AC not cooling

[Leons_Bad_Side]

I seem to be having an issue with my ac unit. During the day it is not keeping up. Overnight it can but then as the day goes on i find it running continuously and not lowering the temp at all.

[Leons_Bad_Side]

Should the core be cool or cold to the touch?

[CWSWine]

What I was told there should be 20 degree difference between the AC intake vents and the exiting vents. I was also told it was a difference between outside air and temp inside but that been debunked by several different service tech.

[Leons_Bad_Side]

Sorry if I have mostly only complained on this forum. I love my rv, its our very first one ever and we love it. A lot of things to learn and believe me we are learning them. Ive tried everything I can think of with this ac. Cleaned the intake filter, opened the dump vents, closed them partially, closed them completely, opened bathroom and bedroom doors to make sure air was able to circulate everywhere. Again same thing while at night and early in the morning it gets quite frigid by 11 or so the temp starts creeping up and soon is no better than the outside temperature. We weren't anywhere like Az or Nv or anything like that, basically in the foothills of the Smokeys. Also not sure how anyone could determine or state that it was whisper quiet.

[TucsonJim]

Pete & Betty - first of all, we don't find asking questions and trying to understand things as "complaining". Many new owners experience some issues that need to be resolved and understood.

You may have an issue with your AC that several of us experienced a year or two ago. Let me try to explain so you can check it out without having to go back to the dealer. On your AC unit, warm return air enters one side of the unit, is cooled by the AC and discharged out the other side of the unit. The sensor that tells the compressor it's too warm and to kick on is in the return side. There is a panel (baffle) between the two sides. If that panel slips and lets cold air spill over into the warm air return, it will trick the sensor into thinking the room is already cool and the compressor will shut off. The compressor will only work in very short cycles, and the fan will not blow cold air long enough to keep the temperature down. It's pretty simple to fix it. Remove the screws that hold the air duct in the ceiling. Locate the panel, and see if there are any gaps around it or if it has moved. If so, position it straight up and down, and seal the gaps with duct tape. I'm including pictures of mine so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.


On my unit, the panel had tilted over and was allowing cold air to spill over into the return air side. This fooled the AC into thinking the RV was already cooled down.


I repositioned the panel and sealed the edges with duct tape to prevent it from moving again.

Have you put a thermometer in one of the vents and measured the temperature?

Jim

[TucsonJim]

Another check you can perform is to place a thermometer in one of the vents and see what the temperature is. I just went out to our rig and turned on the living room AC. The air inside the rig is 84 degrees. After running for five minutes, I measured the temperature in one of the bedroom AC vents as 57 degrees. I used a digital meat thermometer to make the reading. If you're not running down to at least 60-62 degrees in the vent, you might have the problem I discussed above, or a more complex AC problem that will have to be checked out.

[Leons_Bad_Side]

Thanks very much jim for the info and idea, ill check it out. Haven't tried to measure temp yet with thermometer, didn't have one with us on the trip.

[Leons_Bad_Side]

Do you get good flow out of all vents? Knowing that the vents are on a race track type system I would imagine that the flow could be better at the beginning of the track and possibly lacking around the end of the loop.

[Leons_Bad_Side]

Just went back and searched the forum and found your original post. Ill get better at searching rather than starting a new thread. Now does the compressor run off of the sensor in the intake, and the fan run off the thermostat temp?

[TucsonJim]

Pete - Before getting into the technical details, do you have an Atwood AC unit?