Atwood furnace removal?

[Kahoona]

Hi
We have a 2008 National Tropical. I am looking for a description of the easiest way to remove it from the RV. Ours seems to blow more of the heat out of the exhaust than it does out of the vents. I'd peg it ad perhaps 30% efficient at best. I want to look inside and see if it needs to be cleaned out or if it is just bad engineering.

[Old-Biscuit]

The combustion side is separate form the room air side.
One motor drives both air wheels......check that room air side wheel is intact (no broken vanes/not loose on motor shaft etc)


Here is Installation Manual for the most popular Atwood Series
https://dunesport.com/manuals/atwood-furnace.pdf


Access is via exterior panel

[AnotherMike]

One thing you might check as well as the fan assembly... the ducts.

My RV has dual Suburban furnaces - one for the rear (bedroom) and the other for the front (kitchen and couch/table) area.

The air ducts - which are flexible hoses like you would find feeding the air conditioning vents in an auto dash- were falling apart and in one area crushed to half the diameter.

Mike

[steve52]

X2 on checking the duct work. Performance of both furnace and A/C systems is greatly impacted by having the ducts properly assembled and attached.

[Kahoona]

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

The combustion side is separate form the room air side.
One motor drives both air wheels......check that room air side wheel is intact (no broken vanes/not loose on motor shaft etc)


Here is Installation Manual for the most popular Atwood Series
https://dunesport.com/manuals/atwood-furnace.pdf


Access is via exterior panel

Thanks. I have the manual git it is vague on later access. Via the exterior panel is what I needed to know. Looks like any interior access to ducting will involve dismantling the kitchen cabinet base. Looks like I have to slide toe outer part out and support while getting access to the inside parts which may be fastened to the floor. Thanks for all of the pointers about ducting and leaks!. I primarily want to examine the burner and heat exchanger to see if the poor efficiency is due to crud acculturation, poor flame adjustment or something mechanical as suggested or just design.

I have seen some other posts that suggested that efficiency could also be improved with some ridged insulation in the exchanger area.

When I fired it up to make sure it worked I was astounded with the amount of heat that was blowing out of the exhaust. I am having visions of having to come down from my Boondocking area every week and go looking for a $150 fill up instead of just taking the car into town for food.

The coach only has 26,000 Southern miles on it so it shouldn't be worn!

[Waiter21]

Look carefully at the vent louvers. On mine, the louvers close very easily, in fact, I think they close on their own.

I physically cut the adjustable part out of mine so they cannot be closed. This helps air flow A LOT..

[GMoore]

Common problem is they do not use enough of the available duct connections on the heater to start with.
You can always add another
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flame-C...omotive&sr=1-1