Palomino Columbus heater duct work

[mud yapster]

Well ran my heater and the duct that goes to the garage heater vent was sucking air instead of blowing air. I found a Wye duct fitting FR tapped off of to run to the garage was causing a venturi affect making the vent suck air. I Modified the Wye duct fitting so now it blows air. My bedroom vent barely had any air flow. I took the access panel off under the bathroom sink cabinet and found the hole FR cut in the floor for the 4" duct was only about 1 1/2" hole. Had to remove ducting and cut the hole out bigger. Then where the duct went thru the wall FR had the hole for the vent off set causing the duct to be kinked off. Fixed both of those issues and now have good air flow to the bedroom. I thought I better check the rest of the duct work so when I opened the outside storage compartment it was about 120 degrees in there. Found 3 vents blowing in there, one blowing in the water filter area, one blowing in the center of the compartment and another one blowing on the water lines and pump behind the compartment divider. I reduced the air flow on 2 of them and that gave me a lot more air on the inside of the RV and it is still hotter than who knows what in the compartment, but at least I got more air flow inside now. I may reduce the air flow some more in the compartment but for now the heater is working 10 times better than before. The heat in this RV really works good now just like the A/C did this last summer. I understand the need for some heat in the compartment where the pump and water lines are but FR had 1/2 the heat blowing in there instead of blowing on the inside. That along with the ducting issues on the inside of the RV it was no wonder it didn't work worth a darn.
So if your heater doesn't work to well you might check the duct work and no the heated air isn't filtered at all so I'm going to make a filter for it. Good luck with your heater hope this helps someone else find their heat issues. It was 29 degrees here when I fixed ours and now it'll cook us out. LOL

[Dave_Monica]

I'm not sure how you plan on filtering the return air for the furnace...it's just an open plenum isn't it? I'd be cautious restricting the return air flow as you could easily cause extra heat in the unit and have it tripping on high temperature.

[mud yapster]

I thought about that also so I'm going to connect up some probes off my DT40 thermometer and see what it gets up to. Was also going to hook up a magnahelic and check the drop across the heat exchanger. I can wrap the return air with some filter media if it doesn't give to big a pressure drop.

[Witch Doctor]

Originally Posted by mud yapster

I thought about that also so I'm going to connect up some probes off my DT40 thermometer and see what it gets up to. Was also going to hook up a magnahelic and check the drop across the heat exchanger. I can wrap the return air with some filter media if it doesn't give to big a pressure drop.

At Lowe's or HD they sell a pretty stiff green filter that your suppose to cut down to fit your fAU at home or cut to fit a R/A grill. That should not cut down or cause any reduction on your air flow. Should work fine. Another remodel job a person had to do from the quality control of FR. Good for you doing the research. It will also cut down on the amount of propane being you wouldn't need to keep it on as long to reach your set temp...