Heat questions

[pilotspike]

Now that we are actively using our heat I have tquestions. Our rig has dual heat pumps and dual propane furnaces.

Do you guys just set the thermostat to auto and let the thermostat decide when to engage the furnace or do you set it to furnace explicitly? Last night got down to the upper thirties or so. The HP's we working but obviously going through a fair bit of defrost cycle. I was thinking that auto would have engaged the furnaces at that point but didn't.

The way that our furnaces registers are ducted the vast majority of zone 2 heat is discharged into the coach main areas and not into the bedroom where the zone 2 temp sensor is. This results is the front of the coach is sweltering warm while the bedroom is calling for heat. How do you guys deal with this? Do you keep the door open and circulate air with fans?

Thanks!

John.

[BBelanger]

We use the furnace for heat and the heat pumps for cooling. When Boondocking you have to run the generator to get the heat pumps to work. The furnace push warm air out the bottom registers wow the heat pump to blow air down on you But we have the hydronic heat your system might be different

[Switt]

John,
Set the thermostat on heat pump when temperatures get in the 30's it will automatically kick to furnace.

[DGBPokes]

Originally Posted by Switt

John,

Set the thermostat on heat pump when temperatures get in the 30's it will automatically kick to furnace.

That's news to me, and maybe it will, when the outside temp drops to 39, I flip the mode switch to furnace. A few time I've let them run below 39, but they run all the time, and the output is just warm...and drafty, so I turn on the furnace.

P.S. I also augment both with a couple of small space heaters set at 900 watts. (Especially if the electric cost is in the campsite fee). I don't like the load a small heater puts on the wiring at 1500 watts.

[Indy Glenn]

How I understand th "Auto" setting on the thermostat is it will maintain a constant set temperature in the zone using both the HP and AC.

g

[JMH]

Autospike, you do not list what coach you have so I will make some assumptions. Sounds like you have an Oasis on a 34-37 DP. Yes Newmar dorked up the zones as they are not setup as noted in the Oasis manual.

That said what we do is 1) on nights it gets down to high 40s we just run zone 1 and leave the bedroom door open. Advantage is the bedroom is just slightly cooler and the fan noise is all up front so very quiet. DW likes that. 2) on sub 40 nights I set zone 2 3-4 degrees cooler than zone 1. On our coach this seems to equalize out the coach temps. Again sleep with bedroom door open. We do have to have a fan blowing on the temp sensor in the bedroom at low temps as it is attached next to an outside wall. We are going to get that corrected soon.

If you like/need to sleep with the bedroom door closed, your only alternate is to get your dealer or Newmar to setup your zone 1 and 2 correctly. That is with zone 2 only running your bedroom and bathroom registers.

Mark and Louene Hetrick
Newbee the last VTDP 3725

[pilotspike]

Thank Mark,

For some reason my signature isn't displaying, Ill have to track that down. We have '40 VLDP 4040 bunkhouse.

Your suggestions about using zone 1 with the door open makes sense. We do generally like to sleep with it closed as it separates us from the bunks where our daughter sleeps and gives her some privacy. Though on cooler nights we might just forego that.

As for getting the ducting 'fixed', I would agree. Though my cursory investigation leads me to believe that this is the way that Newmar has it designed.

John

[Andyfarmer]

Since we mostly (ok all the time) are at parks unless the temp is really low I would use the HP's because I am using park electricity. Save your propane for other uses.

We also ran into an issue where the rear HP would not come on in the manual mode. Come to find out that once it is in the auto mode there is a reset procedure to go through to go back to manual.

I would always set manually and as was mentioned a small space heater, again using park elect, to run at night to keep the chill off.

["007"]

You said you had two furnaces if they are floor duct you can buy adjustable floor registers to control heat to areas you want it.
They also have them for the wall outlets also.

[pilotspike]

Ooh, interesting. I had though about throwing a pillow over the floor vent in the front to get more air in the rear.