Yet Another Carrier AirV Installation Thread

[soldiermedic]

Originally Posted by vswingfield

Hi Steve,

I am considering an RV carport. Glad you are all back home safely. Sorry I couldn’t make Branson.

Let me know anything you find out about that carport Vaughan. We are seriously considering an RV port to lower our cost of living, and to protect our airstream from rain/uv.

Steve

[vswingfield]

Wil do, Steve

[elolson]

I will point out that the heating part of the dometic heat pump functionality has been very good. We use it anytime we camp in a park in the cooler times of year and unless the temp is down in the 30's outside, it heats the tlr up just fine.

I'll need to make a mental note to come back and bug you at the end of July to see how things are going. I would think that an RV port would be an amazing difference as it would get that solar loading off the skin, that there is about 90% of our problem.

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by elolson

I will point out that the heating part of the dometic heat pump functionality has been very good. We use it anytime we camp in a park in the cooler times of year and unless the temp is down in the 30's outside, it heats the tlr up just fine.

I'll need to make a mental note to come back and bug you at the end of July to see how things are going. I would think that an RV port would be an amazing difference as it would get that solar loading off the skin, that there is about 90% of our problem.

Please do if I’m remiss in updating. Around hear, the hottest time is also likely to be in August.

Ah, the dream RV port. I think it should be 20’ by 40’ for generous overhang with the Airstream on the north side. Sitting on a slab or, perhaps, pavers. Screened for enjoying those southern evenings spent in a nice set of patio furniture. In an ideal would, it would have doors in the screen for drive through convenience.

[vswingfield]

The Carrier AirV Freeblow bottom units use a push-pull latch, like the one on my Excella’s medicine cabinet, to hold the vents closed. Mine was missing one. I have attached photos so you will know what I am talking about. It is listed as “NO 81—LATCH, PUSH” on the parts diagram.

I sent an email to both email addresses on the Carrier AirV site, because it was unclear which was really support. This was on March 30th. I remembered it last week and sent email again to both email addresses asking if they had any response after a month and a half. This, for me anyway, seemed to confirm Lew’s and others experience with non-response from Carrier.

Then I remembered another member’s post about getting a drain adapter for his low profile model. I called that number last Wednesday and was quickly transferred to tech support where Kevin Miller immediately answered the phone. I couldn’t ask for better service. After talking with Kevin, it came to light that the parts diagram tech support has different numbers for the parts than the one in the owner’s manual, another advantage to having an actual conversation with a real person. He apologized for the email, and stated that it is always best to call tech support rather than email. He even gave me a toll free number for tech support, (800) 673-2431, and his extension, 350. Two arrived today via DHL. My kudos to Kevin. My advice if anyone has Carrier issues is to call tech support rather than email.

The replies to my any response email? One. Friday, someone from the wrong email address replied and said that the address in York, PA should be the correct one. Never heard from the correct email address.

In the future, call the 1-(800) number.

[soldiermedic]

Hey Vaughn,

Were the screws you received with your AC unit to hold the interior ceiling control panel actually long enough to go into the bracket frame? When Brad and I reinstalled my AC unit after some repairs, and the machine screws were not long enough to go into the frame. Perhaps they fit when I got it because the gasket had been cinched down ultra tight.

Anyhow...what did you use if not the tiny ones it came with.

Steve

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

Hey Vaughn,

Were the screws you received with your AC unit to hold the interior ceiling control panel actually long enough to go into the bracket frame? When Brad and I reinstalled my AC unit after some repairs, and the machine screws were not long enough to go into the frame. Perhaps they fit when I got it because the gasket had been cinched down ultra tight.

Anyhow...what did you use if not the tiny ones it came with.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I don’t even know where the screws that came with it are. I bought a bunch of 3/8” and 3/4” Stainless Steel pan head Phillips sheet metal screws that I use for everything. The 3/4” ones are just barely long enough.

In fact, the extra “NO 81—LATCH, PUSH” is now stored in the box of 3/4” screws so I can find it in the future. I got 100 3/4” and 300 3/8” from Bolt Depot - Nuts and Bolts, Screws and Fasteners online. I figure I am good to go from now on for both trailers.

On another topic, the 6mm cork underlayer came in today. I will be taking the old dinette out of the Excella and ripping up the carpet soon. I will be keeping everyone posted on the latest remodel.

[soldiermedic]

3/8" sounds a little short, but there is plenty of room to go past that. Any idea of the correct diameter I need?

