Thermostat control help needed

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 05:48 AM

I may be a frequent poster here since i am still learning! Ya'll please bear with me!

Our new Adventurer 37 F has RV Comfort Thermostat. So, I read all the books, yes, LOL all of them! I felt confident settling the thermostat. What I was not prepared for is I can only select LP heat for zone 1, the front of the coach. Zone 2 give me 2 choices for heat. Electric heat and OFF.

So I put zone 1 on LP and left zone 2 on electric heat, even tho I know the heat pump does not like temps in the 20's.

What happened last nite was, ZONE 1 - both the ceiling air vents and the floor vents were blowing air

ZONE 2 - only the ceiling vent was blowing. My understanding is the floor vents are LP, ceiling are Electric.

These settings blew through 1/4 tank propane! We have a 50 amp hook up ( at my parents house for Christmas and I installed a 50 amp)

So now I cut off zone 2 heat. Zone 1 is blowing heat through the bottom vents.

I am in an area that I can not find LP gas fill. Which speaking of, how do ya'll find places to fill?

At 1/4 tank a nite, i will be here for 2 days and be out of LP!

Am I missing something or are the directions in the book not right? It would seem I would be better on generator. Last year in the georgetown, we were gen only and ran for days in cold weather and still had gas to get home. But since i am learning, have not gotten to the part of, can I run the gen for heat and 50 amp for electric? I may be very old before i get all this!

On a side note tho, I did figure out and fix the water heater problem!

dsbike · 12-25-2013, 06:23 AM

I think I am following your setup here, but maybe not. Any way I am going to try to help you.
When you had air flowing from zone 1 ceiling with it on zone 1 gas, was zone 2 operating at the same time? If so they should all be ducted together & therefore zone 2 was supplying the air in the ceiling at zone 1.
Generator will only supply 50 amp electrics to run the heat pumps, it will not run the gas heater other than to supply dc voltage for the fan. You already have 50 amp from your pedestal that you installed. No gain here.
If you have & I assume you do a heat pump for zone 1 & gas for 1 and it is not showing electric on the thermostat, try disconnecting all electrics including battery cut off for 30 seconds then switch back on & see if it appears on your t-stat.
For propane use I have installed a t fitting after the regulator & I use a 40lb external tank , many people use a 20lb tank. It is much easier to get these refilled than to drive the mh to a propane filling station. It will cost you a little to get setup, but it is worth it in the long run to me & several other people do this also.
As you noted the heat pump is very ineffective below 35-40'. I know in my Journey below about 38' the heat pump just runs & blows cold air trying to heat the place up but never getting there. This uses a lot of electricity & will eventually cost you more for electricity than propane. The system should kick in the propane furnace after it sees a 4-5' drop below the set temp. For me, it seems to take way to long for this temp drop to happen & I will just switch to propane before hand, anticipating the low temp drop. During the day when the temps rise we switch over to the heat pumps. Not sure how big your LP tank is but that seems like a lot of propane usage for one night. Check the gauge on the tank not the one on your interior panel and compare the 2. The inside gauges are not always reliable. Also the tank will only be full when it is at 80% not 100%. So therefore you may have only uses 5% of your propane. The tank needs room for expansion, consider 80% full.

Hope this helps you.

94-Newmar · 12-25-2013, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carolinagirl

I can only select LP heat for zone 1, the front of the coach. Zone 2 give me 2 choices for heat. Electric heat and OFF.

So I put zone 1 on LP and left zone 2 on electric heat, even tho I know the heat pump does not like temps in the 20's.

What happened last nite was, ZONE 1 - both the ceiling air vents and the floor vents were blowing air

ZONE 2 - only the ceiling vent was blowing. My understanding is the floor vents are LP, ceiling are Electric.

These settings blew through 1/4 tank propane! We have a 50 amp hook up ( at my parents house for Christmas and I installed a 50 amp)

So now I cut off zone 2 heat. Zone 1 is blowing heat through the bottom vents.

Ok.. do you have 2 different thermostats, perhaps 1 in front and 1 in the bedroom?

In either case, make sure that the FAN settings for either zone are set to AUTO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carolinagirl

It would seem I would be better on generator. Last year in the georgetown, we were gen only and ran for days in cold weather and still had gas to get home. But since i am learning, have not gotten to the part of, can I run the gen for heat and 50 amp for electric?

