Toilet vent hole?

[Jim Thornhill]

Hello folks,
I was doing some work in my pass through storage area this morning (29rs) and was looking at the venting for the furnace. What I thought was a vent behind the toilet turned out to be a 3"x6" hole with a vent cover on it! Before I cover this up, I thought I better see if someone smarter than me (which is most of you) knew of a reason why this was there. I thought it first it might be for venting, but I have an exhaust fan right above.
Thanks!

[livinthelife]

Hello folks,
I was doing some work in my pass through storage area this morning (29rs) and was looking at the venting for the furnace. What I thought was a vent behind the toilet turned out to be a 3"x6" hole with a vent cover on it! Before I cover this up, I thought I better see if someone smarter than me (which is most of you) knew of a reason why this was there. I thought it first it might be for venting, but I have an exhaust fan right above.
Thanks!

It's the air intake vent.

[Country Campers]

Jim

I have wondered this myself. Not sure if it is a "cold air" return for the furnace or just a vent for the pass thru storage. I know when we run the A/C it gets cold in the storage so I put a towel over this vent.

Brian

[Jim Thornhill]

If it is an air intake vent, is it just a way to get fresh air into the trailer? The furnace has a return air duct of it's own.

[Cate&Rob]

Hi Jim,

On my 303RLS, the vent behind the toilet is just an air return to the "plumbing basement" where the furnace is. Your picture looks like heating grids on the right side. I have never seen anything like this . Does air come out of this opening when you run the furnace?

Rob

[ksbowman]

On my 303rls it is the return air upstairs. The other return air is in the kitchen under the china cabinet/beverage bar.

[Jim Thornhill]

Rob,
I have never noticed it, and when I started looking into it I had my electrical system disconnected installing my inverter. I will check into it tomorrow, but I don't see how air could come out of it since there is no duct attached to it. The metal duct that runs through the pass through storage that services the bathroom and bedroom used to have a vent blowing into the storage area, but it wasn't large enough to return back through the other vent hole. I am wondering if whoever was installing this stuff at GD was smoking something! I found the vent that heats the bathroom had a duct on it, and that duct was pressed solidly against the wall of the rigid metal duct, letting no air in at all. No wonder it takes my trailer so long to heat up!

[220RKForLife]

Coming from a HVAC point of view. It’s not a good idea to have a return vent in a bathroom! If that’s what it is.

[livinthelife]

Coming from a HVAC point of view. It’s not a good idea to have a return vent in a bathroom! If that’s what it is.

The vent behind the toilet in our rig is the intake for the furnace. The biggest issue I have with it is, if someone makes a big stink in the bathroom while the furnace is running, you now have that big stink blowing into the whole rig.

I get that it's the most convenient spot for it (basically backed up to the air intake in the main room) and it's out of the way, for the most part, but I don't really like it there.

[Pawsitive Camping Life]

I'm not sure the engineer who designed this ever finished high school. When I look at our return behind the toilet, I see the back of my breaker box. All it takes is the toilet valve sticking, or any other spill in the bathroom (glad we don't have kids with bad aim) and all that water running right into the back of the panel. It is the only cold air return I could find in this trailer. Just another reason I make sure to turn the water off whenever we are away from the rig.