Thermostat question

[Jolvi]

Originally Posted by KillerIsMe

Our Jay Feather 23BHM furnace thermostat is the Atwood mechanical 2-wire variety, and sometimes the furnace comes on and sometimes it doesn't. Since the trailer is new this Summer we haven't had to use the furnace (I did play around with it when we first brought it home however) but this weekend was a little cold. Anyways I turned on the heat Friday night and it cycled normally all night just like it's supposed to, and then yesterday morning I turned off the furnace. When I went to turn the furnace on again last night I flipped the little lever on top to the ON position and nothing happened. I tried turning it to OFF and back on again but still no luck. Since I had this problem once before I started thinking maybe there's a specific sequence I'm supposed to follow.

So this morning I got up and started monkeying with it, trying this and that, and I found that when I turned the thermostat to off, moved the temperature setting all the way to the left (lowest setting), turned the thermostat back on, and then moved the temperature setting all the way to the right (highest setting) the furnace kicked on and cycled normally again. Is there indeed a specific sequence to turning on the furnace with that thermostat (the manual is not informative), or am I crazy? For your viewing enjoyment I put in a little picture of the type of thermostat we have.

Any help would be appreciated.

I agree with getting a digital thermostat and you can find them cheap enough just make sure it has batteries in it to control it and not dependent on the voltage from a home style furnace. I replaced two analogs in different RV's with digitals from Honeywell that were purchased at WalMart and Walmart is not my go to place.