juice up to temp quickly. Then shut off the diesel and let the electric keep up. It takes about 20 min to get to full temp on diesel and about 2 hours (to a lower set point) on electric with no loads on the system.
We added a switch to turn off the dash blower when the LR callse for heat. There is a relay in there that does this when the ignition is on, you just have to add the switch into that circuit. This makes the back blowers and heat exchangers run longer. The heat distribution in the LR seems much more uniform to us. With the front blower on it blows warn at at the thermostat and the zone shuts off sooner and cycles more frequently.
Electric element is 5000 btus of heat. Think about heating the interior and the utility basement with one space heater from Walmart. Just not enough capacity for the load.
As suggested, turn on electric and diesel.
Rudy,
I remember now, you educating me about this. I had too much going on ahead of this trip, my mind was not with me when we got here :-) I'll get it together.
Thank you all for your help.
Dash blower control. After using this for a few years it really does make a big difference in comfort in the LR. And it is much quieter if you are watching TV.
Aqua Hot Dash Blower Fan Override (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=23713.msg185085#msg185085)