Help with furnace in my 23IKSS

[sewingcybermom]

Hello everyone. We have our new to us 23IKSS Roo, and have been outside in the frigid temps and snow of CT, trying to prepare her for our maiden voyage early in April. I wanted to turn the furnace on because it was so cold in there, but to no avail, I could not get it to blow hot air. Now here's the silly question: does the furnace ONLY work on propane? I did not try that option, as I wanted to heat it by using my electricity. I would hate to blow through so much propane heating the camper for our trip. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to run the furnace on electricity only? And how to do it? I thought it was a simple as putting the system on heat and setting your desired temp of the thermostat. Guess not.

I have a portable ceramic heater in there now, just to get the temp up a bit and make it possible to stay out there while we clean it out and prep it for camping. Any help would be appreciated. We only had a bare bones pop up before this, so we are real rookies at all of this.

[deartruc]

yes sewingcybermom, the furnace is propane only. You may need to light your stove first to make sure your gas is flowing and get it closer to the furnace. PS Electric heaters work great.

[bikendan]

yep propane only, along with 12v battery power to light it and run the fan.

your dealer should be ashamed of themselves for not explaining that during your PDI.

i know of NO RV that has anything but just propane heat, unless some high end motorcoach or a custom build.

most of us do what you did, bring a ceramic heater or two or a oil-filled radiator type of heater, when you have hookups.

[muskoka01]

i agree with post #3. electric heaters are better if you have shore power, don,t waste your propane.and you will use a lot of propane running the furnace.

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by muskoka01

i agree with post #3. electric heaters are better if you have shore power, don,t waste your propane.and you will use a lot of propane running the furnace.

but if you don't have shore power to run the heaters or furnace, you'll run out of battery power WAAYYY before you run out of propane.

[Stormrider151]

When we ordered our new trailer we included the "fake" fireplace. I thought it was just a gimmick for the longest time but turns out it actually is a heater. It runs on electricity but that's the only RV heater I know of that does.

[Glindz233s]

Furnace works on propane only. A small portable electric heater is a must in cold weather. Even so, don't expect to be in the 70's inside when it's 30/40 outside. We set our heat at 55ish and let the electric heater do more of the work. Still need blankets and/or sleeping bags on top.

Our heater died on our first cold night camping and we had no electric heater with us. Good thing we had our sleeping bags with us. Dealer replaced it under warranty.

[sewingcybermom]

Well, just to clarify, there is no dealer involved. We purchased our 2014 from a private seller. I thought it was propane only...we finally got it to work, thanks to everyone here. We plugged in our little ceramic heater, and it worked great to heat the camper last night. But today, I wanted to vacuum the camper and when I started the vacuum, I tripped the breaker. Sooooo...if I run the heater, I can't run anything else electric? I tried to plug the vacuum into every socket in there to see if any ran off a different breaker..no go. What can I use while the heater is plugged in without tripping the breaker?

[rbq]

Depending on the heater you will probably need to turn off the electric heater to run other appliances, such as a toaster. We found we can't use the electric heater & toaster together. Have to turn off the heater, use the other & then turn the heater back on. All of the outlets are probably on one breaker and of course go through the GFI outlet in the bathroom. You can run low draw items like a TV or phone chargers as they don't draw much power.

[Glindz233s]

Probably will just have to unplug the heater then vacuum. I tried running two electric heaters and it was too much for the breaker. Didn't try using anything else.


Hopefully you got the manual and some instruction from the prior owners. If not, go check out the manual and videos on the forest river website. They help some along with this site.

[sewingcybermom]

thanks everyone!!

[deartruc]

Get the Duraflame electric stove heater (Under $100 at Oceanstate). You get the electric heat with the fake fire glow. And, when the weather turns nice, you take the heater out. Will be using it for our icebreaker trip in April. PS just purchased a portable dehumidifier. Cold camping and/or rain really condenses on the canvas!! Previous htt had a separate a/c, not on the same thermostat. You could run the a/c with heat to aid in drying the camper out.

[Archicamper]

Many people recommend running an extension cord from the pole to the camper for the electric heater. I have not tried this.

[DaveSchwartz]

Originally Posted by Archicamper

Many people recommend running an extension cord from the pole to the camper for the electric heater. I have not tried this.

That's the way I do it. If heat is going to be required I prefer to use free electric rather than my propane if I can avoid it. I fish a heater cord out at the bottom of the slide seal just before putting it fully out, then a 12AWG extension cord to a separately breakered 15 amp outlet on the pole. Then I don't have to worry that the heater going full blast at 1500W is going to either trip a circuit when something else is on (water heater, microwave, coffee maker, toaster, etc) or that I'll exceed the 30 amp service.

Shortly, I'll install a 125V power inlet to replace the fishing. Only need to cut a 2 inch hole in the side of a slide.