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Old 07-03-2013, 09:41 AM   #1
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Final stupid question-Atwood Furnace

Testing out my furnace was the last thing I needed to do to become familiar with the operation of all the apliances in my 2005 1206. Temperature dropped last night so I fired the furnace up. Took off the front cover and switched the switch on the right hand side from off to reset then went to the thermostat and made sure the switch was on. moved the bottom lever to just past midway and the fan kicked in. Fan blew out bits of what looked like shredded napkin so I was concerened a mouse built a nest in there so I shut it down and used a small mirror to inspect. I looked like all was clear and that the fan blew out all the shredded bits so I fired it back up again. I heard the burner kick on and the blowing air became very warm. I was LOVING having heat in the pop up and the interior got nice and toasty, a little too toasty. I moved the bottom lever down and the fan and heater kicked off. During the night the temperature outside dropped and therefore so did the temperature in the pop up. I thought I had moved the lever down only far enough to shut off the furnace and expected it to kick on when the temperature dropped during the night.

Does it work this way, you know similar to a home thermostat where the heat will kick in when temperatures fall below the set point? It looks as if the temperature thermometer at the top is just a mercury thermometer that will provide a close temperature reading but the bottom lever is just an increasing scale. Is it simply a matter of on or off or does that scale lever on the bottom output heat acordingly to scale? I didn't get to do an outside air temp reading last night so I am not sure that the temperature dropped below whatever temperature happened to correspond to the mark it was set on.
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Old 07-03-2013, 09:45 AM   #2
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BTW thanks for putting up with my dumb questions. I have learned alot and it is nice to get the reassurance that I am doing things correctly. It has been a blast rebuilding this camper to be just like new. So far I installed a new hot water heater, installed new LP pigtails, tanks, and regulator, fixed a water leak with new PEX lines and fittings, installed new tent, replaced wheels and tires...and tested all alpliances.
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Old 07-03-2013, 10:16 AM   #3
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These thermostats aren't very precise. You'll just have to play with setting in different places. Even a small movement can be too far.
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Old 07-03-2013, 10:18 AM   #4
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Just found this video with an AWESOME explanation of the anticipator. Think I am good now
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Old 07-04-2013, 10:25 AM   #5
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We only use our propane furnace for back-up heat. It is way to loud for using in the small foot-print trailers. Ours has no even heat setting we can come up with. It is usually WAY too hot no mater setting we use.

We just warm up the area before going to bed and leave the setting real low so if its get below 40 or so inside the furnace will kick on.

Our furnace also is big time battery killer. The DC fan draws around 6-8AMPS and that is a big current drain if you have to run it all night long.

We would rather just get under the covers and use our electric blanket running off our batteries if camping off the power grid. When camping at shore power camp grounds we use a couple of the oil-filled low profile radiator looking type electric heaters. We will power these from an extension cord running out the to the 20AMP receptacle in the camp ground pedestal. These two oil-filled heaters set on about the #3 setting and maybe use a one of those AC/DC 10-inch O2COOL fans from WALMART sitting behind it is perfect for our off-road POPUP setup.

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Old 07-04-2013, 10:58 AM   #6
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We used our furnace for the first time during our early Spring trip from NY to FL with stops in VA and GA. At night it got down into the forties. Our experience with thermostat sensitivity (or lack of) was similar to your experience and we opted for keeping things cooler with a lower thermostat setting and just bundled up under blankets. The furnace would only kick on if it got really cold.

I know others have swapped out their original mechanical thermostat for a digital unit which may be a mod we do in the future.
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