What's your thoughts on this saw dust in the propane heater?

[vasnipe]

Quote" TIghten the flare joint tight. After you have reconnected it and turned the tanks on, put some suds on the flare joint and make sure there are no bubbles. Unquote


You can use spray glass cleaner or other soapy cleaner as your "Snoop" brand leak check.


As a high school kid I worked weekends and summers at a local RV dealer and part of the PDI I did was tightening water and LPG fittings. I crawled into tight places and vacuumed stuff out.

[Garrette]

My 2014 Sunseeker came with a lot of construction debris. Bolts, nuts, screws, you name it and yes sawdust in the furnace.
The most worrisome was screws, nuts and bolts under the slides and holes that were hatchet cut for wiring and plumbing to pass.
I swept under the floor slide with a yard stick after finding screws imbedded in the carpet. Got four screws out on the above slide got nuts, bolts, screws out. Now all of this construction debris could have caused an electrical short or plumbing leaks from splinters. The slide debris could have caused mechanical problems as well as slide box bottom gouging.
If Forest River installed a vacuum system on the line at every station Use it, I think it would decrease warranty work and make for a more satisfied customer.
Oh, checking under my tub for possible leaks and found more debris.
That is my rant for today, maybe.

[dward51]

And sometimes you find wood chips in the oddest places. This was the LP line to our fridge (yes fridge worked)

[juice5]

Originally Posted by carboncow

Hello,

Took delivery of our Grey Wold 23DBH this week. Since this is NOT our first camper from FR I had no illusions of quality and craftsmanship. I spent the better part of two days correcting wiring, tightening fittings, reattached graphics and the usually fun stuff.

I noted while crawling around under the sink there was A LOT of saw dust everywhere so I did some vacuuming...then I noted they did much cutting AFTER the heater went in. See the attached photo of the rear of the heater with the cooling vents and all the saw dust in there.

Thoughts?

Is this area not much a concern to have combustable world product around the outlet pipes or is this in direct contact with the exchanger/flames...or is that all sealed for safety?

It wouldn't be easy for me to get it out and I'll be taking the trailer back in a month (1 hour away) for brake adjustments as they are basically useless at +10 on the gain.

Thanks for any real world experience/expertise I what I'm looking at.

On my Grey Wolf 27RR toyhauler ( which we rolled over in Nevada 2016 ) I resorted to removing a panel under sink and used a leaf blower to " Completely move all sawdust and paper scraps out into kitchen for vacuuming ! it also let my wife ID openings for mice & moisture under floor. The blower air pressure " whistled " under the frame and she chalked openings to be sealed ! Juice 25 Pack 12 ..F250 King Ranch Diesel

[McKannick]

I suspect if you took it back to the dealer to complain about the sawdust, the "tech" would just get an air hose and blow the stuff out of sight. Not necessarily out of the furnace box, just out of sight.

[BigRockr]

Originally Posted by Wifshowfur

You might just be too picky for camping. Dont worry about it and just have fun. Lol

I agree! Those guys on the using air tools don't have time to blow out the results of their efforts. Besides, it wouldn't be an FR if there weren't "worker droppings".

[twohand]

Last year I thought for sure I would be done finding "floor stock" and debris from the factory in our 2016. I was wrong.

Just for "Bill Nye the Science Guy" fun, I decided to take my ponderings a bit further and calculated how much scrap metal is left behind in RVs per year by the factory. All figures are approximate, but fairly realistic.

10 screws = 1 oz. (I've found at least 20 so far, so 10 may be the average)

355,000 + RVs sold in the USA each year

That's just over 110 tons of scrap metal!

Hope Scrapper is reading this and chimes in.

[Carmel]

Cut out the grill area, clean up, then replace the grill with a piece of perforated metal mesh

[bedubya]

Originally Posted by tyler811

A good shop vac should do it. I have a 6 hp 16 gallon shopvac that will suck a basketball through a garden hose.


I really need to check mine as every time I haul somewhere I have a tiny pile of saw dust

We are well into our third season and I think (fingers crossed) I have finally vacuumed up all the sawdust and metal shavings.

[Hclarkx]

If you have an air compressor and a shop vac, place the shop vac hose against the intake grill and use a nozzle on the compressor to blow/circulate the saw dust. Place the compressor nozzle at different locations and angles around the intake grill. After a few minutes all the sawdust will be in the shop vac.

