Ice Castle furnace problems

During deer season we bring our fish house to our shack so we have our own space. There’s no electricity so we run a generator down in the shed and that powers the shack and then I plug the fish house into the shack. One night someone in the shack decided they needed to run an electric heater and it overloaded the generator and tripped a breaker in the shed, it has a solar power set up to charge batteries. After we got everything squared away and reset I noticed the furnace in my fish house wasn’t working. The thermostat clicks like it’s calling for heat but nothing happens. I tried resetting everything, cycled the power and checked all the fuses in the box under the table and I can’t figure anything out. Hopefully it didn’t get some kind of power surge and it fried something. Everything else works fine. Anyone have any ideas?

Those ice castles are worse then owning a ram. I mean just look at the lots. Can’t believe how they jacked the price of them up and they just sit

They are absolute garbage your right there. If a RAM was even capable of pulling one they could go right off a cliff together and get rid of two piles of $hit at once.

walleyesforme wrote:

They are absolute garbage your right there. If a RAM was even capable of pulling one they could go right off a cliff together and get rid of two piles of $hit at once.

Lol, I’m just playing around. Hopefully you get your problem fixed.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>walleyesforme wrote:</div>
They are absolute garbage your right there. If a RAM was even capable of pulling one they could go right off a cliff together and get rid of two piles of $hit at once.

Lol, I’m just playing around. Hopefully you get your problem fixed.

It’s all good haha. Kinda figured I had that coming.

RV type furnaces are pretty simple and you’re just going to need to get a voltmeter and start checking power at each point. If you think you find a problem bypass the switch/relay/board/whatever by connecting the wires straight together and seeing what happens to verify. If it’s the board, and your heater is old and can’t find one, Dinosaur Electronics probably has something that will work.

Oh, and take a lot of pictures before disconnecting stuff… or really get to know your heater like I had to

I’ll have to rip that thing out of there and start playing around with it. I was just looking online and I didn’t realize that those furnaces are actually fairly inexpensive. It’s a 2018 so parts should be available.

If the furnace was running when the gen quit it most likely tripped a limit switch in the furnace,check those before you rip it apart.

very helpful youtube from smoke hills

Thanks. That’s good info there.

walleyesforme wrote:

The thermostat clicks like it’s calling for heat but nothing happens.

What is the brand of this furnace? When you say it clicks, is the sequence that the fan comes on and then there is a click-click-click-click noise, but no ignition?

95% of the issues with RV furnaces involve either the fuses/breakers, the 2 safety limit switches, the ignitor, or the flame sensor.

I’ve been through so many issues with my camper furnace that I literally carry all of the above as spare parts.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>walleyesforme wrote:</div>
The thermostat clicks like it’s calling for heat but nothing happens.

What is the brand of this furnace? When you say it clicks, is the sequence that the fan comes on and then there is a click-click-click-click noise, but no ignition?

95% of the issues with RV furnaces involve either the fuses/breakers, the 2 safety limit switches, the ignitor, or the flame sensor.

I’ve been through so many issues with my camper furnace that I literally carry all of the above as spare parts.

It’s a suburban furnace. 30k btu. If you turn the thermostat to heat the thermostat itself makes a click like it usually does but the furnace does absolutely nothing.

Check the low voltage fuse

Are there fuses on the furnace itself? I checked the ones in the box under the table and those were good. I haven’t had a chance to look at the furnace itself yet. That thing is tucked in there pretty good and will take a little doing to get at.

walleyesforme wrote:

They are absolute garbage your right there. If a RAM was even capable of pulling one they could go right off a cliff together and get rid of two piles of $hit at once.

Just a fantastic quote!!

For the record my RAM pulls my Castle just fine, no bumper dragging.

Most common thing is either the limit switch or the ignitor. Both are replaceable fairly easy. The ignitor is on the left once you open up the panel and the limit switch is on the right. Both parts and a thermostat are available on the shelf at Unclaimed Freight or other RV places. They don’t make the 30K model anymore but plenty of parts around also available online. You should hear the ignitor click and come on. Make sure its not a propane issue also.

Edit: No other fuses that I am aware of at the unit itself.

I better be careful then I have a 2012 dodge Ram 1500 with 200,000 thousands miles and have had little trouble with it. I purchased a Ice castle three years ago and have had no problems with that.

John Rasmussen wrote:

For the record my RAM pulls my Castle just fine, no bumper dragging.

Most common thing is either the limit switch or the ignitor. Both are replaceable fairly easy. The ignitor is on the left once you open up the panel and the limit switch is on the right. Both parts and a thermostat are available on the shelf at Unclaimed Freight or other RV places. They don’t make the 30K model anymore but plenty of parts around also available online. You should hear the ignitor click and come on. Make sure its not a propane issue also.

