Floor heater vent locations + de-Stinking

[tmsnyder]

When the furnace outlet is ducted under the floor, where is the outlet or outlets, typically?   


Previous owner ripped out carpet and installed a pergo-type floor, right over any furnace duct outlets. 


Short of removing the floor, is there any way to locate these? I'd like to cut them open so I can have heat coming out where it's supposed to.

[TerryH]

Wow!
This is given as my opinion only.
First, if the floor outlets were covered over and you were to run your furnace, I would suspect you may create a dangerous back pressure situation.
Second, as for locating the original outlet locations you could rely on a reply from someone with the same year, size, floor layout, bed type, bathroom and galley as yours. Most manufacturers had more than one layout. At best you would be guessing.
Second - B - you could start up the furnace and use an infrared thermometer gun on the floor to locate hot spots. I wouldn't, but your choice.
If you use either above to 'determine' the approximate outlet location you could then use a hole saw to hopefully prove your guess - bearing in mind that most furnace hoses are 4" in diameter. If you are off in your guess......
If you do find the outlet you can then cut the flooring to suit. Of course there will be a lot of sawdust, etc. entering the outlet, and you will have to be careful (working blind) to avoid damaging the furnace hose.
Another alternative is to consider the flooring. I assume that 'Pergo' refers to laminate.
A few years ago I took out my carpet and replaced it with laminate due to hay fever issues. I was happy with it for the first year. Then I had a slow leak in my water heater (under the couch) which took a while for me to notice. I did repair the leak and also had to replace the continually swelling laminate - it is basically composed of sawdust.
In my case I was fortunate that I had laid the flooring from the opposite side towards the couch - made for easy replacement. 3 months later the swelling continued beyond the replacement.
More replacing.
A year later, totally my fault, I was flushing my black water tank after emptying. Put the hose with one of those wonderful oscillating head wands thru the door, turned on the outside hose bib, came inside and found that I hadn't made sure the valve on the wand was off. Huge amount of water everywhere. Two months later the floor swelling was enough to trip me.
End result was I pulled out all of the laminate. Found water marks at the galley sink and rear sink that were very close to swelling.
Replaced it with vinyl plank flooring and after a year and a half I'm very satisfied.
Long story short - remove the flooring and replace while incorporating all of the original floor heat outlets. If they have been simply blanked off you may have a situation you really do not want.
Again, my opinion.

[tmsnyder]

After crawling around underneath it seems that duct is rectangular and attached to the underneath of the floor, then sprayed with foam insulation and black undercoating.  It may even be that the duct is three sided and uses the underside of the cabin floor as the fourth side.   It then appears, based on photos of similar coaches online, that the floor heat vents are just cut into the floor anywhere the duct exists, which is pretty much the entire length of the coach, right down the center aisle.  There should be one just behind the doghouse.  There may be one mid coach, and there probably one near the back bedroom.


I'm going to try whacking the flooring with a good size mallet where I think the vent holes probably are located. There may be a difference in sound.  It may even break through into the hole.  Then I think I'll[size=78%] explore with an 1/8" drill to see if the vent is where I think it is, a small hole can be easily puttied up if it's the wrong spot. If I find it I'll router out the vent with a flush cut bit. [/size]


I like the infrared camera idea, wish I had one. 


Worst case, it looks like I can cut in new vents pretty much anywhere I want to in the center aisle.

[Rickf1985]

I think you will find that with no airflow the heater will not even run. The ductwork is a super flat rectangular type as you mentioned, it is four sided.Mine is located to one side of the main hallway on the floor in my Winnebago but it is incorporated in the cabinets and faces out from the sides in my Pace Arrow, a much better arrangement. But that goes to show that they are all different. I think ripping the floor up is going to be the only solution since the underlayment is probably softer than the floor so pounding on it will not really give you and real feedback from the vents. I can't believe someone would do that, check to see that the vents are not in the cabinet sides down low or try to get hold of Kevin and see where his are.

[brians1969]

I know the septic tank guys, when trying to find the septic lines in your yard, will send a transmitter through the drain plumbing. They then go out with a receiver and home in on it. Couldn't you do something similar?

