My Hurricane was hit by a tornado

[Joel Weiss]

Last night in 38 degree weather in TX, my Hurricane appears to have sprung a big leak--antifreeze solution was all over the ground, having leaked out in the vicinity of the pump, and then gone to ground under the Hurricane box through the cutout where the exhaust pipe is.  Of course, the burner stopped working, about 2am, and it was a bit chilly this morning.  

The question I have is, how bad will the damage be?  I looked quickly at the hoses near the "box" and didn't see any obvious leakage points.  I gather from reading the owner's manual, that it is possible for the water pump to fail by leaking.  The pump was running this morning since the system was still calling for heat.  The manual says running the pump dry will probably ruin it.   We have about 1,500 hours on the pump, but it is 11 years old, and the PO didn't use it much, so aging through disuse isn't out of the question.

If the pump needs to be replaced, what is the approximate cost?  I have green status lights on the control box, is the system itself likely to still be OK?  Is there any easy way to refill the system?  Are there any bleed valves for getting air out of the system?

[JimDyer]

First step is to find out a few things:  
1. Are you a "fix it yourself" or a "call somebody" guy?
2. Are you expecting frost overnight, and if so, how cold and how long tonight?
3. What model Hurricane do you have?


Second step is, to secure the coach:
1. Turn off the 120v feed for the hurricane.
2. Turn off the switch for oil heat.
3. Do you have any electric heaters?

Third step is either to find you help, if you want somebody to deal with it for you, or to give you some pointers.

If the leak was catastrophic, it has probably leaked down below the level of the leak.  If the system is cold, open the radiator cap, and see if you can see how much fluid is gone. Then fill it back up with distilled water, and see if the system leaks it all back out. If so, try and pinpoint the source of the leak. At that point, the next steps will be more obvious......

[JimDyer]

If you decide to DIY it, you will probably need parts or support from Roger Berke at http://forum.rvhydronicheaterrepair.com/

[Joel Weiss]

The good news is that we just arrived in Port Aransas, TX where we will be all winter.  The nighttime lows here will probably be moderate enough for us to get away with a couple of small space heaters.  It was so warm with the sun today, that we had to open windows to keep from overheating!

I have everything turned off, and am planning on doing the fill with water tomorrow or the next day.  Is distilled water really necessary, particularly since this water will be drained and replaced with a coolant/water mixture?  On a Hurricane, the only 120V connection is the supplemental hot water heater, and we can continue to use it without issues.

BTW Roger Berke doesn't deal with Hurricane systems.  I had emailed him a couple of months ago, hoping to have him give my system a tune-up; he wrote back that he doesn't do Hurricanes.

I do have a "come to your campground" technician coming over later in the week.  If he sounds like he knows what he's doing, I'll probably let him work on it, otherwise, I'll just wait until we go back to the Pacific NW next spring, where there are lots of people who know how to work on these.

[JimDyer]

Hi Joel,

No, distilled water is not really necessary, as long as when it's all done you do a complete drain and flush to clear out the minerals from the tap water once you have it completely fixed.

I wonder if you should call Rixen's in Washington. their website is rixens.com and they may have a servic recommendation near you.

Jim

[Dick Simonis]

Joel, Sorry to hear about you troubles but if the pump truely is the culprit it can probably be sourced fairly easily.  More than likely it's either a March or Johnson magnectic drive unit.  With a just a little bit of luck your can find just the pump end and not have to replace the entire assy.

Here is a link to Johnson.  Look at the CM-30 on page 22, should be virtually indentical.

http://www.johnson-pump.com/jpmarine/PDF_docs/Marine-Catalogue-GB.pdf

Good luck.

Dick

[Gerald Farris]

Joel,
As you know, there is so much difference between the Hurricane and the AquaHot systems that an AquaHot repair person often can not repair a Hurricane. However with your problem being only a leak,  almost any competent RV repair technician should be able to repair the leak.

