furnace issues for 2017 Forest River Cherokee travel trailer?

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sarajo83

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Joined
Feb 28, 2017
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Hello! We have a brand new 2017 Forest River Cherokee Grey Wolf travel trailer model 26djse (if that helps) purchased in February. This past weekend we got to take it 3 hours to my parents land and have our break in weekend with it. We are in WI and it got a little chilly Friday night so we decided to use the furnace. We turned on the LP and waited a few minutes and then we turned on the furnace. All was good for about 3 hours. Then at 1am the CO detector started going off. We could not get it to stop so we shut off the furnace and the LP and aired out the trailer (in the middle of a thunderstorm). Then all was good. Saturday we decided to test it during the day and sure enough after 2 hours the detector went off again! - full disclosure I didn't get a chance to go back thru our manual last night as we got home late and I have the paperwork at home right now. Is there anything WE are doing wrong or does this sound like a leak? Our previous camper was a popup that we only used an electric space heater in - so everything in the travel trailer is new to us.
Thank you!!
 
It's brand new so take it back to the dealer to be fixed. Also, are you sure it's the CO detector and not the propane detector? Either way, take it in for warranty work.
 
Hammster said:
It's brand new so take it back to the dealer to be fixed. Also, are you sure it's the CO detector and not the propane detector? Either way, take it in for warranty work.
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It's the only detector in the camper so I'm assuming it's for both? Sorry we are so new to all this! I'm for sure calling the dealership today but I wanted to maybe make sure it wasn't user error first.
 
The detector, if mounted near the floor,  is likely a propane detector. They can go off because of a low house battery as well but often with only small bursts of sound as opposed to shrieking loudly. Combined CO/propane detectors exist but they are a little more rare.

I don't think you were doing anything wrong but, it might be wise to open a window a bit when using the furnace. You could have a defective detector, a low battery (depending on the sound) or a small leak in one of the propane connections and it would be wise to have that checked out.

As an FYI, the furnace eats a lot of 12V power and is the reason we often recommend a second battery in parallel to the first so you can at least make it through a cold night without a 110Volt  connection and thus loosing the furnace due to a dead battery.
 
Everybody is trying to point out big issues.  Dead battery will do that too.  If you were not connected to shore power  you very likely ran the battery down.  Also, new furnaces have green paint andmoil on the metal surfaces.  That stuff needs to be burned off before anything else happens.
 
We were hooked up to shore power. Would the battery run down after only 3 hours of the furnace being on? Also it was a shrill sound and not just the beep beep of a low battery. It is mounted down low under the fridge unit but it did have CO detector on it.
 
Yes the furnace can run the battery down in 3 hours, but not when on shore power. It would seem you may have a minor leak of either exhaust or LP back inside the RV, but LP detectors are notorious for alarming on most any hydrocarbon gas, including the chemicals in aerosol sprays, cleaning products, and even the fumes of alcoholic beverages or doggy farts.

If that is a combo LP & CO detector, does it have an indicator to show which one triggered the alarm?  If you knew for sure it was CO and not LP, the search for a cause would be narrowed considerably. CO has far fewer possible causes.
 
sarajo83 said:
We were hooked up to shore power. Would the battery run down after only 3 hours of the furnace being on? Also it was a shrill sound and not just the beep beep of a low battery. It is mounted down low under the fridge unit but it did have CO detector on it.
Click to expand...

I had to look up some pictures but now I'm fairly certain it was the LP detector. We weren't cleaning or doing anything of that sorts at the time. I'm thinking it was not user error then which makes me feel somewhat better! Time to call the service center and get this fixed. A bit of a bummer when you have a brand new trailer - I suppose it's part of the deal!
 
Sorry to get off subject but how do you like your Cherokee despite the furnace/LP problems? My family and I are considering one.
 
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