Edit: No other fuses that I am aware of at the unit itself.

Do you happen to know if either one of those would stop the furnace from attempting to start? When it’s operating normally the thermostat calls for heat, the fan turns on and then the ignitor lights. The furnace doesn’t even turn on.

orve4 wrote:

I better be careful then I have a 2012 dodge Ram 1500 with 200,000 thousands miles and have had little trouble with it. I purchased a Ice castle three years ago and have had no problems with that.

It’s a pretty well known fact that Ice Castle turns out a banged together low quality fish house. Sure every brand can crank out a Lemmon once in a while but it’s more common than not with Ice castles. Many of my friends had issues with theirs before the even got to use them the first time. I got this house one year old in 2019 and it is pretty much completely shot. They are just cheaply made like lots of the others but they are the better of the cheap houses. This is my third one and I just consider them a disposable item. We stay in it 4-5 nights a week in the winter and use it a little in the fall during hunting season so we use it quite a bit.

walleyesforme wrote:

Do you happen to know if either one of those would stop the furnace from attempting to start? When it’s operating normally the thermostat calls for heat, the fan turns on and then the ignitor lights. The furnace doesn’t even turn on.

Do you mean the blower does not turn on? Is there other stuff that does not work like lights or anything. Can you plug it in to 110 and see if the coach lights work. When someone used mine over a summer I think his wife used a little crate heater in it and it blew the GFI breaker in the outlet by the window. Also I would think the furnace would be tied to one of the breakers under the dinette.

Hopefully there are not any ICOG members here to hear you talk like that about their precious ice castles.

I also have an ice castle and share your same opinion.

Mine has fuses on the unit. Did blow once

JEREMY wrote:

Mine has fuses on the unit. Did blow once

Were they in line with the wiring?

Another thing to check. I’m pretty sure its more for lighting and such but there are two fuses in the wiring with the battery. Usually they will be withing a foot or two of the battery itself.

walleyesforme wrote:

Do you happen to know if either one of those would stop the furnace from attempting to start? When it’s operating normally the thermostat calls for heat, the fan turns on and then the ignitor lights. The furnace doesn’t even turn on.

This is exactly what happens with the Surburban furnace in my camper trailer.

I have to think the furnace in an Ice Castle is the same as a camper, the furnace runs off of 12 volt DC even if they camper is plugged in to AC power.

So just to make sure, have you checked the 12-volt DC FUSE box in the IC and looked at all the fuses? In most campers I’ve seen the 12 volt system fuses are in the same box as the 120 volt AC circuit breakers, but I can see where they COULD be in separate panels.

Even when the limit switch goes bad, the thermostat calls for heat, the furnace fan still comes on and the ignitor is heard to click, but the gas valve won’t open with a bad limit switch, so the unit won’t ignite. The fan just blows cold air. The furnace will try so many re-ignite cycles, then shut down.

You’re going to have to get in there and check power coming into the furnace unit and trace backward from there. Surburban has wiring diagrams online, so you’re looking for the 12V power and ground wires coming into the furnace. Is there power and ground coming in? I’m guessing no, but knowing for sure will at least tell you something about where the problem is.

John Rasmussen wrote:

Were they in line with the wiring?

If I remember right they were on the side of the heater. Its been a few years.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Even when the limit switch goes bad, the thermostat calls for heat, the furnace fan still comes on and the ignitor is heard to click, but the gas valve won’t open with a bad limit switch, so the unit won’t ignite. The fan just blows cold air. The furnace will try so many re-ignite cycles, then shut down.

Grouse is correct, I recall when that failed on me. So that’s not it. Like he said check for power and ground, there’s got to be a blown fuse somewhere.

JEREMY wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>John Rasmussen wrote:</div>
Were they in line with the wiring?

If I remember right they were on the side of the heater. Its been a few years.

Gotcha, thanks bud!

Thanks for the ideas guys. I’ll be back at the shack this weekend and will bring a multimeter and do some more searching. It seems like everything else works fine but the furnace. I’ll just have to dive in and investigate some more. I want to say all the 12 volt stuff works but I’m not sure how all that works with the inverter because it was plugged into 110 all weekend. Would the 12 volt stuff still work if it was plugged in? For some reason in one of my past Ice castles I remember popping a fuse right by the battery and that killed everything even when it was plugged in.

Where is the ice house? Some of them limit switches you can reset. If the furnace just blows cold air thats a fail safe built into the circut board in case of a malfuction in the gas valve stuck or limit switches poped. You’ll need a volt meter and a wiring diagram and start checking power. The video that fishing star posted is a good starting point…