Running Furnace Unattended?

Topic: Running Furnace Unattended? (Read 885 times) previous topic - next topic

Running Furnace Unattended?

February 14, 2021, 08:14:22 am

I have a U295 with heat pumps and furnaces, the storage facility has 50 amp hookup so I usually just run the heat pumps for heat and all is good. But with this extreme weather coming I am worried about the wet bay, so I was going to run the furnaces to heat the bays. Would that be OK? I drained the tanks yesterday but I did not pump antifreeze as we still use the coach. Is it safe to run the furnaces unattended? The storage bay is open on one end so fumes should not be an issue. Will the furnace keep the bays from freezing?

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #1 – February 14, 2021, 08:45:29 am

I have a pair of propane fueled hot air furnaces and they run unattended every night after we fall asleep.
Your heat pumps won't do squat below about 45F because the evaporators will ice up too quickly and prevent the transfer of heat from outside to inside.
On our U225 the rear furnace has hot air ducted into the wet bay. Given what's coming your way you might want to add a small cube heater to the wet bays.

In every old New England house, the home owner has a system of which drawers and doors remain open on the coldest nights, and where to leave the light on.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #2 – February 14, 2021, 09:05:04 am

Does your storage facility permit LP tanks to be open? Many do not because of fire risk.

Also something to keep in mind, if you lose power at the storage facility you will eventually run the batteries down. If you cannot check on the coach (or have someone do it for you), and run the generator to recharge the batteries if the power goes out, you are better off winterizing.

When we lived in NTX and couldn't store at home, we never trusted the power to stay on and always winterized.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #3 – February 14, 2021, 09:14:45 am

I understand what your saying, I was just a little concerned about long term (3 days) without being able to check on it. They say we might get 3 - 5" of snow, followed by ice, so I might not be able to check on it. I might can fit a heater in the wet bay but the bay with the water heater is way too tight for a heater to fit.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #4 – February 14, 2021, 09:17:50 am

We can run heaters, no restrictions, I have the generator on "auto" so if the batteries run down the generator will start. The generator used to start automatically when I disconnected from main power, but it stopped doing that recently, but it does start on low battery no problem.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #5 – February 14, 2021, 10:32:27 am

Here's an additional thought on depending on the propane heaters, to add to Michelle's comments.

If you still have the original control boards in your heaters, they sometimes will have a failure mode where they try to light the flame but it does not light. The OEM board only tries one time to get a light! If flame does not light, the blower (fan) motor will continue to run indefinitely, circulating cold air, until such time as you manually turn off the heater at the thermostat. Besides not helping to heat the coach, this failure mode will rapidly deplete your batteries.

The solution to this problem is to use Dinosaur control boards in both heaters, but of course this doesn't help you today.

Amazon.com: Dinosaur Electronics (UIB S) Small Universal Ignitor Board:...

Dinosaur Electronics Home. High quality circuit boards for RV appliances.

Since you are already paying for the 50 amp power hookup, I would strongly encourage you to try to use small thermostatically controlled heaters for your primary heat source, and save the propane heaters for backup. If you put a heater in the wet bay end (faucet end) and crank it up, the heat will travel across the top of the tanks to the other side. Our coach is plugged in to 50 amp in our driveway. It is out in the open, uncovered, and I do not winterize (with the pink stuff). We have small heaters in both ends of our wet bay, and right now, after several days of temps in the teens, our wet bay is holding at a balmy 60 degrees.

Small heaters also work well inside the coach. We have 5 of them running right now spaced out in the coach. They are presently maintaining the inside temp at about 55 degrees, but the propane heaters (set at 50 degrees on the thermostat) are coming on once in a while to help them out. We have Dinosaur boards in both propane heaters and they have never failed me........YET!

We're going down to -3 here tonight (Midland, TX), so my "no pink stuff" winter parking technique will get a very good test.

As an Amazon Associate Foretravel Owners' Forum earns from qualifying purchases.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #6 – February 14, 2021, 10:46:11 am

I run my furnaces unattended all the time but I would NEVER run a propane fridge unattended, ever.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #7 – February 14, 2021, 10:55:16 am

Ok, great information, I just ordered 2 control boards, for future use. I have ceramic heaters I use for backup, I will place them in the bays also. Thank you for your suggestions!

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #8 – February 14, 2021, 11:30:25 am

Ggegabyte, your 2000 is most probably layed out the same as mine and I have a small 175 watt heater in the bay where water reels are.
The heat transfers to sewer bay and as mentioned heat rises and travels over to heater and pump bay fine. We have had over a week of -8 c to -18c and snow and all is fine. I have also,put one in my battery bay as red warning signals came on the other day telling me the batteries are cold, as I have sensors on them. I domhave all lines etc drained but no,pinky in them. The heaters were put in before this cold snap so I am confident all will be fine.
JohnH

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #9 – February 14, 2021, 02:57:23 pm

As others stated, for sure put a space heater in the wet bay. One thing that I did was to remove the vent covers that go between the bays. It seemed to allow more heat to circulate between the bays. We were in temps ranging from a high of 22 to a low of -9 and the temp sensor in the water pump bay on the opposite side never dropped below 46 degrees.
We had a space heater inside the coach and had both furnace T-stats set at 70. We were warm and toasty and never had any issues inside the bays.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #10 – February 14, 2021, 03:03:39 pm

My propane furnace is on the fritz so I've been carefully monitoring bay temps for several weeks. I also had my motorhome stored for most of the month of December in Portland in an unheated metal storage facility. On the day before we left town in Portland I flipped on the block heater and when we got there the next morning to drive away there was no power. My block heater had tripped the breaker, hence the importance of either checking on it regularly in storage or having the generator set to start. The storage facility was enclosed so my generator was not set to auto start.

