2008 Tour heat pump. thermostat, and gas furnace

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JCHRISTOHERSON

JCHRISTOHERSON

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Posts
15
I need advice on our heating system.  Checked it tonight with outside temp at 50 and inside at 60.  Turned on electric heat in front of coach and set temp at 63.  I stayed below the 5 degree differential as I did not want the gas furnace to start.  Fan started and warm air was blowing in about 5 minutes.  Great, works good until it stopped and the gas furnace started.  I also have no airflow coming from the floor vents for the gas furnace in the front of the coach.  The exhaust is hot and it sounds like the fan is running but no air flow.  The rear furnace works great.  I have checked for disconnected ducts as has my dealer but no solutions.  Is there  a way to upgrade the thermostat or split the system to operate independent of each other?  The thermostat is a Trueair and has switch positions for AC/Gas/Electric heat as well as fan speed.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.
 
I think your best bet is to call Winnebago Owner Relations and run that by one of their techs and figure out the problem rather than trying to hack the system.
 
Thanks John, as always good advice.  This morning I removed the front gas furnace and discovered that the connection between the furnace output and the coach ducting was not aligned properly and was leaking warm air.  I repaired and sealed the connection and now the gas furnace is working properly.  I will check in with the Winnebago techs about the True Air thermostat and the electric heat.  Thanks again.
 
Not sure if your Tour is the same as our Journey, but on ours, electric heat means, heat pump. When the heat pump reaches freeze up conditions, it turns off the electric heat & switches over to gas heat automatically.

To stop this from happening, we installed a toggle switch in the wire telling the gas heat to come on. Now we can just leave the gas heat off until we want it.

Also, later on we installed strip heat in our central unit, and at least, during the night, we will run the strip heat, instead of the heat pump because it is quieter & will continue to heat regardless of outdoor temperature.
 
JCHRISTOHERSON said:
..This morning I removed the front gas furnace and discovered that the connection between the furnace output and the coach ducting was not aligned properly and was leaking warm air.  I repaired and sealed the connection and now the gas furnace is working properly. ..
Click to expand...

Excellent!

Neal said:
..When the heat pump reaches freeze up conditions, it turns off the electric heat & switches over to gas heat automatically. ..
Click to expand...
That's generally the right idea but what happens is if the heat pump can't meet the set temperature over x period of time over x times, the gas furnace takes over for the heat call.  The logic will then attempt to use the heat pump intermittently for x times and then gives up and you are on gas heat.
 
John Canfield said:
That's generally the right idea but what happens is if the heat pump can't meet the set temperature over x period of time over x times, the gas furnace takes over for the heat call.  The logic will then attempt to use the heat pump intermittently for x times and then gives up and you are on gas heat.
Click to expand...

If the freeze stat is warm enough to let the heat pump come back on, you are correct. My unit did not come with any strip heat, so it does not have a defrost cycle, like a normal residential heat pump does. When the normal residential heat pump meets the criteria to need to defrost (different on different units), it actually goes into air conditioning mode (runs cold air inside & hot air outside to melt off the outdoor coil) and turns on some strip heat to keep the air flow from being too cold. With my RV unit, when the defrost temp switch reaches icing temps, it just shuts off the heat pump and switches to gas heat until the temp switch rises to a non icing temp, before it will let it try to continue heating.
 
Neal, as far as I know, the logic to call for gas heat or heat pump is within the thermostat.  The heat pump will run, but not produce warm/hot air - when the thermostat realizes the set temp isn't being met, it switches to gas mode.
 
John Canfield said:
Neal, as far as I know, the logic to call for gas heat or heat pump is within the thermostat.  The heat pump will run, but not produce warm/hot air - when the thermostat realizes the set temp isn't being met, it switches to gas mode.
Click to expand...

Not sure, but I think my feeble mind remembers seeing what I call the Freeze Stat located on the indoor coil. The service manual speaks of it as the Heating Freeze Thermister. It says Low Outdoor Ambient Conditions will cause the compressor to not run. Since these units do not have a defrost cycle, like sticks & bricks, it is at the mercy of outdoor conditions to warm up enough to let it come back on. If it did not have something to shut down the heat pump mode, it would become a solid block of ice that might take days to thaw or cause damage from the ice expansion.

John, I think you are correct on what you posted, I just think one link of operation was not addressed.
 
Neal - yeah, not exactly sure since I haven't digested or even looked at the schematic in a few years, there is a freeze "switch" (thermistor) for a fact somewhere in the box.  In any case the operational logic is correct.  As an aside, too bad RVP didn't include a defroster  ::) .
 
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