I'm posting this here instead of making a brand-new thread. Possible fire hazard. Reason unknown.
My bus has been parked for at least six months unused in our front yard. A couple of days ago I decided it was time to cycle the aqua hot to keep it running. I know that this should be done at least once a month but what can I say? I turned it on, began to hear it roar and then it kicked in billowing pitch black smoke out of the exhaust. Figured this was some kind of carbon build up from sitting and from past experience that if it ran for a little while it would clean itself out. It took about a half hour for it to finally turn gray but the smoke was still excessive. My coach is a Royal. The fittings they chose to use for the exhaust were pretty poor to begin with and when I had to replace them once (where the coupler connects to the underside and then to the exhaust) I had to find the parts at Home Depot. They were plumbing fittings. Cast-iron. As the Aqua Hot continued to cycle I noticed a trickle of smoke that appeared to be a small exhaust leak was coming out from directly underneath the Aqua Hot where these couplers were. Since I didn't have any putty or Teflon tape to really seal the threads, I just figured it was a small leak and that may in fact be what was not sure. As I said there was excessive smoke; more than normal. I finished fiddling around in the yard and decided to go in and thought it best to shut the aqua hot down instead of leaving it unattended. Simultaneously shutting down, here you underneath the aqua hot where the smoke had been coming from the couplers caught on fire. There is the soundproof (fireproof also?) expand a foam stuff or what not from the factory which I believe all our coaches have. A water hose was close by and I immediately turned on the faucet to douse the flames but before I could get there with the water the flames went out. I'm just guessing, but I suspect what happened was that had shut down there was some extra surge of fuel that made its way to the underside and flamed up. Since the burned out so quickly, the fuel must've burned off before it could do any real damage. Obviously, I need to find a problem to this to prevent it from happening again.
Has anyone ever had anything like this happen before? I'm certain that the aqua hot must need (another) tune up from my neglecting to cycle it and I obviously need to make a better seal on the couplers. Not being intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Aqua Hot I'm left to wonder if it's possible for a fire to take place within the bay instead of the beginning of the exhausts underneath the bus where it happened this time.
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