Strange Air Conditioner issue

[Landrum]

We are on our first long trip in an AS and our maiden voyage in our new 25fb. We had run the AC several days without any issues and condensate drained as it should. We also always turn the fan on low at night for noise and air movement (we did this in our old AS as well without any problems) One night a rain came through followed by a drop in temperature. We didn't need air, but we again ran the fan. I woke up in the middle of night and heard strange sound. When I turned the fan off to hear better a fair amount of water poured out of AC onto floor. My theory is the fan circulated moist interior air through the AC which had cool parts due to outside temp and water condensed inside AC. The fan caused air pressure which held the water in the unit until I turned it off which let the water fall to the floor. Does this make sense?

After this event the compressor wouldn't work for 24 hours, but the fan would work. After running the fan several hours it has started working again. My theory on this is something inside was wet and once dried by the fan allowed the compressor to work??




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[ShinyPete]

We had nearly the same thing happen to us last week at our summer site. Very hot, Airstream sun exposed for five or six hours late day and unit ran very steadily. I decided to leave the fan run overnight for noise and I heard water dripping onto the floor. The only thing I could come up with was that our filters were slightly dirty like fuzz in the dryer screen. I cleaned them but I haven't left fan running since , In auto fan mode all is well since then.


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[dznf0g]

Water is definitely held back while fan is running. This is evidenced by watching the drain tube when the A/C shuts off during normal operation. There is a gush of water that comes out the tube after the fan shuts off.

When I had water dripping from my filter during normal high humidity operation, I noted that the trough that the drain hose connects to (up under the A/C lower cover) had a gap between the top plastic rim and the sheet metal above it. It appeared to me that the trough should be sealed to the sheet metal so air turbulence wouldn't beat the water in the trough so much. I used Tempro to seal the gap and have had no further issue. Might help here????

[scamp]

I also had water come in from the a.c but I was just washing the trailer and directed some water at the road side a.c. Cover and then notice water dripping from a.c inside trailer I removed the cover inside to inspect and noticed I could see a intentional (normal )opening to outside that was covered by outside cover ,maybe with the rain on yours the night before if it was raining hard and blowing on a angle from the road side of trailer the water came in this way!

[Landrum]

Well...... We had two big storms without any leaks then a couple of dry days before the leak. That leads me to believe my leak wasn't rain water. Very strange.......


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[rodsterinfl]

I woke up in the middle of night and heard strange sound. When I turned the fan off to hear better a fair amount of water poured out of AC onto floor. My theory is the fan circulated moist interior air through the AC which had cool parts due to outside temp and water condensed inside AC. The fan caused air pressure which held the water in the unit until I turned it off which let the water fall to the floor. Does this make sense?

Landrum,

I have a different hypothesis because I have had the same thing happen doing the same thing you did- turning the fan on low at night. I heard an odd noise about 5 in the morning and turned the AC off. It had not rained the night before but the humidity was high outside. Water came out of the unit onto the floor. I discovered that the unit had frozen up due to the lower fan speed circulation through the coil. I have never had the trouble since running the fan at higher speeds- even during the remaining camp days immediately following the freeze up. There are others on here who have posted of this same scenario, one while visiting FL in the humidity. This can be caused by dirty filters but either way is is all about air circulation within the unit. My bet is that you do not have a leak.

[Landrum]

Well the same exact thing happened to us again this weekend. It rained then cooled off, so we had high humidity and temps in upper 40's. We left fan on med all night for white noise (using heat pump for heat). About 3am I woke up to the sound of water pouring onto floor. We use to run our fan on low, but since this happened in June and it was mentioned our unit could be freezing up we have being running the fan on medium. I pulled the interior shroud and the interior of the AC was covered in water droplets. The compressor wouldn't come back on until this afternoon (but the fan would run). I assume some connector or electronic component had to dry before it would work (same exact thing that happened to us in June). I'm convinced it is condensation of warm interior air on the cold AC unit.
What I don't understand is why this never happened on our 2011 23fb?? Did we just get lucky?
Are the newer AC units not insulated?? Maybe the old units weren't either , but we have always run our fan on low all night for white noise without issue.
I'm going to try to speak with someone at Dometic about this issue, but I'm not very optimistic I will get any answers.



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[Goal15]

I think these are cases of the AC unit coils freezing because of the high humidity. Had this happen to me once on the coast while coming at the beach and a second time when camping in July during a hot rainy weekend. Lots of condensation dripping from AC inside AS and literally no cold air. The solution, learned here on the Forums, turn it off for 30 minutes to an hour so that the ice melts. Since doing that, when camped in high humidity, no repeat issues.

Dana


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[Landrum]

I'm not sure....... In my case everything in the AC on the return side is covered in water, but I didn't notice any water on the coils. I even reached up to see if I could feel water in what I think is a pan under the coils and no water.


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[rodsterinfl]

Common down here. You have to keep lots of circulation in higher humidity. Just opt for more white noise and you should be fine. I bet your air was also not cooled at night when you noticed it but rather stuffy humid.

[Landrum]

Both times this has happened I was using the heat pump. Since it's in HP mode the evaporator (inside) would be warm and the condenser (outside) would be cold. If anything freezes wouldn't it be the condenser and this wouldn't explain all the water inside on the return air side of the evaporator.

I found a sales brochure for the Dometic penguin that specifically mentions the insulated evaporator housing. I'm wondering if my insulation is missing which is why water is condensing on the inside of the housing?


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[bigsean]

This has happened to us too, we get pretty warm and humid down this way (Texas) we found that if we run the fan on high when the a/c is on it eliminated the problem.

[bike_addict]

Well this caught up to me this weekend. I remember this being a constant conversation on the forums a couple years ago after I bought mine. We've always avoided camping in the hot summer. It's Texas so we stick to October to May usually.

Well this weekend was actually the first time we have ever camped when it was hot enough that we never shut the a/c off.

We had the a/c on high all weekend. Never changed it. Had temp set at 60. It ran fine Friday and Saturday. Did its best to keep it decent during the day and cooled off in the 60s at night.

We had rain come in Saturday night. A/C was still running nonstop. Got woke up middle of the night last night because power went out. As soon as the power went out the a/c rained. Not leaked but rained out of every hole. Thats the first time it had stopped since the rain started.

My wife turned it off briefly Friday and Saturday afternoon to use the hair dryer. The campground electrical couldn't handle both. No water either of those times.

But once it started raining and I'm assuming the condensate built up it poured once the air was turned off.

So I dried off the ground and the unit ran without a problem. In the morning I turned the unit off to see what it would do and once again it poured water.

Now I need to figure out the fix. I don't think it was rain water. I remember plenty of posts in here from people with similar units like mine from similar years. All with the same problem. They were sending videos of it to warranty to get them to fix it. I need to spend some time trying to find it on here to see if I can find the fix. Anyone remember?

Something about pressure building in the drain line so it held instead of flowing out.

I'm also definitely not completely sure the science behind condensation.

[BassCan]

This happen to us in our new 2014 EB from day one when we used the AC during high humidity days.
We live in Lower Alabama, there is no other type of humidity here but high humidity.
Took it in under warenty to Foley Airstream, they did a great job and so far no further issues with water pouring out when we shut the AC off.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

[bike_addict]

BassCan, do you know what they did to fix it?

[BassCan]

They said it was not the drainage tubes being plugged. But "resealed" both air conditioners. Not sure what that involved. But no dumping of water so far.