Once I get that taken care of I move on to several other issues.

1. One of the knobs keeps falling off the AC unit from being stripped, and needs to be glued.

2. Need to add some trim around the AC interior to cover the gap.

3. Need to clean out belly pan under the black tank from a small seepage (How to do this without removing belly pan beats me).

4. Cutting out wood flooring in bath and gluing down vinyl if I can get more of it.

And now that I have officially hijacked your thread, I bid you adieu.

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

3/8" sounds a little short, but there is plenty of room to go past that. Any idea of the correct diameter I need?

Absolutely. They are 8 x 3/8. They are also 18-8 Stainless Steel alloy. The ¾ are 8 x ¾. I have never subscribed to the “No Screw is too Long as Long as It has Threads to the Head” school. Use the 3/8” when you are joining thin things like two pieces of aluminum and the 3/4” ones when you need longer. Trust me, when you need to remove something and replace it, you will appreciate the more correctly sized screw. Hey, they come even shorter, the 3/8 is overkill.

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

Once I get that taken care of I move on to several other issues.

1. One of the knobs keeps falling off the AC unit from being stripped, and needs to be glued.

Grease on the shaft with plastic wrap or aluminum foil followed by JB Weld perhaps? Just make sure you don’t glue the knob on permanently.

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

2. Need to add some trim around the AC interior to cover the gap.

Found some panel trim at Home Depot. One 8’ piece was plenty and was about $2.00 plus change.

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

3. Need to clean out belly pan under the black tank from a small seepage (How to do this without removing belly pan beats me).

Best of luck my friend. You are on your own here. May the force be with you.

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

4. Cutting out wood flooring in bath and gluing down vinyl if I can get more of it.

And now that I have officially hijacked your thread, I bid you adieu.

Regards to Amy and Colin!

[vswingfield]

Hey Steve,

What kind of AC do you have? I might be able to still dig up my old Coleman knobs. I can’t locate them right now, but I am unlikely to have thrown them away. I think.

[soldiermedic]

carrier air v low profile

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by soldiermedic

carrier air v low profile

Hi Steve,

Even better. See post #25. Call Kevin. I’ll bet he will take care of you.

[elolson]

Ahh, VSWINGFIELD, now that the heat of summer is upon us, would you mind giving us an update on the cooling power of that carrier you installed. Is it doing the job? I just spent another weekend in Globe, Az with temps about 101 and still think the dometic 15k I have is over rated by about a factor of 3.

Does the carrier cool all the rig or do you have to close off the back half at the bathroom/closet with the accordion separator to keep the front cool?

Hope all is well and looking forward to your post.

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by elolson

Ahh, VSWINGFIELD, now that the heat of summer is upon us, would you mind giving us an update on the cooling power of that carrier you installed. Is it doing the job? I just spent another weekend in Globe, Az with temps about 101 and still think the dometic 15k I have is over rated by about a factor of 3.

Does the carrier cool all the rig or do you have to close off the back half at the bathroom/closet with the accordion separator to keep the front cool?

Hope all is well and looking forward to your post.

Thanks, all is well.

The news is that in full sun, it gets mighty warm inside. As you know, 34' is a lot of trailer to cool on one unit. fr8shakr has two ACs on her 34' Airstream and that is superior. I still haven't had to completely close off the rear yet, but probably will when it gets over 100, and it will. I have been closing the vents on the AC that face rearward and running the bedroom vent. Even though the bedroom is oriented to the west, it stays as cool as the living area this way. My Excella does not have the wrap around windows in the bedroom so solar gain is minimized and insulation is superior.

My routine is to change immediately to shorts and a tank top when I get home. A couple of strategically placed fans make temps in the 80s comfortable since the humidity is lower inside. Think, Arkansas=Arizona sun+near Arizona temps+Louisiana humidity. You get the idea.

As soon as the sun goes down, it cools off immediately and is very pleasant. I had it set on the "low" fan speed and mid thermostat range last night and it was 66 inside this morning.

To sum it up, another AC would help. Even a smaller one would work for the bedroom area, but that is just not in the plan right now. I just had to buy a new refrigerator and am also in the process of replacing the carpet with cork. Cabinet and closet fronts are next. It's always something.

