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ndbound
Explorer
May 01, 2013

Suburban Furnace intermittently doesn't light

I have an issue that is confusing with my Suburban SF (20-35?) furnace. It was installed I believe in 1999. We have a 1999 5th wheel. We are in North Dakota and have been using the poor furnace all winter. It has been working great all winter but suddenly it has started to periodically fail to ignite.

When it does not light here is what happens:
The blower comes on.
You hear clicking from the ignition.
You smell propane from it not lighting.
The blower will continue to blow cold air.

If this happens in the might when we get up you can smell propane through the camper (I am guessing from repeatedly trying to ignite?)

Sometimes it will fail to light when the heater is turned on. other times it will work just fine for hours, then suddenly fail.

I replaced the propane regulator hoping it was just low pressure. That did not fix it.

Checked for propane leaks and found none.

What could be failing if it is getting spark and propane?

Any help would be much appreciated! It is hard and extremely expensive to get help out here. We live in our camper so we will need this fixed before next winter. I am so grateful that it didn't start doing this until after the -50 weather!!

Thanks!
Nikki

6 Replies

  • Thank you all for your advice. As dirty as the sail switch and squirrel cage are, I am guessing that it needs to be cleaned. I wanted to try everything I could short of pulling it out. But that is what needs to happen now.


    I smell the propane because the unit is right under the stove and that is also where the vent is. Its just a wiff of what didn't ignite.

    That youtube video helped me understand my unit. Thanks for that!
  • Blower comes on.........that's good

    Gas valve opens (smell propane)and it tries to ignite.....sometimes it fails

    When the gas lites the flame proves a signal thru the spark electrode & wire back to module to hold gas valve open

    The intermittent ignition could be dirty spark electrode, cracked ceramic/insulator or loose/dirty ground wire
  • Seems strange that you smell propane. Shouldn't it have a safety on it so propane is shut off if it fails to light?
  • It SHOULD go into lock out mode after a set number of attempts to light to prevent either flooding with LP gas or running down your battery from continual fan operation. It's POSSIBLE that older units don't have this feature. I agree with cleaning the contacts and resetting spark clearance after cleaning. It obviously is getting gas because you smell it so the problem is spark.