Hot air out the side

Nvr2loud wrote:

skipnchar wrote:

TucsonJim wrote:
I don't think it's wasted at all. On a cool morning, I love to sit outside with my coffee and enjoy the warm air that the vent puts out. Kind of like a clean campfire.

IF you call breathing CO gas "clean". There are several deaths per year from camping too near neighbors furnace exhause and contaminating the air inside a neighbors RV. Happens most often at events like NASCAR events or DRAGS where RVs are parked very close together. Please don't think of it as "clean" anything.

CO poisoning should not be an issue outside the trailer. You have pointed out a very valid fact, intrusion of CO into another trailer can easily be deadly. CO detectors are life saving devices.

We had a very sad story here two months ago. A father took his kids camping and arrived at the site very late at night. With his 13 year old son asleep in the minivan, they set-up the tents and went to bed leaving him sleeping. In the morning they found him dead in the van, they left a propane fired cooler running inside the vehicle.... such a small mistake with huge consequences.

That is horrible. My prayers go out to that Dad, I can not imagine the agony he is going through.

JamesBr wrote:
80% efficiency is not bad for a furnace. I would love to see them get to 85-90% like they have on stick and brick furnaces, but even then you still get heat, vapor and CO emissions that must be sent outside. As for placement, I have found that at least in recent years the builders seem to take placement of the furnace and water heater into a little more consideration then they have in the past. But there are only so many places to mount them without removing from the living space.

The higher the efficiency produced, the less time the furnace will last. A high efficiency furnace requires more space for a second heat exchanger, and that exchanger is prone to corrosive failure. Those two reasons are very important for trailer manufacturers....

-More room required to install higher efficiency
-More weight to add to the dry weight number
-Potential CO leaks much higher when a second heat exchanger is used.

The primary heat exchanger is not exposed to such corrosive vapor as the secondary heat exchanger. In a lower efficiency unit, the corrosive vapor is sent directly to outside and therefore does not pose the high risk of corroding a heat exchanger and leaking CO gas into the trailer.

brownieab wrote:
The last couple of RV shows I have gone to, I've noticed the Furnace and water heater exhaust vents right out under the canopy on some models. The DW might be in love with the floor plan, but I keep saying no way do I want the exhaust under the canopy. I realize the rv manufacturer places these items where it's most efficient to build....But come on....REALLY !!!!!

That should never cause a problem unless you plan on enclosing the canopy, the CO gas will not stick around under the canopy when both ends and the entire front side is open.

80% efficiency is not bad for a furnace. I would love to see them get to 85-90% like they have on stick and brick furnaces, but even then you still get heat, vapor and CO emissions that must be sent outside. As for placement, I have found that at least in recent years the builders seem to take placement of the furnace and water heater into a little more consideration then they have in the past. But there are only so many places to mount them without removing from the living space.

The last couple of RV shows I have gone to, I've noticed the Furnace and water heater exhaust vents right out under the canopy on some models. The DW might be in love with the floor plan, but I keep saying no way do I want the exhaust under the canopy. I realize the rv manufacturer places these items where it's most efficient to build....But come on....REALLY !!!!!

CGXterra wrote:
I wish they could redirect that exhaust to the tubes and tanks that are exposed to the cold. You'd think they could wrap the exhaust tube around important stuff and have it go out somewhere else. I doubt I'm the first person to think this and I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason why it's like it is.

Cost.

skipnchar wrote:

TucsonJim wrote:
I don't think it's wasted at all. On a cool morning, I love to sit outside with my coffee and enjoy the warm air that the vent puts out. Kind of like a clean campfire.

IF you call breathing CO gas "clean". There are several deaths per year from camping too near neighbors furnace exhause and contaminating the air inside a neighbors RV. Happens most often at events like NASCAR events or DRAGS where RVs are parked very close together. Please don't think of it as "clean" anything.

CO poisoning should not be an issue outside the trailer. You have pointed out a very valid fact, intrusion of CO into another trailer can easily be deadly. CO detectors are life saving devices.

We had a very sad story here two months ago. A father took his kids camping and arrived at the site very late at night. With his 13 year old son asleep in the minivan, they set-up the tents and went to bed leaving him sleeping. In the morning they found him dead in the van, they left a propane fired cooler running inside the vehicle.... such a small mistake with huge consequences.

My Surburban heater exhaust mounted on my off-road POPUP setup sure got my attention real quick.


My exhaust is on the back side of the POPUP and right directly above it is my fabric top material. The heat coming from the heater exhaust was collecting in the top fabric overhang big time and really got it hot.

Sometimes when my heater is first fired up it may shoot out a big flame three or four inches from the heater exhaust. Also scary to see when camping way back in the woods haha...

I had to install an angle metal piece to re-direct the resulting heat away from my from fabric top.

Roy Ken

Thanks for all the great replies, now I know that tenting the outside of the trailer isn't a smart idea:B

:h