Last month we bought 10 acres of recreational land half an hour outside of town. It has a 1997 single wide mobile home that is skirted and is in good shape, but probably needs some rodent issues taken care of. It was occupied until closing and I have been running the heat because I've been in and out and it wasn't worth winterizing.

The heater would always run, but it never reached the desired thermostat temp (mobile home would reach 54 degrees max when it was set at 64, etc. I figured it was good enough, Iowa was going through -15 weather around then, and assumed it just had a shutoff to let it rest. I dripped the faucets just in case.

We've been warmer lately but tonight its getting down to 4 degrees and it was 15 degrees already so I headed out there to drip the sinks. I walk inside and notice the thermostat is showing "LO" (as in below its reading level) and a digital indoor thermometer was showing 42 degrees! I tried a dozen times turning the heater on (it is propane, no standing pilot) via the thermostat. The thermostat would "click" but nothing happened. I shut off and on the breaker for it, nothing. I have plenty of LP, 60% on a 500 gallon tank. This place is too far out for all the emergency HVAC guys or they don't do mobile homes. I forgot to look to see what the flashing lights were showing for diagnostics and just dripped all 3 sinks and a tub hot and cold and hope for the best.

I thought about running a space heater and there is a connected 400 or so square foot 4 season room with a gas fireplace with no blower. No ducts from that room to the mobile home. I could run fans and leave the door open to get heat into the mobile home, but its not going to heat things underneath it substantially. Plus, I didn't want to stay out there, there is no furniture there or anything.

Thoughts? Will dripping the faucets get me to Monday? Should I run space heaters and get that gas fireplace running with fans to heat the mobile home? My goal is to avoid water pipe damage. It will not be above freezing until then but hopefully I will have some solar gain during the day. Low for Saturday is 11 and Sunday is 18.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Scuba Steve Sig,

How about one of those buddy propane space heaters?
They are good for indoors. You already have propane in it. Might keep enough heat to prevent freeze damage. Just a thought.

What kind of T-stat do you have for the furnace? It could be shot.

We have one of those cabinet elect. infrared space heaters that works good.

Do you have efi outlets in the trailer?

What kind of heater do you have? Do you trust it?

back in the 1960s I had a summer job working in a trailer court. One of the jobs was putting heat tapes on the water lines. That would probably still work but the trailers did have heat inside.

No open propane line connections and I don't want to stay there all weekend. I have plenty of electricity but its midnight and even Wal-Marts aren't open 24hrs anymore so I only have my one space heater.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:

What kind of T-stat do you have for the furnace? It could be shot.

Do you have efi outlets in the trailer?

Its a digital one (probably from 1997), it clicks over when I put it on Hold and a warmer temp, tonight the furnace isn't starting from it though.

No GFCI outlets as far as I can tell.

If you trust the heater turn it on open all the cabinets that have water lines. sinks, etc. Does the funance work on the fan only setting. Blowing air through the house? if so maybe leave it on to circulate the warm air from the heater?

Whatever you decide to do be careful. Fixing broken water lines is better than burning the place down Steve. Good luck.

Furnace won't even run on Fan. I found another space heater wife had in her Zoom room so I'll go see what trouble I can cause/prevent.

Seems like at this point it would be easier to shut the water off and drain the lines.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
Furnace won't even run on Fan.

If it's a newer furnace, you'll have to remove the call for heat for the fan to operate.
Put the selector in the 'off' or 'cool' mode, the fan in the 'on' position and it should run.

Heat/Cool switched to Off, Fan switched to On. Nothing. Which makes me suspect the thermostat. Well see what switching that out tomorrow brings.

Any indication the furnace has power?
Blinking light? Possible blown fuse on circuit board?

Pull the thermostat from the wall and connect the wires directly.

Normal color code is below:

Red is power
White is heat
Yellow is cool
Green is fan

If so, red to green, fan should run.
Red to white, heat should come on.

Curious as to what thermostat is on the wall?

Furnace information would help, make/model?

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
I walk inside and notice the thermostat is showing "LO" (as in below its reading level)

Forgive me for stating the obvious. But did you try replacing the battery in the digital thermostat. I noticed in a few posts after this one you said the thermostat was digital.

I had a failure with a Honeywell thermostat several years ago. Called their 800 number on a Sunday morning and the CS rep talked me through a complete diagnostic procedure. After determining that the thermostat was toast, she told me what current model would be a plug & run replacement and told me which local stores had them in stock. The manufacturer of your's might be able to do the same.

I know nothing of mobile homes, but I have put some insulation on water pipes on a home with my dad when I was younger on a elevated house with a crawl space to prevent the pipes from freezing. Maybe you can do the same ??? God Bless

We had some troops who lived in mobile homes when base housing was full around here. Older mobile home gas furnace-heaters experienced trouble two ways: thermostat and/or the "eye" sensor. The later would get dirty and not read causing the type of problem you describe... inability to achieve desired set temperatures. Depending on the installation they may be hard to get to without removing some panels, etc. but a simple surface cleaning invariably solved the problem.

I’m with strambo, I’d cut off the water, cut a line and let it drain,( there might already be a spot set up for draining) flush the toilets to get water out of them, open all the faucets, hope for the best….with night temps at 4° and it being a trailer and no heat….

Let us know how it goes

Turn on the oven and open the door. Works in a pinch.

Dripping the faucets will definitely keep the pipes from freezing.

It's what my parents did when I was growing up in Alaska and what I, in turn, did when I was an adult living there.

Never had a frozen pipe, nor did anyone else I knew who dripped faucets.

If you do decide to drain the pipes, don't forget to pour some RV antifreeze down the toilet and sink drains. Don't want any water in the traps to freeze,

Two things.
I was recently told that normal thermostats will not work below 40 odd degrees, it’s some sort of safety feature. It would certainly be worth asking a good HVAC person about this. I trust the person who told me this, it was in reference to RV thermostat and out building thermostats.

Secondly if you drip the faucets they must drip at a rate that will not allow water to freeze in the drain pipes. This is from personal experience.