Atwood Hydro Flame 8520, replace or fix?

lamopar wrote:
The unit is the Atwood 8520 IV. It seems the unit has been replaced by another unit but many of the parts interchange. I guess one thought I had was how well it heats our trailer. I saw someone posted the 1000 BTU per foot of length as a general thought. Mine is a 36' but the furnace is only a 20K BTU. When we camp below freezing it is a challenge to keep the unit warm. We keep a dehumidifier running inside and it really helps. Anyway it seems to work so far and I assume with the destroyed burner it was not running efficiently anyway. From time to time I could smell some propane inside and the monitor would randomly go off. I believe it was incomplete combustion due to the damaged burner unit. This morning after running it for quite a while there is no smell and it is heating up pretty well.

I posted the 1000 BTU per foot. THAT is not my opinion, but both Atwood(Dometic now) and Suburban is what they stated are the guidelines. One thing that 1000 does NOT cover is the addition of slide room/s. Each slide room will need to be thought of when spec'ing BTU's. Most large RV's above 30 foot with slide rooms will have 2 Furnaces. If you have a 36 foot and a 20 BTU furnace, you do not have the size to do a good job of heating up the RV. I made Cruiser(the OEM) upgrade 2 of our customers 20 BTU furnaces to 30 BTU furnaces a few years ago, on their 28 foot Trailers as the 20 BTU could not keep up in even 30 degree weather. They were both under warranty. Doug