I have two 200 W little heaters in the bays, one per side. They are plugged into Thermo static switches that come on at about 35° and kick out at 48°. I bought these on Amazon but noticed that tractor supply and Home Depot often carries them if you can find them in stock. Since we are living in the coach we are keeping it comfortable with our duo therm heatstrips. A surprising amount of heat migrates down through the furnace intake and vents into the bays, but the temperature differential is 20 to 30 degrees. Once the little 200 W heaters kick on they do a remarkable job of keeping things warm, and when we plug them directly into the outlet to run continuously they actually started warming up the coach floor to a significant degree.
Poor mans heated floor. I do have an insulated block at the wet bay for the power cord to close up that opening.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #11 – February 14, 2021, 04:59:15 pm

We keep our coach in an enclosed building with some of our antique farm equipment. The building is about the same age I am so it has a few ventilation areas due to age and neglect. I don't drain the system but keep the thermostats at 50 degrees and the aquahot and electric on. I walk over twice a day and check on it and kiss it good night. Have not had problems in the past but have not had an extended cold snap like this one in a long time so it gets a little more attention. It's not supposed to get this cold in Arkansas...... After all, this is the land of moderate weather and beautiful women. Happy Valentines Day.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #12 – February 14, 2021, 06:58:22 pm

We keep our coach inside "Florida" during the winter. 🤣😂🤭

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #13 – February 14, 2021, 07:12:41 pm

Quote from: Gegabyte – February 14, 2021, 10:55:16 am

Ok, great information, I just ordered 2 control boards, for future use. I have ceramic heaters I use for backup, I will place them in the bays also. Thank you for your suggestions!

Another nice thing about the Dinosaur boards, is this: If you choose or need to push the limits and run the batteries low, the Dinosaur board will do the three tries and shut down the furnace for an hour. Usually in that hour the batteries will bounce back just enough to give you one more good run allowing you to stay under the covers until daybreak.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #14 – February 14, 2021, 09:09:48 pm

With the propane furnace only turned by inside thermostat, and limited furnace air flow into bays, likely a deep freeze could freeze plumbing. We use four strategically placed Lasco Personal 200 watt electric heaters in bays. Keep in mind all the fluids stored in other bays can also freeze. Also furnaces can mis-fire on any startup and just blow cold air forever.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #15 – February 14, 2021, 10:25:49 pm

from Barry and Cindy a bit ago....more than a bit....I got the 200 w heaters. Great addition to our repertoire of cold fighting.

Someone mentioned batteries getting cold.

Do anything? I had not thought of those, not sure what I could do. The start batteries are not enclosed, the 8d s are. I think low we will see is 6 degrees for a few hours, then rest of time high teens and mid-20s for four days.

thanks

mike

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #16 – February 14, 2021, 10:31:39 pm

If your AH is on the battery comparment right next door will stay warm enough.

Mike, we have one of these multichanel wireless thermometers. Ours is an older model but 8 channels.
Works great, one in each side of wet bay, one in the main storage bay, one in the battery bay, one in the bedroom.

Amazon.com: Ambient Weather WS-10 Wireless Indoor/Outdoor 8-Channel Thermo-Hy...

We also have one of these at home, works anywhere you hve internet. Temp, humidity, water on the floor. One upstairs, one downstairs, one in the shop. Text or email when readings are out of range you set. ~$10/yr per device.
Amazon.com: La Crosse Alerts Temperature Monitor & Alert Kit (926-25100-WGB):...

As an Amazon Associate Foretravel Owners' Forum earns from qualifying purchases.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #17 – February 14, 2021, 10:44:04 pm

Quote from: Michael & Jackie – February 14, 2021, 10:25:49 pm

Someone mentioned batteries getting cold. Do anything?

The most important thing is to keep your batteries fully charged. When fully charged they should not freeze at any "normal" winter temps.

Can Batteries Freeze? | OPTIMA Batteries

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #18 – February 15, 2021, 08:12:14 am

Thanks everyone for the great information. When I went over to switch from heat pumps to furnace I put a remote temp sensor in the wet bay. I noticed that the temperature in the bay never warmed up, so I checked the duct and noticed no air coming from the furnace to the bay. So I placed a ceramic heater in the bay as suggested and set it for 45 F. I put a camera on my digital thermometer so I can monitor the temps inside the coach and in the bay. So far, this has worked perfectly, bay temp stays right at 45 F and nice and toasty inside the coach. Looks like we got a few inches of snow last night, but I hope the roads will be better this afternoon so I can go check on it. Thanks again for all the help.

Re: Running Furnace Unattended?

Reply #19 – February 15, 2021, 09:28:09 am

Quote from: Gegabyte – February 15, 2021, 08:12:14 am

Looks like we got a few inches of snow last night, but I hope the roads will be better this afternoon so I can go check on it. Thanks again for all the help.

Ummmm, No? Unless your roads have been plowed and sanded, make a cup of tea and read a book. Untreated roads are impassable.

Affiliate Notice