No, you cannot obtain power from both sources at the same time. It's one or the other - your power source, whether genset or shore power is not your current problem.

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 06:45 AM

Thank Ya'll. I am very confused with this heat setup. When I first switched to LP heat and turned off the Zone 2 heat, LP came on, nice and warm. Thermstat set to 74 on Zone 1

Now, no heat and the temperature is dropping. Here is a pic of the thermostat showing the coach temp and the options. I am at a loss!

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 06:51 AM

They were both running at the same time in the bedroom. I do not know about the front. In following that train of thought, is it possible that Zone 2 has to have electric heat on for the whole thing to work? I have re read the books again and there is no mention of any of this.

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 06:53 AM

I wish I had 2 thermostats! Both the front and back are in this one panel. It was easier with 2 thermostats tho. no guessing there and you could set them both to heat.

94-Newmar · 12-25-2013, 06:58 AM

Ok, well you only have 1 furnace so that is on 1 zone by itself, for the entire coach. If Zone 1 is not giving you an option of electric heat then we can assume they have Zone 2 setup to use both HeatPumps in the A/C units simultaneously - which I disagree with for a variety of reasons. They should not be tied together to call for Elec Heat when only 1 zone is calling for it.

Since you only have 1 Furnace, for example, if I were setting it up:

Zone 1 would give you 3 options:
1. Gas Heat
2. Elec Heat
3. Cool

Zone 2 would give you 2 options:
1. Elec Heat
2. Cool

That being said, it appears that simply leaving Zone 2 OFF and Zone 1 set to GAS HEAT should solve your current problem.

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 07:11 AM

Thank you for your answers! I am agreeing with you, one unit. But what is puzzling now is nothing works It seems zone 1 can not run independently if Zone 2 is off. Since turning off zone 2, Zone 1 has not come on and the temp is 62 now. Just does not make sense!

94-Newmar · 12-25-2013, 07:20 AM

Hrm.. that certainly does not sound right. Well, turn zone 2 back on and set it for Elec Heat and lower the temp to 50 degrees or something lower than the temp in the coach and see if Zone 1 will call for the furnace again.. lol.. something is amiss.

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 07:48 AM

LOL, you hit the nail on the head! Something is amiss! I turned on zone 2 electric heat. Immediately, it turned on, not only blowing ceiling vents on the back, but in the front too. Feels like cold air to me!

The gas still is not coming on, even thos I can hear a 2 stage happening somewhere! So I shut the whole thing to Off, zone 1 and 2.

Turn it back on, zone 1 heat/gas, zone 2 electric. Go outside, the vents in the back are blowing hot air and I heard the gas turn on. Go back in, now every vent is blowing something! Ceiling, pretty much cold air. Floor vents. blowing hot air. Seems counter productive to me! This is a whacky system! Surely this is not right?

Dr4Film · 12-25-2013, 08:03 AM

Until you can get this mess figured out, I would buy two dual wattage, High/Low ceramic electric heaters. Place one in the front and one in the rear of the RV to stay warm.

Make sure they are on different circuits so they don't trip the circuit breakers by overloading them.

Good luck in finding the cure for your thermostat. You may need to have Winnebago figure it out.

If you find that your LPG heater is using a lot of propane you can buy a Extend-A-Stay fitting for the LPG line which allows you to hookup to a larger LPG tank like a 100 lb or more. Sometimes there are companies that will deliver the large tanks or fill them on the spot.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

dsbike · 12-25-2013, 08:03 AM

I have 3 zones. Gas & electric for zone 1 & 2, electric only for 3. Have you tried powering down the coach? This would be my next step.
I have a enough knowledge of these systems Winnebago uses to be dangerous, but not enough to answer all questions. I have had issues with mine & have done a lot of research & some repairs, rather than making the long trek back to the dealer. I have had help from RVP (the manufacturer) the dealer, & this forum. I believe mine is now operating properly.
Here is a possible scenario, First have you ever had electric heat from zone 1 alone? Does the AC cooling come on for zone 1 independently of zone 2 by selecting it from the t-stat? If you answer NO to both of these questions, then I am led to believe that your heat pump controller for zone 1 may not be set to zone 1 but rather set to zone 2. the controller is on the roof inside under the external & inside cover. Hopefully I am wrong & you can get this working normal from inside the coach.

dsbike · 12-25-2013, 08:12 AM

What is your outside temp?
Try this for zone 1 , set temp for 1 degree below the actual temp in the coach. Does the gas still come on or does the heat pump on ceiling come on?
There is another scenario that could be playing out here. After several attempts at the heat pump trying to do its job, it will lock out for 2 hours before it will come back on in the electric mode. Then it will only heat with gas. This should be in your manuals somewhere, but I understand there is a lot to read here & try to comprehend.
I think after trying the above step, I would leave it on gas & check it in about 2-3 hours and see if you can get the electric heat pump heat to come on with it set 1 degree above the actual temp inside the coach for that zone.

dsbike · 12-25-2013, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carolinagirl

LOL, you hit the nail on the head! Something is amiss!

