Dometic 34696 Ignition Control Board for Atwood 2-Stage Furnaces

When your Atwood furnace fan spins up but you never get heat, the ignition control board is one of the first things to check. This is the Dometic 34696, the genuine replacement ignition control circuit board for Atwood two-stage furnaces. It's the brain that runs the ignition sequence. It reads the call for heat, fires the spark, opens the gas, and confirms the flame. When that board goes bad, the furnace either won't light at all or lights and then drops out a few seconds later.

The 34696 fits the Atwood Hydro Flame 1522, 2334, and 2540 two-stage furnaces. These are the forced-air propane furnaces built into a lot of travel trailers, fifth wheels, and motorhomes. If your rig has one of those model numbers on the furnace label, this is the correct board. It's a two-stage unit, which means the furnace can run a low fire and a high fire depending on how hard the thermostat is calling for heat.

The two-stage design is one of the nicer features of these Atwood furnaces. On a mild fall night the furnace can loaf along on low fire, which is quieter and sips less propane. When a cold front rolls through, it steps up to high fire and actually keeps up. That staging is managed right here on the ignition control board. So a healthy board isn't just about getting the flame lit. It's about the furnace running the way the factory intended across the temperature range you actually camp in.

So how do you know it's the board and not something else? The classic pattern is a furnace that runs the blower, tries to light, and then locks out. Maybe you hear the spark clicking with no ignition, or it lights and then shuts down before the room warms up. Those are ignition-control faults. Before you swap the board, rule out the easy stuff first. A weak house battery is the number one cause of furnace ignition trouble on an RV. These boards want a healthy 12 volts to fire cleanly, and a battery sitting low under load will cause intermittent no-lights that look exactly like a dead board. Check your propane supply, make sure the tank valve is open and you've got gas at the appliance, and confirm the sail switch and limit switch are doing their job. If all of that checks out and you're still fighting ignition, the control board is the likely culprit.

Replacing it is a job most handy RV owners can do in an afternoon. Kill the 12-volt power to the furnace and shut off the propane before you touch anything. The board mounts inside the furnace housing, and you transfer the wiring connectors over one at a time so nothing ends up in the wrong spot. Take a photo before you start. Match the connectors, seat them fully, and you're back in business. If you're not comfortable working around gas appliances, have an RV tech handle it. It's a quick job for them.

This is the genuine Dometic part, not a generic knockoff, so it lands as a true drop-in for the furnaces it covers. One thing worth knowing on some two-stage Atwood furnaces is that they use both a control module and a separate ignition board, and the parts can look similar. Pull your old board and match the part number before ordering so you get the right piece the first time. If your furnace label calls out the 1522, 2334, or 2540, the 34696 is the ignition control board you're after.

If you boondock or camp in the shoulder seasons, furnace reliability isn't a luxury. A furnace that won't light at 2 in the morning when it's 28 degrees outside is a miserable way to end a trip. That's why plenty of full-timers keep a spare ignition board in the rig. It's a small part that lives a hard life, cycling through ignition after ignition, and it's the kind of thing you want on hand before it strands you rather than after.