2021 Valor 43V13 No Heat in Living Area

[BDMcGrew]

Hello,



I am Brian from Arizona. We have a 2022 Alliance Valor 43V13 we bought brand new from JR Motors in Lake Havasu in March ’22. And, we’ve had problems with heat since day one.



Right after purchase we took the rig to Vegas for a month-long series of industry tradeshows and were in an RV park. The overnight lows were in the 40’s so we lit off the heater. It’d run for ~10 minutes and shutdown. Our local Havasu dealer said there was nothing they could do until we brought it, but we were there for a month. A local Las Vegas Alliance dealer said they didn’t have the capacity to service it as they were too busy servicing the units they’d sold. As a last resort we called a mobile mechanic and $500 later, the exhaust vents on the heater were never uncapped or hooked up. But, we had good heat.



We brought the unit back from Vegas mid-May and took it into the dealer for other problems, got it back and it sat for a month before we took it to Southern California for another ten-day event in late June. Even in that climate the nights were cold. We had heat in the front bedroom and front bathroom but no heat from the kitchen island nor the back bathroom. And I’ve yet to determine if the vent in the stairs is a register or a return. There is no air movement in that vent at all.



Since then I’ve had the rig into the dealer three different times for no heat in the living area and generator problems and it has yet to be fixed. On this most recent visit I was told they compared my unit to another and they were identical in the way the vents worked and there was nothing more they coul do.



I’ve contacted Alliance and they’re siding with the dealer on this. I’m at a loss.



Has anyone else had these kinds of problems and if so, has anyone found a fix? Seriously, I mean we bought this RV to travel in while working as a family. My mother is 73 and I can leave her in a rig with no heat when the overnights are in the 30’s and 40’s. Just very frustrating.



My next step is to find another trailer like in in the area and go test the vents in it as well.



Any ideas?



Thank you in advance,



-brian

 

[BryanValRox]

Hi Brian, as I understand your post, you have heat in some areas and not others. The grill under the stairs is in fact a return(in our 310RL), that allows air to flow back from the living area to the basement area and ultimately back to heater inlet.
Based on your post, I would guess that you have a air flow issue, think things like, disconnect flex hoses, leaking flex hoses, collapsed/leaking duct work, restricted return path to the heater air inlet.
Remember the path of least resistance theory applies here, meaning air flow will travel the least restrictive path.
Sounds like you will need to get into the belly of the beast and start the inspection process. Have you consider taking a cheap inspection camera and snaking it into the duct work to look for restrictions? If all checks out well, you could consider dampers that would restrict flow to areas that are heated adequately and force some air flow to other area that need some help.

 

[Bill Martin]

Good morning. I work for Alliance. Looking up your files I am not seeing any warranty submissions in regards to the furnace but do see that you emailed our team on Monday about this. I will gather more details on our teams reply and see how we can best assist.

 

[SteveCornell]

Here is what I did to mine to correct the heating issue...
I now have a furnace and duct system that works like it’s supposed to!!
In the factory configuration on my Valor 41V15 there are 3 ducts off the back of the furnace and an opening firing down into ductwork that goes to the center island and the garage / rear bath, the 3 ducts off the back each go to the front bath, the bedroom, and 1 dumps into the underbelly.
I was getting all kinds of heat in the front bath and bedroom and the storage compartment would be 100 degrees while the living area was 60.
After removing the furnace I found the duct going to the back of the trailer was crushed almost shut, I was able to open that up, I then sealed all the openings up on the furnace housing and then rerouted some ductwork, I combined the front bath and bedroom into 1 outlet from the furnace, I then added another duct to the empty space created by combining the bedroom and bath and installed an outlet under the cabinet under the power panel, I left the dump into the underbelly but put a damper in that outlet as I don’t need to be dumping all that heat into the underbelly when I’m camping in 40 degree weather, I can open the damper to add more heat there if I get caught out in freezing temperatures.
I blocked the outlet on the kitchen side of the island to force more air toward the couch area..
The results are so much better, I still have lots of airflow to the bedroom and bath, the outlet I added puts out a lot of heat into the kitchen and I now have good flow from under the island towards the couch, there is now heat flowing into the garage and rear bath but probably not enough to keep it warm in really cold temperatures but
much better than it was..
I really don’t know why the manufacturers don’t spend more time designing a heating system that works properly, the way it’s designed there is way too much heat in the front of the trailer and hardly any in the living area and none to the garage.
It works SO much better now.
The folks at Alliance were great to help get me the schematics and information I needed (they did not recommend the rerouting of the ducts, that was my idea) but I did share my changes with them.

 

[CrAzY CaNuCk]

I just purchased a 2022 Alliance valor 43v13 and I haven't used it yet but I did however test the heat while in storage and felt that I might have this same issue with heat transfer to the living area. I wish the pictures would show up that were attached to this feed as it would definitely help me with understanding exactly what was done and what was used to pull it off.