Propane heater fix Yea!!!

[Joe ricard]

So here comes winter and we are heading to a campground again week before XMAS. One of the last systems to get working is the Propane heater. It was not a selection on the Dometic T-stat so I figured hmm why not test it with jumper on the blue wires coming out of the unit. I did and it fired up ran pretty good for an hour. Next day I turned it on and it would blow and lite 3 times and lock out. Google is awesome BTW. so took it apart and tested each item Spark yes, blow yes, sail switch yes. Safety switch check. Lots of corrosion on all connectors so I cleaned them all and put some di-electric grease on them. Whala it all works. now to get a manual old school T-stat to install in the rig so I can control it.

[Jim_HiTek]

I love mine too...even went to the trouble of designing and building a timer board to replace the furnaces onboard motherboard where the timer stopped working. Much fun learning about that heater. Really takes the chill off fast on cold mornings.

Congrats on fixing yours.

But...it, like all the propane appliances except the refer, really sucks up the propane. I have a 33 gallon propane tank but it's a problem getting a fill while on the road plus the expense for delivery at an RV park is often way high. So what I have is 4 electric floor heaters. I run those instead of the floor furnace. I have them all set on the medium (generally, 750W) setting to avoid electrical issues. Picked up most of them at thrift shops in the summer for pennies on the dollar. Looked for ceramic fan forced heaters.

With those, and with the electrical water heater element, I get 2 years between propane tank fills as the stove doesn't use much, the refer is only on gas between RV parks, and the convection/MW replaces a gas oven. I full time RV. I've drifted away from much boondocking and look for 50 amp RV parks but I can still get by on 30 amp and those heaters, and the heat pump if the temp is above 40F.

[Joe ricard]

Yep Pensacola Fl. is pretty much above 40 most of the time. over night in the winter it can get to 32 but not often.

Today was fixing and rebuilding the old turn tail and brake lights. Command brand pretty cheap incandescent. removed, disassembled, cleaned and now have decent lights back there.