Furnace using too much propane
This all happened last spring, but I never addressed the issue. Our first day/night of camping was chilly. When we got to the camper, the temperature was about 50 degrees. I started the furnace, we we...
Forum Discussion
The OP's profile shows a 36' Forest River Sandpiper with 3 slides. That should be considered more of a 3 season RV and it is not surprising that it is going to use lots of propane with night time temps dropping to 30 degrees.
The furnace for that unit is 35000 BTU so it will burn through about 0.4 gallons of propane per hour. A 30# tank is typically filled to about 7 gallons giving roughly 17.5 hours of burn time. That is about 70% operation. That is probably about what it is going to take to keep that RV at 65 degrees. I would not be surprised if the furnace is running almost constantly at night.
Maybe the burner is a bit out of adjustment or you have a heat leak but the propane use is not way off of expected.
There is a simple solution. Turn the heat off at night. For temps down to freezing I can get by with little propane and little electric use for the blower. At night I turn the heat off entirely. I have some really good fleece blankets which keep me plenty warm. In the morning the RV temps are likely to be only about 10 degrees or so warmer than outside. Maybe 40-45 degrees. I put the heat on and the RV warms up pretty quickly. Then I turn it off while I am out for the day. So I am heating for an hour or so in the morning and maybe 3 hours of so in the evening.
Don't forget about propane used for hot water. It takes a lot of heat to warm up ice cold water. The typical RV water heater will pull up to about 10,000 btu when running.
You might also want to check on the fill level of the tanks. Places that have a flat charge for filling or which do exchanges often substantially underfill tanks.
The furnace for that unit is 35000 BTU so it will burn through about 0.4 gallons of propane per hour. A 30# tank is typically filled to about 7 gallons giving roughly 17.5 hours of burn time. That is about 70% operation. That is probably about what it is going to take to keep that RV at 65 degrees. I would not be surprised if the furnace is running almost constantly at night.
Maybe the burner is a bit out of adjustment or you have a heat leak but the propane use is not way off of expected.
There is a simple solution. Turn the heat off at night. For temps down to freezing I can get by with little propane and little electric use for the blower. At night I turn the heat off entirely. I have some really good fleece blankets which keep me plenty warm. In the morning the RV temps are likely to be only about 10 degrees or so warmer than outside. Maybe 40-45 degrees. I put the heat on and the RV warms up pretty quickly. Then I turn it off while I am out for the day. So I am heating for an hour or so in the morning and maybe 3 hours of so in the evening.
Don't forget about propane used for hot water. It takes a lot of heat to warm up ice cold water. The typical RV water heater will pull up to about 10,000 btu when running.
You might also want to check on the fill level of the tanks. Places that have a flat charge for filling or which do exchanges often substantially underfill tanks.
