Here is an example of the "4 degree" thing. If your room temperature is 60 F and the set your thermostat for 72 degrees (12 degree increase) and turn on the electric heat mode(heat pump) on the thermostat, you will find the gas heat(furnace/floor vents) will run instead. The thermostat is designed to run the system this way as it would be the fastest way of heating up the room by 12 Degrees. If you don't want to use up your LP gas, you can "fool" the system by setting the thermostat only 4 degrees higher, or 64 degrees, then the electric heating (heat pump) system will run, thinking it only has to raise the temp 4 degrees. As the room temp rises to 64 degrees, go to the thermostat and set it up another 4 degrees to 68. When the room reaches 68, adjust the thermostat up to 72 degree. You have then brought the room up 12 degrees using electric heat only and using no LP gas. As others have mentioned, it gets difficult for a heat pump to extract heat out of outside air in colder temps like 40 F. or less. If it's humid outside, the outside heat ex-changer can frost over and the heat pump will shut off and switch to the gas furnace mode. If this happens, you can confirm this by going outside and visually look thru the heat pump grill at the heat ex-changer and it will be covered with white frost. Unlike residential heat pumps, this unit has no defrost mode to clear off the frost, it has to melt off on it's own. If you give the heat pump some time to run like 20 to 30 minutes, it will heat the entire RV front to back and keep it nice and warm as long as the outside temps are 40's and higher. Lower than that, many use portable electric heater(s), we prefer the oil filled ones as they are quiet, no fan.
By the way, as an added note, sometimes when setting the thermostat the first 4 degree setting, this first rush of air from the ceiling vents can drop the room temp by one degree, or to 59 degrees, then the thermostat sees it needs to increase the room temp by 5 degrees so then the LP gas furnace mode will kick in. So I often set the first increment for 3 degrees , or 63 degrees, then after that raise the thermostat by 4 degree increments.
I have found the 2 ton heat pump/AC systems amazing and in 35' RV's like ours, in AC mode you can easily bring your RV's inside temps down to 72 degrees, too cold for us, when it's 95 F outside. When we purchased our 2nd RV, an 08 Dolphin, it had to have a basement AC unit like our 05 Dolphin did.
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Ellen & Greg
08 National Dolphin DL-35Ci, RoadMaster Rear Sway Bar, Rear Trac Bar, Koni Shocks Front,
Workhorse W22, Kelderman Air Ride, Towing 2016 Smart Car
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