More Atwood furnace woes.. ('07 escape 21 removal)

[alanmalk]

Murphy's Law supplemental. If you carry a spare part, the original won't fail.

We bought a spare sail switch early on and the original has never failed. But on the other hand, after a particularly nasty stretch of washboard dirt road ALL the welds in the furnace fractured and the motor & fan blades fell out. That's where I got my lesson in pulling out the furnace. (Replaced the welds with through bolts.) No issues since...

But to offset our luck with the furnace, the fridge has given me more headaches than I can count.

--
Alan

[davidmurphy02]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Keep us in the loop there Dave, thanks...

Well, I went over to the trailer today with the new sail switch bracket. I can not see any way that this bracket fits - there must be another low flow furnace model, or perhaps it has been redesigned and this is the bracket for the new one. The sail switch is identical, so now I have another spare, but the updated bracket does not appear to work on my furnace. If anyone else gets one of the new brackets and finds a way to mount it (no instructions or diagram provided) please post pics.

[threeacers]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Are you using the stock Atwood replacement board? No idea if this would help, but just throwing out there that if I was having circuit board problems I would consider the compatible board made by Dinosaur Electronics.

https://pdxrvwholesale.com/products/...ard-fan50pp%20

I tracked down a version of the original circuit board, took the furnace out and cleaned and tested all the components, reinstalled and, joy, it works. Thanks for the hint Rubicon.

[yangstyle]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

We had the same experience with our Casita furnace
“ ZERO ISSUES IN OVER 6 YEARS” and actually large enough to heat the trailer ( 16,000 BTU ) in the Spring and Fall camping seasons
Our Escape furnace has failed twice in a little over a year
( Defective circuit board , sail switch , leaky outside vent )
Our Casita also came ( Standard equipment ) with a heat strip in the A/C and it worked well
Why a $20K trailer built in texas comes with a backup heat system ( heat strip) that works and a $40K trailer built in Canada comes with an unreliable furnace and no backup still amazes me
I hope that someday Escape will come out with a true 3 season trailer.

$20K for a Casita sounds like a pretty good price.
On the other hand, if you paid $40K US for an Escape, like we say in Canada," you got hosed".

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by yangstyle

$20K for a Casita sounds like a pretty good price.
On the other hand, if you paid $40K US for an Escape, like we say in Canada," you got hosed".

I apologize that the subject / intent of my post was not perfectly clear / obvious !!
I will attempt to be more precise and less nuanced in the future .

[noblets]

Help! Atwood furnace in 17A, was working intermittently. Thanks to the nice ETI video, I got it out, cleaned the lint off the sail switch, cleaned off the fan blades. Now I can't get the furnace back in. The problem seems to be in aligning the external exhaust tube with the inside of the furnace. I've tried mirrors, a little borescope, basically can't see back there. I'm about to pull the external flange off, but would rather not. Any suggestions? Please?

[Donna D.]

It pretty much takes two people. One on the outside, pushing against the exhaust tube area while someone is on the inside aligning the tube.



On edit... that's for the classics! I didn't know the 2nd gen trailers needed to pull the furnace to clean the sail switch...

[noblets]

Tried two people. If the tubes aren't aligned, no go! Should I be afraid of resealing the external cover?
I guess now the furnaces are external access? Not us; ours is early 2018. Sure would be nice to have the external hatch.

[John in Santa Cruz]

on my 21, I was able to reach the exhaust pipe on the inside and feel how it went on the exhaust port, manipulate it with one hand while the other hand and my knee pushed hte furnace in. it took someone else on the outside holding the exterior exhaust port firmly against thee trailer to fully seat things without breaking the sealant around the exterior flange.

[cpaharley2008]

Worse comes to worse, remove and reseal the exterior connection,,,,this is a typical "Gumption trap" from Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance" scenario, the tiniest obstruction gums up the whole process.

[fudge_brownie]

Before you put the furnace back into the trailer check the floor of the unit for any protruding screws or wood blocks. Mine had a screw that really made removal hard, not sure just how they got the screw where it was.