[CapnDirk]

If you can see the tin of the duct underneath, could you run a long 1/8 drill bit upward? Putty the small hole in the vent underneath, and then do your mentioned flush cut router process from above.

[legomybago]

I would just remove the flooring....Not sure how else you can go about it i?? If the PO installed the flooring over the vents, sealing them off, then what does the floor installation/craftsmanship really look like?? I wouldn't think nice. MO

[tmsnyder]

I may some day but for now I'm not looking for yet another project to work on, ... or not work on, which is what usually happens.  I just want to get this newly-working furnace in, and the job finished. 

I did find the front and back vents by looking at HR photos online and probing with an 1/8 drill.  The ones that missed the vent will disappear with some cherry colored wood putty, until I change out the floor,..... if I ever do.

[legomybago]

    Glad you found some!!

[Rickf1985]

If they are in the floor then the rest should be inline with them, once you find the next one then measure the same amount down for the next one and next and see if that works out to where it meets the front one.

[tmsnyder]

Anyone figure out a good way to clean out the ducts?   Once fired up, I was greated with an overwhelmingly nauseating stench of mouse urine.  I'll freeze before running the furnace with that smell.

Barring any better ideas, I may cut a big drain hole in the bottom of the duct at the very front, inside the duct, near the doghouse.  The vent is right at the end of the duct.  Put the rear end up on blocking so that it slopes toward the drain hole, and shove a garden hose full blast up into the vent hole near the back bedroom.  Give it some soap and bleach for good measure.  Then dry it up with the furnace and plug the hole.

Remember how I mentioned that these tasks seem to grow?

[Rickf1985]

Take the furnace out first if you do that because the water WILL go back down the branch to the furnace and all over in that compartment. An enzyme cleaner would be better to get rid of the smell. You will have to get it in there in concentrate form and let it sit for a while and then rinse it out. The enzyme cleaner in itself without rinsing may do the trick.

[tmsnyder]

The duct in mine is all under the floor.   From the furnace, it goes down into the underfloor duct and T's into the long duct that runs down the center of the RV.


I'm definitely pulling the furnace out so I can clean out that short length that T's into the long duct.  It's probably the dirtiest section since they were getting in through the furnace. PO left off one of the covers so they could get in and chew the heck out of the high tension wires leading to the spark igniter.  There may even be a nest in there.

[tmsnyder]

Here's my followup on cleaning out the stinking ducts which are under the floor of my rv.

After parking with the front down hill, hosed it out last night with plenty of hot water and Lysol lemon scented cleaner.  Filled the hose with cleaner and set the spray nozzle on a setting which gave a cone shaped wash pattern.  From the center duct, shoved it up the duct towards the rear bedroom, 4-5 feet.  Then repeated going toward the front.  Then repeated from the furnace duct near the side door to the center length of duct.   Then repeated going from the front most duct towards the rear.    Then repeated the whole operation again.   

All the while, a wet/dry vacuum sucked up the water from the front vent near the doghouse. Went through about 40 gallons of hot water.  The water looked really nasty, very brown and dirty.

Reinstalled the furnace today and fired it up, after warming up..... no stink!

Just need new vent covers and new sealant on the exterior exhaust vent and this little project will be over.

[Rickf1985]

What happened to my posts on the enzyme cleaners?

[joanfenn]

are you talking about post 11 on this topic? W% N:(

[Rickf1985]

Yep. I thought I had post more about it. Specifically a post just on the cleaner.

[joanfenn]

and you blame the ?? this time? N:(

[Rickf1985]

I didn't blame anything or body, just questioned. AND admitted I was wrong!

[joanfenn]

I thought that it was the keyboards fault again, sorry W%

[Rickf1985]

Nope, not this time, all mine.

[Oz]

Note that the host server has updated the database version. I received multiple hiccup messages a couple of times.  If such occurs when a post is being created, that could cause loss of part or all of it.

[Rickf1985]

Noted, Didn't we used to be able to delete a post or am I thinking of a different forum?