This past season, my daughter was again complaining of her room being cold. I was looking at just putting our Eden Pure heater in there that we bought to supplement heat in one of our previous 5th wheels. I had to dismantle a wall in the front pass thru storage to get to the cable for the black tank valve. It seemed like it was getting harder to open and close. I took the wall out and found an entire train wreck of wiring, plumbing, and heating octopus lines.
This pic was taken AFTER I removed the heating lines. Get to that in just a minute...
I start into the black tank cable issue. I get it all taken apart and find there is a nice bend/kink in the cable itself close to the valve at the tank. Looks like it was installed that way from the factory. Imagine that.
I get that all straightened out, lube up the inside of the cable housing and re insert the wire. Much, much better. That cable slides in and out slicker than whale snot now. I also re routed the cable so it has nice sweeping curves to it. I looked over the grey tank line and it looks good and is working good, for now.
So on to the heating issue. The engineer that designed this should be shot and the guy that installed these lines should be fired. The furnace is directly below the main bathroom. The back side of the furnace box is where you will get the most CFM. Why in God's name would you take a flex line off the back of the furnace box and hook it to the plenum that hits the main bathroom first and then the front master right next to it?? It's no wonder the main bath was 100* in there, the master was 85* when the rest of the trailer is barely at 70* and gets colder as you go to the back. I decide to use the side outlet of the furnace box to feed the main bath and master. It's going to need the other 3 for the most CFM to heat the rest of the trailer.
As I take a look at the connections on the main duct run, this thing is not sealed very well at all.
I purchased some good heat tape and sealed it all up the way it should have been done. Next, I find this much smaller line coming from the bottom of the main duct run and it is laying in an open end pointing toward the floor of the area that contains the afro of plumbing lines and valves. Again, why? Is this so they can say it has a heated underbelly? The furnace is located literally 8" right next to it and is a balmy 136* of radiating heat coming off of it. I crawl toward the back to look under the duct run where this smaller line is connected and find this nice mess going on.
It appears Levi forgot he already cut a hole for it and just left it open. I removed the small line from it and used the heat tape to seal it off along with the open hole they left in the bottom of the duct run.
I reconnected, rerouted and shortened the flex lines from the furnace to the main duct run.
I had the daughter go to her bunk room see if there is any difference. I fired up the furnace and right away she said there is WAY more air coming in and after a few minutes she said it seemed like the air was warmer than before. While she was back there, I threw a rug over the first vent in the main living area. She instantly said there was a lot of warm air coming out now. Being that the first vent is like 5' from the t-stat, I pulled it and blocked the bottom with some heat tape also. Before I put the wall back in, I checked the underbelly area and it was still plenty warm along with the pass thru storage area. If those areas get too cold I can always open up the heat vent in the pass thru a little bit.
I guess it doesn't matter if you have an $8500 trailer, an $85,000 one or a $185K one. They are all built the same.
You want it done right, you gotta do it yourself.
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