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Old 12-26-2022, 05:46 PM   #41
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You guys in Texas are toasty. Why all the hand wringing? Bad memories of last year’s grid failure? Here in Appalachia, power failures are regular. Temperatures for past week hovering around -5F at night, +10F in the day. Ceramic heater on low in the pass through pointed at battery. TT Furnace set to 50F. LiFePo4 is happy with inverter/charger plugged into 15 amp SP. In the S&B, curled up by the fireplace ready to fire up the generator. But our backup is to move into the camper. It could be worse. You could be in Minnesota.
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Old 12-26-2022, 06:24 PM   #42
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You guys in Texas are toasty. Why all the hand wringing? Bad memories of last year’s grid failure? Here in Appalachia, power failures are regular. Temperatures for past week hovering around -5F at night, +10F in the day. Ceramic heater on low in the pass through pointed at battery. TT Furnace set to 50F. LiFePo4 is happy with inverter/charger plugged into 15 amp SP. In the S&B, curled up by the fireplace ready to fire up the generator. But our backup is to move into the camper. It could be worse. You could be in Minnesota.
Yes bad memories from 2021. Houses and RV storage habits around the state are not built for temperatures in the teens for several days up to a week below freezing, and with no power during the same period of time. In 2021; I had around $25k damage with the house and pool; $0 damage with the RV which I keep at the house. This year, had we lost power, my 5500 genny would have fed my house via a 30 amp Transfer Switch.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I think Minnesota is better for handling those temperatures because their buildings, equipment and lifestyles are prepared for it.

i.e. the concept of Winterizing an RV is different for me than a Minnesotan. I bought my RV to use year around. But 2 or 3 times a year I drain the tanks to get through a hard freeze. It has more risk with the unexpected.

Now with that said, I sure hope our ACs are working this weekend for wherever we may take the RV
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Old 12-27-2022, 09:49 AM   #43
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To follow up on my post about fully enclosing my battery compartment and keeping the LiPo batteries warm - The Refectix temporary fix in conjunction with a small ceramic heater kept my batteries at about 50 degrees every night during low temps at our house around 13 degrees for 3-nights.

So, now that things are warming up, I'll be working to close up my exposed battery shelf with some sheet metal from Tractor Supply. Along with that I've ordered 12v tank heaters to wrap around the two batteries for when aux heating is necessary. The last thing I'll need is remote temperature sensing that I can use to monitor temps in the battery bay.

This stuff isn't very expensive (~$100) and should remedy the issue fairly well.

I always knew I needed to address this issue, I was just putting it off as it wasn't an issue that needed solving since I installed the batteries last April.
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Old 12-27-2022, 09:54 AM   #44
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Old 12-27-2022, 02:34 PM   #45
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I did not see exactly which year you have but there may be a bit of info missing on how it "should" operate as RV furnace do it a bit different than home.
One basic idea is that the air used for the fire (combustion air) should never mix with the room air as that is a basic safety idea to keep co, co2 out of the living space.

So the home or RV does that, but the RV is different in that the fire is not lit until AFTER the air movement is confirmed. You may have read about a "sail switch" which senses this air movement before the gas valve will open?

The furnace is designed to have two blower wheels driven by one motor and that lets the combustion and room air stay seperated.



The Travato uses a bit new and different vent for the outside air which likely looks like one single air vent but is actually listed as exhaust and intake.
Attachment 184848

This duct shows up in yellow on the parts drawings for the 2015 that I used as example.
Interactive Parts drawings are here:
https://catalog3d.winnebagoind.com/menu/Parts.htm

Attachment 184847

So what you should have is the cold air going in the vent to the combustion chamber, and the exhaust gas going out the combined vent tubing. Blue in, red out?
Then the room air should go in the big vent inside to the furnace and after going around the heat exchanger, come out the various ducts inside but kept seperate from the outside air.

When you say the furnace air is not warm enough, there may be two things going on. One is confusion when expecting the first air coming out to be warm, as the RV doesn't light the fire until AFTER the air has started moving, Than might be that you are starting the furnace and checked the room air coming out too soon before the really cold metal parts have warmed enough to feel right??
Once the inside of the furnace and the air in the RV are warmed to normal temp, the RV furnace should work very much like a home funrace except you do tend to get a blast of colder air when they first start!

OR, a far worse idea is that one of the ducts is not connected well and the air is not flowing as it should.