[elolson]

I hear you on the 34' is hard to cool in the sun and AR sounds like a peach of a place in the summer. We basically just have the solar gain and it is huge. 101 and I could not get the inside cool even with the back sealed off. I had all the awnings out but things did not calm down until the sun went down. Then it was real nice.

Well good (bad) to know that apparently it is not the brand of AC but the fact that the heat load is huge. I tell you that my 12k BTU (2phase) Friedrich window AC units work an order of magnitude better than the 15k Dometic in terms of air flow and cooling capacity. I just don't understand how they came up with the rating for the Dometic.

Interesting about the fridge as mine is doing some funky things here as of late. Does not want to cool while on LP. Yep checked the flame, it was present. It was working fine until I had it cleaned and serviced. It is their problem now. I always thought the LP side of a fridge was the most robust so I was sort of cornfused.

Stay cool. I have thought about rigging up a portable sun shade. My in-laws vend at fairs and such and they can throw up a full size tent in about 20 minutes that will take a 50 -70 mph microburst. Just getting the sun off the skin would make all the difference in the world and really open up the possibilities for rv-ing in the summer in some semblance of comfort in our latitude.

[Davis]

Hi Elolson,
I to have been plagued by the cooling factor of the 34ft trailer and I still have my original dometic 13.5k btu A/C which is 17 years old.I have pondered installing a 15k unit but I did not know if it would help or not since my unit will produce 55 deg air at the vents but it is not able to distribute it fast enough to overcome the heat so I am using two small fans one in front and rear which helps to circulate the air and keeps the temps down to 82-84 deg inside while the outside temps are in the upper 90`s to a 100 deg. As stated earlier after the sun goes down cooling is much better. Good Luck

[elolson]

We are kind of hijacking Vaughn's thread but that is kind of the theme. He did a real nice job on the install and I was curious if that model performed better than the Dometic 15k that I have and it does not sound like it. I have not noticed a huge difference in performance over the 13.5K unit I used to have until I scraped it off going under a low clearance bar. I do get a lot more breaker trips with the 15k unit and had to buy an autotransformer. The 13.5 unit almost never tripped.

A lot of the older parks I stay at are 30amp. The newer units come pre-wired to make a second AC installation easy, true that you can't run both at once, but you can cool the bedroom which is critical for most of us. Turns out that my unit does not have that, I'd have to do something different which is discussed in a post under excellas. Inland Andy had some good options, I just have not taken the leap yet as I do get good use out of the fantastic fan for most of the rest of the year. Thus the tradeoff, spend thousands for cool during a few months and make it less desirable for the other 6mo of the year (summer lasts 6mo in this part of the country).

The solution is to get the sun off the surface.

[vswingfield]

Not hijacking at all. Once the initial install was documented, the overall performance becomes the useful information on this thread. To get a good comparison between elolson's Dometic and my Carrier, we would probably have to park the trailers side by side and run back an forth all day. (Not the worst idea I have ever heard, but would certainly require refreshment during the tests )

I can say that I notice an improvement over the 13.5 Carrier that it replaced. The Carrier on the Trade Wind performed about the same as the one on the Excella. I wouldn't necessarily say that I would replace a perfectly good AC just for the slight upgrade in capacity, but it's a no-brainer if you need a new unit.

The only trouble I have had with breaker trips were due to power cord problems, see finalcutjoe's thread http://www.airforums.com/forums/f37/...ord-42108.html. I have also replaced the breakers, they were 25 years old after all. I am parked till I can get a 3/4 ton TV, so I haven't been to any campgrounds with it. I am living in it and doing some remodeling in anticapitation of future travels.

[bilby05]

Staying cool is a struggle. We added silver window tint to our 69' Sovereign, a 5k window unit over the kitchen sink and run a small fan to move it all around. Still if the outside temperature is over 90 and the sun is shining on the roof it can't keep up. The roof unit is only about 6 years old, but hail squashed most of the metal fins, before we got it. So it's capacity is diminished, but then, so is mine.:-) I too am considering some kind of portable shade device, since campgrounds can't seem to guarantee a shady spot. I have also considered painting the top of the AS white, but opinions vary on the effectiveness of that. Do SOB's have this same problem? Maybe I should ask some of them? They just don't seem as friendly as Air Streamers. But then I have been told I don't play well with "others."
cheers, bill b.

[vswingfield]

Hi bill b,

Aria posted photos of a cover from Harbor Freight on this thread http://www.airforums.com/forums/f458...tml#post589155. I will consider one, or more, of these myself.