Arctic Package Ducting

[Suite Sweets]

Our 2014 Cincinnati has the Arctic package with 2- 20K BTU furnaces. One furnace provides heat to the entire unit, excluding the bedroom - a total of 7 vents. The other furnace provides heat to the bedroom with one register. This seems terribly unbalanced to me, and a waste of the heating capacity of the bedroom furnace.
1. Do others, with 2 furnaces, have such an imbalance ?
2. Anyone found an easy way to get the bedroom furnace to contribute more toward heating the living area ? Is there a damper someplace that will cause the bedroom furnace to throw heat into the living area ?

Incidentally, I have temporarily blocked the duct that throws heat down into the water manifold area. There are a whole lot of times when we want the furnace to heat the living room, but the temperature is not going below 32 - no need to waste that heat in the basement when we can use it to good advantage in the living area.

[MTK46]

My 2011 has the Canadian package. 2-30K BTU furnaces. Four vents zone 1 main area & one vent to bathroom & one to basement. I have also blocked off the basement vent. Zone 2 bedroom has four vents. So my 36' has more heating BTUs than your 41' :confused:

Must be it's colder in Canada then the Arctic. :rolleyes:

[Suite Sweets]

MTK, I mis-typed when I typed 20,000 BTU. I have 30K as well. Since posting my first comments on this post, I've found the the vent in the basement is also from the bedroom furnace - so a total of 2 vents. That does not serve us well, as we don't heat the bedroom. Our Redwood used the same ductwork for both A/C's. I prefer that arrangement - when we turned them both on, it was a hurricane inside the ductwork. When it gets warmer, I'm going to look for a way to tie the ducts, from the two furnaces, together. One other comment - all outlets for Zone 1 (living area) are vents. The bedroom, with just one outlet, is a register. I doubt anyone would ever turn on that furnace, and close the register to the bedroom. Interesting thinking going on at DRV. Thanks for sharing what you have - seems as if our two units the ducts were run intentionally as they have been found.

[MTK46]

The duct for my bedroom is visible in the storage area. It is feed by flex tubing coming off the front heater unit. It runs from the rear of my generator compartment to the sliding doors accessing the water tank, gray & black tanks water manifold etc. It's about 2-3" deep and as wide as the bedroom vents. Being so far from the living room vents I don't think if they were tied together you would feel much heat.
We had a Montana back in 01 that had the furnace mounted in the rear living area. Had great heat there but big time lacking in the bedroom up top. Just to far to feel much heat or flow.

[Notanlines]

Sweets, give us a photo of your bedroom ceiling if you will. 'The bedroom, with just one outlet, is a register' Most of the ones I've seen like this are return air vents with a filter underneath. Where is the return air in your bedroom?

[porkchop]

I noticed some of you talking about furnaces and others talking about a/c's. Absolutely no connection between systems

Bill

[Suite Sweets]

I was glad Notanlines raised the question, though it's not easy for me to deal with photo's and attaching and posting.

Anyway, after Notan raised the question, I noted the A/C return grills (with filters) were right beside the A/C registers. Not the smartest location for them.

AND I don't know where the two furnace return ducts are located

[Notanlines]

We have ours located at the stair risers leading to the bedroom/bathroom area.

[porkchop]

Your furnace does not have an actual "return duct". It draws air from the surrounding area in the basement. Their are 1 or 2 locations, such as indicated above in the stairs, where air from inside the living area is drawn into the basement where it will eventually be drawn into the furnace. Along with about an equal amount of outside air. Just the way it's done in rv's. No factory installed filter media.

While you are laying on your back looking at the ceiling=where else would you suggest the various vents and registers be placed? Only so much real estate available. Plus throw in to the puzzle how the a/c units are designed. The factories are all hiring engineers with good ideas every day.


Bill

[Suite Sweets]

After Notan's post, I went looking (again) for a return vent, so I was glad to read, Portchop, there might be none - just spaces to allow air to make it's way to the basement.
The bedroom ceiling is something like 70 s.f. In that amount of space, I'd suggest they locate the return vent and the register, anyplace but literally, 16" from each other.

[Cummins12V98]

I noticed some of you talking about furnaces and others talking about a/c's. Absolutely no connection between systems

Bill

YEA I was doing the head shake for a minute!

[Cummins12V98]

My "FURNACE" return air grill is above the pantry and behind the toilet, the pantry grill has the same filter fabric stapled to it's back as the returns for the AC do. To make the RA's useful you need to keep the basement sliding doors closed or you will be bringing in more cold air from larger storage area.

https://i.imgur.com/tJje0q9l.jpg

[MTK46]

Mine looks the same

[porkchop]

Suite=You need to see the bottom of an a/c unit that is sitting off of the unit. Virtually no other way to do it. I walked thru a 375k rig at an rv show last week- same thing.

Bill

[porthole]

HVAC - connection

[MTK46]

After Notan's post, I went looking (again) for a return vent, so I was glad to read, Portchop, there might be none - just spaces to allow air to make it's way to the basement.
The bedroom ceiling is something like 70 s.f. In that amount of space, I'd suggest they locate the return vent and the register, anyplace but literally, 16" from each other.

My registers at the off door side are 33" from the return. The one by the vanity is 12" away. Living area registers are over 4' away