Turn it back on, zone 1 heat/gas, zone 2 electric. Go outside, the vents in the back are blowing hot air and I heard the gas turn on. Go back in, now every vent is blowing something! Ceiling, pretty much cold air. Floor vents. blowing hot air. Seems counter productive to me! This is a whacky system! Surely this is not right?

It is possible the system is working normal. Hard to believe, but I think you hit the nail on the head. THIS IS A WHACKY SYSTEM! If I were designing this there is definitely some things I would do differently.

NeilV · 12-25-2013, 09:14 AM

Are you sure the new 50 amp service was installed correctly for RV use? What happens if you unplug and run on only the generator? If everything then works correctly you may have to call the electrician back to straighten things out.

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 04:01 PM

Hi there, Neil, yes the same electrician that installed the other 3 50 amp services did this one too and is an rver too so I can rule that out

I had to leave to go to the inlaws today. So I put the electric heat only on. Set temp to 68. It was warm in here when we got back. Ser the thermostat to 72 when i returned and the temp has come to 72 now with only the electric running.

The electric is set to automatically turn on the gas if the temp goes 5 degrees lower than the thermostat is set I read today.

What I did find this morning was when I went to cook, the gas flow was slow, in fact burner went out. I had to turn it back on and let it run before it got a decent blue flame. The same thing happened the other night with the hot water heater, no flow. So I used the stove to bleed the lines and all has worked fine since then. But this morning, it did it again, so I do not know if the cold (28 degrees) came into play or not.

I am pretty good at figuring things out, but this one is very puzzling

carolinagirl · 12-25-2013, 05:50 PM

Thermostat set to 72 on Zone 1 - temp drops to 67 - I hear the gas heater kick on when I am in the shower. Get out, check the vents, sure enough, floor registers blowing hot air, ceiling registers blowing something, feels like cold air to me! This is just counter productive! Why blow cold air so the hot air has to chase the thermostat! The thermostat on zone one since auto turn on to LP still says electric heat.

By the way, all registers are definatley blowing something, be it cold or hot, they all have air coming out!

So to continue this saga, I have turned Zoned 2 thermostat to 62. Thinking maybe it would shut off the heat pump blowing quasi cold air. So far, they are still just a blowing! Every vent! 10 minutes later. Tomorrow a call to Winnebago for sure! Wondering if I just simply close all the ceiling vents.......

Jbmsr · 12-25-2013, 08:59 PM

I would turn the electric heat off and set to run gas / propane after resetting and all shod be good. A little Propane goes a long way in these units and is better heat when it's colder out.

DancinCampers · 12-25-2013, 09:35 PM

My guess is your front unit in not a heat pump, just AC. If your roof units are like mine, in heat pump mode, when compressor locks out due to cold outside temps, the indoor blower will continue to run. Winnebago and RVComfort says it is designed this way. So what might be happening is the rear unit is locked out, causing air from ceiling duct to be cold because roof is cold. Gas furnace is operating normally.

When I expect temps to be cold enough to lock out compressor I switch my units to gas only.

I use 2 small heaters to keep gas usage lower, but I still like my lp furnace to run some to keep water lines/pump warm.

I installed an extend a stay on my large tank, and it really helps to keep from having to move to get lp filled.

Be careful if you use any of the circuits that the inverter supplies power to, if you lose power the heaters will drain your batteries fast. I always have my Autogen start in auto mode, so if my batteries drop low the genset will come on.

NeilV · 12-26-2013, 12:03 AM

With that info on the stove and outside temps you may not have gotten the winter blend of propane where you last filled your tank. Summer blend is a different mix of gases and will not provide enough pressure to run things effectively when it gets around freezing or below outside.

Yes at 28 degrees you probably are having heat pump lockout causing them to blow cold.