I'm always glad to find I was confused on something! Then I don't have to find and fix something!
Richard first off “Merry Christmas “ secondly I own a 2022 Travato 59k and I am a novice when it comes to RV furnace as I have only had to use it twice before this freeze and then we were tied into 30 amp shore power, 40 degrees and everything worked fine. As I was tied into my house electrical system I only ran the furnace on half speed (850 watts) along with a small space heater (400 watts) to keep the amperage down. When I did run it high 1750 watts it worked better but if I understand it right that the furnace output is around 14000BTU so how warm should I expect the air when it’s 20 degrees outside. Well at least tomorrow we are headed back to normal SE Texas weather. Thanks, Mike
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Old 12-27-2022, 03:10 PM   #46
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CreativePart: The last thing I'll need is remote temperature sensing that I can use to monitor temps in the battery bay.

I’ve really liked using these remote sensors. They work with both Bluetooth and WiFi.

Govee WiFi Hygrometer Thermometer... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BVLP9C5...p_mob_ap_share
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Old 12-27-2022, 03:53 PM   #47
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Richard first off “Merry Christmas “ secondly I own a 2022 Travato 59k and I am a novice when it comes to RV furnace as I have only had to use it twice before this freeze and then we were tied into 30 amp shore power, 40 degrees and everything worked fine. As I was tied into my house electrical system I only ran the furnace on half speed (850 watts) along with a small space heater (400 watts) to keep the amperage down. When I did run it high 1750 watts it worked better but if I understand it right that the furnace output is around 14000BTU so how warm should I expect the air when it’s 20 degrees outside. Well at least tomorrow we are headed back to normal SE Texas weather. Thanks, Mike
It is hard to say how warm but if the furnace is working correctly, it should be more than enough to heat you too hot!
Consider that you have 14,000 BTU which is small compared to the normal home furnace of 80 to 100,000 btu. That means your furnace should be about 1/7 of the normal home furnace but the space heated in the normal home may be a round 2,000 square feet compared to your RV space?

If we said you had 10X20 feet, making it 200 square feet to heat, that works out to be only 1/10 of the space of the normal home!
So I'm quessing that there may be a couple items to check if you do not get air coming out of the vents which is not hot enough to burn you burn will often be warm enough to smell like burning dust if it has been a while since used! Random guess of about 90 or 100 hundred degrees?

I did a check of the online owners manual for the Travoto here:
https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File.../21Travato.pdf

You have a very new and very different heating system which I have no experience with using but I think there must be something missing on use of the heater as it should be well equipt to do the job.
One point I see down about section 5 is that there are two main gas shutoff switches and it mentions BOTH have to be on. Any chance of one of those being off to cut the gas supply?

But in looking for clues, I found the heat was mentioned but only briefly on page 4-6. Not enough there to spot any potential missing link but I did spot this note where they referr to a booklet in the info case and that should give far more idea of what might be happening.
Click image for larger version

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I should deferr to that info as being far better than mine as I'm certainly not up on the new Travoto.
I have 2021 Pilot and just now found I could get a text read to me while driving.

But then I wonder if I really need that feature? I'm of the older generation who will just call when I get home!!

EDIT: I just did a run on a watt to BTU calc and find a 500 watt heater should only convert to around 1700BTU, so the furnace should be able to cook you at 14, 000 BTU!
But that is not a calculation I do often, so consider it "suspect".

Something not right somewhere!
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Old 12-27-2022, 04:19 PM   #48
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Originally Posted by creativepart View Post
To follow up on my post about fully enclosing my battery compartment and keeping the LiPo batteries warm - The Refectix temporary fix in conjunction with a small ceramic heater kept my batteries at about 50 degrees every night during low temps at our house around 13 degrees for 3-nights.

So, now that things are warming up, I'll be working to close up my exposed battery shelf with some sheet metal from Tractor Supply. Along with that I've ordered 12v tank heaters to wrap around the two batteries for when aux heating is necessary. The last thing I'll need is remote temperature sensing that I can use to monitor temps in the battery bay.

This stuff isn't very expensive (~$100) and should remedy the issue fairly well.

I always knew I needed to address this issue, I was just putting it off as it wasn't an issue that needed solving since I installed the batteries last April.
If you are just wanting to monitor temp and then turn on heat when needed, due to the on again/off again nature , this might be one to consider for ease of use and install:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094WZRJDB...NrPXRydWU&th=1

I am setting up a house for my daughter here in town and finding lots of the plumbing is not ready for cold so I am setting these with heat lamps, etc. to automate things for when she is not home or ready to go out and plug things in when the time is right.
Short distance range but if it is only from the front seat to the batttery rack, it should do it well!
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