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Old 02-26-2013, 03:59 PM   #1
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The smell!!

Went camping this weekend and "tried" to use my heating unit in my 23FB Jayco G2.
The blowing warm air smelled like DEAD something!!!! It was aweful!

I had taken it to the dealership so they could fix the plastic spinny thing in there that a mouse had chewed.

My question is, what do I open up and look into to see if there is anything dead in the heating element?

Thankfully I had an elec space heater.
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Old 02-26-2013, 04:03 PM   #2
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There could be a dead mouse in the ductwork if not the furnace.
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Old 02-26-2013, 05:02 PM   #3
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What and how do I tear this apart to find it??
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Old 02-26-2013, 05:09 PM   #4
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On mine the metal heat duct work runs under the floor, from front to back of the trailer. So accessing it would be a bear. There are floor vents in the living room, bedroom, and bathroom. I`m wondering if you could remove the vents and try sucking or blowing it out with a shop vac.
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Old 02-26-2013, 05:32 PM   #5
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On mine the metal heat duct work runs under the floor, from front to back of the trailer. So accessing it would be a bear. There are floor vents in the living room, bedroom, and bathroom. I`m wondering if you could remove the vents and try sucking or blowing it out with a shop vac.
X2

Might have to get an extra length of vacuum hose, but fishe it through the ductwork and hopefully you come back with a dead mouse :-)
Freebreeze could help while your finding it.
Yuk,
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Old 02-26-2013, 06:03 PM   #6
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The smell!!

I have one of those flexible inspection cameras that might work for peering in the ducts to see what's in there. I think it was around $130 at Home Depot, and has been useful for other stuff around the house too.
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Old 02-26-2013, 08:14 PM   #7
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If you feel venturesome you could use a "leaf blower" and blow out your floor duct work. Of course no telling what might come flying out...
Happy trails,
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Old 02-27-2013, 08:05 AM   #8
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lol, all good ideas, and thank you all.
Just where would the dead "something" blow to if I used the leaf blower?
If I took it to a dealership, could they find it faster? Or would they even do it at all?

PS. This is WAY beyond Frebreeze! haha
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Old 02-27-2013, 08:12 AM   #9
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I would guess it would blow into some sort of distribution box inside the furnace where the ducts come into.
My brother was a policeman. He said they would put Vicks vapor rub in their nose when finding a dead body :-)

Keep us posted on you fix.

Best regards,
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Old 02-27-2013, 08:40 AM   #10
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You can easily remove the floor vents through-out the trailer. If you open up one end and blow from the other end then every thing should come the opened one (In theory)

I was going to say that new trailer will smell pretty bad until they get burned in and the new burns off. Your 2011 should already be broken in so to speak...

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Old 02-27-2013, 09:39 AM   #11
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Mirrors work pretty good with flashlights when you need to see in places you can't get the right angles with your eyes. I had to fish out something my kids dropped in the vents last season. Drop the flashlight in a vent and face it at the mirror to get a shadow on any potential dead things or obstructions.

Also a pool vacuum hose worked taped up to my shop vac hose to get all the debris out of mine as I had a good 10 ft between ducks. If blowing is your only option I would tape or obstruct all the ducts with the exception of the last in line and stick the vacuum hose while on down there to help keep it somewhat cleaner.

While I have not had my furnace open, I do recall seeing punch outs for further ducts on it which you might be able to remove and tape back up with furnace tape if you can't get in another way.
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Old 02-28-2013, 07:45 AM   #12
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Those are good ideas. I will try them!!
I have a rug runner and a toilet rug down that cover the vents. The only one that wasn't covered was the one in the bedroom.
Thank you.
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Old 02-28-2013, 04:16 PM   #13
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Try calling a HVAC company..most of them also do duct cleaning..
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Old 03-03-2013, 08:04 AM   #14
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This may be a long shot but we had the same problem in our Fifth Wheel we bought new last spring. When the furnace went on it smelled like propane or what road kill smells like. I recall having this problem in our home one time. We have hot water baseboard heat, whereas there is a run directly behind our bed. Going to bed one night, we both noticed the smell of propane. Our grill sits directly below our bedroom window which is on the second floor of our home. I thought the grill was leaking, so I moved it. The smell was still there. It ended up being a dead mouse that must have eaten some Decon I put out and made it to the register behind our bed and died laying right up on the fins below the register casing. There was the source. When smelling the same thing in the FW, I thought for sure another dead critter. Removed all the registers, looked through the runs with a mirror and flashlight, plus took the casing off the furnace, no results, as no dead mouse. I then remembered someone telling me that your propane tank can have a similar smell to road kill when empty. I have two tanks, which one was empty. Had it refilled, low and behold, no more smell when the furnace went on. Completely gone.
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Old 03-05-2013, 06:03 AM   #15
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Smitty, interesting. I will definitely keep this in mind for the future. However, the tank that I did have turned on was not empty as I was using the burners on the stove while camping.
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Old 03-05-2013, 06:04 AM   #16
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TT goes to the dealership today to find smelly problem. Told them I didn't want it back until the smell was gone. haha
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Old 03-08-2013, 10:47 PM   #17
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I'm having the same problem. I think mice have been in there and peed and pooped. My furnace is clean so they must have been in the ductwork somewhere. The smell makes you want to PUKE when it gets good and hot. Had a car and mice got in the ventilation system and like to never got the smell out. Going to try to see if anything will come out of the ducts with a sweeper tomorrow and will try to post the results. May have to replace all the "tubes" from the floor ducts themselves over to the furnace to get the smell out, there are three of them, and the camper is sealed on the bottom.
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Old 03-09-2013, 04:28 AM   #18
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...the plastic spinny thing in there that a mouse had chewed.
If you can't identify ^that^ you probably shouldn't be opening up anything for a look-see. You'd likely have to use a plastic handled hoopeedoo to remove the pins with twisty wrinkles on them.
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Old 03-09-2013, 09:56 AM   #19
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Try using a fish tape with a rag attached large enough to somewhat fill the duct work and push it thru since it is a straight shot from one end of the TT to the other. We use rags sometimes to blow string thru conduit when we can't find a dart or foam mouse
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Old 08-04-2013, 01:49 PM   #20
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I worked with farm equipment for over 20 years, mice are extremely fond of living in ac/heaters in cabs. The mouse urine bonds into the metal, no amount of washing will get it out. We also tried many commercial products with little success. The only thing that we ever found that worked was PURE vanilla extract, used full strength, just swab all the horizontal surfaces and seams. The vanilla smell settles down within a day or less of circulating air, and you end up with a mild cookie smell. The artificial vanilla didn't work well at all, there must be some extra compounds that aren't in the fake stuff.
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