The Hurricane system has an over-temp cutoff, so if the system lost circulation the burner should have cut off to prevent any damage to the system. The pump is normally OK after a leak, however if the pump was the source of the leak or if it has failed, a replacement pump can be found online. The pumps start around $100 and go up to the $400 range depending on the source (EBay or dealer) and model of pump. If you replace the pump, be careful to use a pump that has the same flow rate (gallons per minute) and design that you currently have.

Gerald  

[Joel Weiss]

Hi Gerald--

I just spoke with Kevin at ITR and he confirmed what you wrote.  He also posed the possibility that the leak could be a crack in the "water jacket" in the Hurricane system.  Apparently that is replaceable and/or repairable and is ~$400 if replaced.  He assured me that I wouldn't burn up the pump unless I ran it for a long period of time while it was cavitating, but he said that I'd hear loud noises before damage was done.

Tomorrow I'm going to fill the system with water (Kevin said that tap water was ok for testing purposes) and use the shunt to turn the pump on and to see what is going on (although I guess I could also use the "engine preheat switch" since I gather that also keeps the pump running.

Joel

[Joel Weiss]

I thought I'd provide an update on our situation.  I was able to find a tech here in Port Aransas with Hurricane experience; it's helpful that the primary market for them is boats.  We haven't been able to pin-point the reason for the leak; everything checks out except for some hose connections that might have gotten loose enough when hot to introduce air into the coolant loop and cause the pump to stop circulating liquid.  We carefully followed the procedure outlined by ITR for filling the system, purged all the air and we've now got it up and running.  If it continues to operate Ok we'll do a drain and refill with a fresh antifreeze/water mix.  We have two 1500W electric heaters and have proven to ourselves that we can keep ourselves toasty warm even if the Hurricane fails again.

My principal reason for this post was to pass along a couple of things I learned about the system that I thought were worth knowing:

• Believe the manual when it says that you will need an external pump to properly fill the Hurricane system and purge it of air.  The circulating pump is not powerful enough to lift liquid from a container at ground level to reservoir height nor to ensure that all air pockets in the system have been forced out.  The tech working on my system ended up using a Shure RV water pump to prime the system using the 5-gallon "bucket" approach discussed in the manual.  He then quickly disconnected the Shure pump and reconnected the liquid lines to the system reservoir.
•   The heat exchangers on the left side of the bay, next to the hot water tank are used to preheat water going to the hot water tank, however, contrary to what was stated in a recent post, the Hurricane's ability to provide hot water is not limited to these.  The Seaward hot water tank contains an internal heat exchanger which can provide hot water completely independent of the electric heating element.  (That much we did know and utilize this feature any time we boondock or connect to 30A power.)
• The engine preheat switch on the dash causes the Hurricane's pump to run 24/7 regardless of ANY other switch positions, including the Master switch.  Accidentally leaving this switch on will result in many extra hours on the pump.
• Both the external and internal heat exchangers are double-wall so there is absolutely NO need to be concerned about using normal anti-freeze in the system rather than boiler liquid as had been discussed in another thread.  That having been said, pink RV antifreeze should not be used in the system.

I hope these points will be helpful to those of you with Hurricane systems.

Joel
[/list]

[Dick Simonis]

Good write up Joel, and I'm glad there may not be any serious poblems.  It seems to me that the Hurricane is pretty nice system without any undue complexities....plus seem to be easy to service.  it would be interesting to know why Beaver switch to Hydohots which seem much more prone to problems.

One item of note though.  When I replaced my Sealand hot water heater I was concerned about purging the air from the system.  When I called Hurricane, he said the easiest way to do it it to simply fill the resovoir and run the pump manually.  It'll self purge as the tank is the high point (NOTE:  Leave cap off).  I would let the pump run for 5 minutes and set for 5 minutes to "(burp).  Milk the hose to the Sealand a bit and that helps plus you can feed when the pressure build up with full flow.

[Joel Weiss]

I think the difference between your situation and mine was that your system was basically full with the exception of the heater; my system was essentially empty.

[Dick Simonis]

I think the difference between your situation and mine was that your system was basically full with the exception of the heater; my system was essentially empty.

