Community Forums

mags · 01-08-2016, 07:34 PM

My atwood 8535-iv-dclp heater is acting up.. i dont have a clue if its is a simple fix or major.. here is a little info about my problem..

One cold cold day i was watching a movie with my 3 year old daughter ( we live in our camper) and i started to smell this strong odor.. i went outside to see if i had a propane leak and nothing so i thought maybe my sewer just had a gas pocket in it or something at this point j had no idea what the smell was. So we started to move again and it wasnt but maybe 20 minutes later my co2 monitor was going off. As scary as it was i just started to fan the front door to get it stop. But it just kept going off because i didnt think of the heater. Finally i turned off the heater and it soon stopped going off. This guy down the street came by and said i probably should take out the heater and spray it with air to clean it all out. So as told i pulled it out (super hard) blew it with air and got all the dust and blackness out of the exhaust pipe and put it back in hulooked up the propane and started it up. I thought i had fixed it and was all excited until a week later and it all happened all over again. Does anyone have any idea of what could be going on. Thanks in Advance

BFlinn181 · 01-08-2016, 08:40 PM

There is one fan motor in your furnace, but two squirrel cage fans on either end of the motor shaft. The large fan circulates the return air through the heat exchanger and back into the heat ducts. The small fan take outside air and blows it through the combustion chamber and blows out the exhaust pipe. Either your exhaust pipe isn't hooked up properly, the heat exchanger has a hole in it, or some of the return/heater ducts aren't connected properly. Since you've had the unit out of the RV, hopefully all the ducts are properly connected. If the flame is properly adjusted, there shouldn't be a lot of soot in the combustion tubes and exhaust. Spider webs and muddabber nests can be an issue, but you've blown out the tubes.

Next, go through the linked manual and Service manual:

http://www.atwoodmobile.com/manuals/...0SP%201.08.pdf

http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/hflamefurn04.pdf

Old-Biscuit · 01-08-2016, 09:06 PM

The only way CO (Carbon Monoxide) would get into the inside of your camper is if the Atwood Furnace Heat Exchanger is Cracked.

Combustion/exhaust section is isolated from room air unless exchanger is cracked.

(Unless side of RV is all sooted up and furnace is right below an open window)

What year is your RV??

mags · 01-09-2016, 07:13 PM

My camper is a 2004 alfa sun sf30r... is there a way to tell if its cracked if i was to pull it back out.. i mean im just now learning what everything is that im looking at..

BFlinn181 · 01-09-2016, 07:22 PM

A crude but effective way to tell if your heat exchanger has a leak or crack would be to chop onions, put them in a paper or cloth bag and tape them so they are right near the intake vent on the outside of the camper. Go inside and turn the furnace on and sniff for the smell of onions inside. There should be no mixing of inside and outside air. If possible, have someone else chop the onions outside the trailer, save your nose for the leak detection!