[nrkmann]

I just don’t understand how you can be so cavalier about a shoddy delivery of multi thousand dollar item. If I received a car in that condition I would go through the roof. I guarantee you that the state fire marshal would think this was a fire hazard (sawdust can ignite on the heat exchanger or go explosive like coal dust).

My dealer went through my RV with me for two hours and was ready to crawl under it with me to assure everything was ready, I knew all the systems, how the worked, etc. he saw a couple of items and had maintenance take care of them before I left. He told me they lost money on warranty work and it was cheaper to have a technician go through the rig with a fine tooth comb than to have the rig comeback once.

Now in our otherwise perfect trailer there was a leaky toilet valve. It would leak a puddle the first day camping and the not again for the trip. Dealer was perplexed as the system held 60psi of air perfectly. After three years and perhaps 10 times in the shop the valve failed completely. Replaced the valve and we have not had a problem since.

Moral is don’t accept poor service and get others involved. This one I Would take to the state fire marshal, others with insurance issues to the insurance commissioner, and other consumer complaints to the attorney general. Write the president of the company post on blogs and customer evaluation sites. In our five star world don’t be afraid to give two or three and hammer the service folks. If we as the consumers act like sheep we will be treated like sheep.

[D W]

Folks, I honestly think we have beat sawdust to death.

[Tommuy6867]

Have you tried blowing it out with a air compressor

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Tommuy6867

Have you tried blowing it out with a air compressor

Tommuy, I see you're a new guy. Welcome to the forums.

It's a good practice to read through the forums--especially one with four pages like this one--before posting. Often your idea will already have been stated, and sometimes rejected.

Larry

[HT1]

We purchased a 2018 245RKS FR Surveyor at the end of 2017. Quality !?!?!?. Heating vents covers removed to vacuum visible saw dust. Refrigerator outside vent was full of wood chips, far as I know there is a flame in there! Looking for the bypass shutoff I happen to pull out a drawer, the heating unit still was still wrapped in plastic! In a years time of ownership, I forget how many times it’s been back to our dealer which is 3.5 hours one way and other issues we dealt with. All I hear is the manufacturers are behind schedule and this is what you get. Thank goodness the dealer was great.

[carboncow]

Originally Posted by nrkmann

I just don’t understand how you can be so cavalier about a shoddy delivery of multi thousand dollar item. If I received a car in that condition I would go through the roof. I guarantee you that the state fire marshal would think this was a fire hazard (sawdust can ignite on the heat exchanger or go explosive like coal dust).

My dealer went through my RV with me for two hours and was ready to crawl under it with me to assure everything was ready, I knew all the systems, how the worked, etc. he saw a couple of items and had maintenance take care of them before I left. He told me they lost money on warranty work and it was cheaper to have a technician go through the rig with a fine tooth comb than to have the rig comeback once.

Now in our otherwise perfect trailer there was a leaky toilet valve. It would leak a puddle the first day camping and the not again for the trip. Dealer was perplexed as the system held 60psi of air perfectly. After three years and perhaps 10 times in the shop the valve failed completely. Replaced the valve and we have not had a problem since.

Moral is don’t accept poor service and get others involved. This one I Would take to the state fire marshal, others with insurance issues to the insurance commissioner, and other consumer complaints to the attorney general. Write the president of the company post on blogs and customer evaluation sites. In our five star world don’t be afraid to give two or three and hammer the service folks. If we as the consumers act like sheep we will be treated like sheep.

Not sure what you bought or the quality but these things are not high quality cars and if you try to hold them to that standard (1) you would never buy them (2) you'd be back the dealer weekly.

Now as far as delivery...I spent an hour with the 12 year old boy that ran down my prep list. We found a half dozen things on the spot he had to attend to...most of the other ones I mention previous you don't find until you get home, spend hours or hit the road for a week.

It's how the game is played for some of us. I (and many) know we'll wrench half the issue ourselves and leave a few of the bigger problems to the dealer and cross our fingers they are good. My first dealer were idiots. I bought down the street because everyone on these forums said to buy close...because you'll be back. The dealer proved useless and when our AC was proven to be bad (under warranty) they told me it was a two month wait in early June to get it in!

So I bought for price and hope for an OK dealer and roll the dice from there.

These are not $120K 5th wheels and even they have their complains. Mine was a $17K 23ft trailer...barely the price of an average used car anymore.

[carboncow]

Originally Posted by Tommuy6867

Have you tried blowing it out with a air compressor

That will for sure blow it everyone and anywhere I wouldn't want it.