Heater under bed RPod 190

Our RPOD 190 has the heater under the bed. The Thermostat is on the wall above this area. This causes the heater to short cycle and only heat this small area. Has any one successfully moved the Thermostat or figured out a way to duct the heat to the back of the unit? I searched and couldn't find any solutions to this poor design.

Thanks for the tip. I didn't think to search for deflector.

Yes one would prefer small electric heater if one had remembered to bring it!!

I'm doubtful that a deflector is going to help if the concern is thermostat short cycling. Blowing hot air out from under the bed into the area where the tstat is located is quite likely just to make that worse. The real problem is a pretty high capacity (20 kbtu/hr) heater in a very small poorly insulated space. I'd try just placing something temporarily to divert the air and see if that actually helps reduce the short cycling before building a permanent deflector.

If that didn't work possible solutions are

a lower capacity heater (electric, catalytic propane or using the water heater and a heat exchanger). All 3 have pros and cons and have been tried by forum members, do an advanced search and go back several years.

Relocated thermostat with increased hysteresis (temp differential between turn on and turn off).

Adding thermal mass under the bed to slow down heat transfer to the room. I carried extra water for boondocking and kept that and my drinks under there, placed while camping to make the hot air blow through them. Seemed to help some but be sure to take drinks out for awhile to cool down before drinking or refrigerating.


Back on option 2. The furnace is just looking for a contact closure to call for heat, so just about any tstat would do. I like the little low cost little w1209 digital tstats, available from many suppliers on Amazon for under $10. They provide the contact closure terminals and just need 12v on another pair of terminals to operate. The 12v is readily available at the furnace or elsewhere. They are fully programmable for temp setting, hysteresis, time delay, close on hi or low and have a remote temp probe. The probe is a thermistor so you can extend the wires to it so the little tstat can be concealed where ever you want. Did I mention they're cheap?

I'd suggest getting one, connecting it up temporarily, and placing the temp probe in a cold spot in the trailer. Then adjust the temp setting and hysteresis and see if you get results that you like. That might just make it too hot elsewhere in the trailer but it's worth a try. If you do you can wire it in permanently and just leave to old tstat disabled.

Originally posted by Pod_Geek Originally posted by offgrid ...hysteresis... I'm still recovering from a bout of that.