DutchmenSport wrote:
My last camper was an Outback 298RE travel trailer. It had a "Polar Package", whatever that means.
I always winterized as normal, but we'd continue using the camper without water in the tanks or lines in some pretty cold weather.
What I found out pretty quick, was the air ducts are designed somehow, to keep the underbelly warm because the water lines ran right next to them. And it seemed to use a LOT of propane. Floors always felt warm when the inside of the camper seemed to struggle, and the furnace would run constantly.
Well, considering the water lines had nothing but RV antifreeze in them, I got a little creative. The furnace was located under the refrigerator and I removed the intake cover and saw it had 3 wire-plastic ducts coming off. I ended up removing one of them, the one that led to the bedroom, as we maintained an electric heater in there. And then I did not replace the intake cover.
What happened was, the open duct port could now blow directly into the camper living space, and this simple change, changed everything. The floor was not as warm any more, and the inside of the camper warmed up much faster and much more. The furnace ran less, and we used less propane. It was a win-win. And yes, this was a 35 foot TT.
Anyway, it's just something to consider, change the air duct so the furnace blows air right at the furnace and really, doesn't go through duct work under the floor at all.
It sounds like you don't need the underbelly duct work for keeping the pipes from freezing, so this may be an alternative.
Anyway, this worked for us for 5 winters.
our 295RE was similar. I found a couple of things that really helped as well.
1) the ducting was flimsy foil lined stuff like is often seen for dryer ducting. This has two issue, one is very high airflow resistance, second is lots of heat loss. Not a very good heat insulator.
To solve this problem I dropped the underbelly and replaced all the ductwork with the 4" full metal ductwork I wrapped with the adhesive foil insulation. That got airflow up, and much more heat into the trailer vs. underbelly.
To keep the underbelly warm in cold camping I pulled the floor duct in the bedroom and kitchen and drilled a 1/2" hole in the side of the pan to allow airflow into the underbelly.
End result, underbelly stays well above freezing, trailer warmed up quicker and used less propane.
One big error on keystones part was the placement of the thermostat close to the heat vent near the bedroom. so, heat goes straight up to the thermostat, it thinks the trailer is warm, (it isn't). My solution was to install a hunter thermostat that also lets you use an external sensor and placed on on the credenza. the thermostat then averages the two readings, much more comfortable.