When you pull the Sealand, you pretty much empty the system.  I drained about 2-3 gallons or so.

[Joel Weiss]

Well, so much for optimism.  The system quit during the night, but there were no leaks and fluid appears to be circulating normally.  The status lights are green but the burner makes no attempt to ignite regardless of thermostat settings.

I honestly think this is the underlying source of intermittent problems I have noticed but have not been able to duplicate.   The leak we've been chasing did occur, but I'm pretty sure this other issue is the one that is more complex.

I assume there is a sensor somewhere in the system that provides input as to the temperature of the circulating fluid and prevents the burner fro igniting if it is >160F (that's the temp Kevin at ITR told me).  It seems as if either this sensor is not functioning properly or something is bad on the control board.

What I find interesting is that I can force the burner to come on by using up some of the hot water in the tank.  I know there is a sensor located on the tank output that I presume monitors the temp of the outgoing water.  When it gets to some point it triggers the burner which you would want to have happen if you were using the system in a "hot water only" mode.  Even more interesting is that once I "trick" the system like this, the heater now functions normally (at least for a while).

As you can probably tell I am intrigued by the mystery.  If anyone has an idea, please don't be shy.

[Edward Buker]

I have an Aqua Hot so I'm not sure if the same logic works. Basically the burner is triggered from a seperate sensor that has a trigger temperature and a shut off temperature along with an overheat sensor and limit. In my case about 160, 190, and 230 degrees. If the circulator is triggerd by the wall thermstat, that in itself does not have any link elecrically to the burner. If the circulators cycle on and off and it does not get the tank temperature down to 160 then the burner will not come on. I think there is just one sensor so I am not sure about tricking it with calling for hot water. You are just lowering the resevoir temperature by heating water as would the heating circulators by adding a room heat demand.

The electrical element for heating is also independant of the burner and wall thermostats with its set of on/off/overheat sensor.

 Given you have lived with this coach I assume that it is acting up but it is not clear how the burner is failing. Basically the burner, if it is a Webasto, has a silver box on it that has all the burner logic  controls built in. It simply gets supplied from the sensors with an on/ off/ overheat set of limits to control when it is on. The controller itself controls how long the motor spins up to build fuel pressure and purge air, turns on the fuel solenoid, turns on the igniter, watches the burner for ignition with a light sensor, turns the igniter off and purges air and heat for a preset period of time before shutting down. Failing to ignite once turned on and not shutting down properly are functions controlled by this controller.

Not sure this all applies to a Hurricane but thougth some Aqua Hot explanations may lend a hand.

later Ed

[Joel Weiss]

Ed:

From what I can understand of the wiring schematic for the Hurricane, there is an "aquastat" mounted on the domestic hot water tank (I know where it is) that serves the same function as the two room thermostats and the one in the storage bay.  Any of these four devices can "call for heat" and cause the circulating pump to switch on.  If the pump is on and the circulating fluid falls below 149F an "operating aquastat" will trigger the burner to ignite and it will continue to run until the fluid temp gets to 185F.  

What I am experiencing is that the room thermostats seem to be sending a call for heat which is turning on the circulating pump but the burner does not ignite and there is no indication that it is trying to go through the ignition cycle. This could be the result of a "sticking" operating aquastat which is not correctly reacting to the temperature of the circulating fluid.  You may be correct in that what I am doing is dramatically dropping the temperature of the circulating fluid by partially filling the hot water tank with cold water.  If the aquastat is "sticky" that may be just enough to get it to trip.  Once it trips it seems to do Ok for some period of time until it sticks again.

I had been thinking that I my "trick" was causing the aquastat on the hot water tank to "bypass" the thermostats with respect to calling for heat, but what I was really doing may have been subjecting the operating aquastat to a much colder temperature than it would see if all that was happening was that the fluid was being cooled by the fans.  This would be a "good news" scenario since I'm pretty sure the aquastat is an easily replaceable sensor (easy once you gain access to it).  I'll call Kevin at ITR again this week to see what he thinks.
Joel