Hard to believe but it will get warm again

With the winter being so cold for so many people and people writing so many threads about water lines freezing, an air conditioning question seems inappropriate. However, this summer I will be in the southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas area with only 30 amp service.

So.... the issue of adequately cooling the rig comes back to mind. I don't want to revisit all the old threads and talk about making the A/C "tents" and all the clever workarounds that we have all used with varying degrees of success. We've beat that horse to death many times. I guess, what I'm still trying to get a handle on is what is different about a lot of these Heartland systems that makes all those workarounds necessary? As far as I know, this problem seems to be unique to Heartland. Is there something about the design of the ductwork? Is it primarily caused by poor design of the air exchange system where so many of us have built the A/C tents to try to properly divert the air? And more importantly, does anyone know if all of our previous threads have led to any design changes from Heartland? At the very least, I would have thought that they could have come up with an aftermarket installable diverter to get cold air properly into each side of the ductwork. Maybe do a better job of sealing up the insides so that the cold air does not leak back into the warm air side.

Anyway, if anyone wants to stop talking about the cold for awhile and can chime in, I'd like to hear about it.

Pete

The problem might be fixed by now. In our 2010 Landmark we were able to stay cool last summer in TX with everyday hitting 103-105*F. Most of the time we only used the main A/C with the main vent down draft vent open, so we were not using the ducts. When we would sleep we would turn on the bedroom unit and run the fan on low or med and the compressor would cycle on and off every 10 minutes or so. The main would only cycle off in the middle of the night.

When we do use the duct we get good air flow out all the vents and we do not have a "tent" in the vent.

Now we did have 50 amp service and I'm sure at times we were using close to every bit of it, 2 A/C and the convection oven, water heater, and TV. You will have to be careful with only 30 amps.

Prior to owning our Landmark we had an Alfa Gold. While using the air conditioning we could never ever get the bedroom cool until the evening after sundown. Even then if the night time temperature was high it still would not cool the bedroom. The Alfa had a basement air conditioning unit which actually was a heat pump and was a single unit with 2 compressors. So on 30 amp only one compressor would work and on 50 amp both would work.

I guess what I am trying to say is the AC issue is not just limited to Heartland. Start looking at RVs and you will see many only have one unit and lately I have been seeing more and more high end units (MH) having 3 AC units. Hope this sheds some light on this issue.

We also have an 08' Bighorn, and we've never had a problem with the venting of the A/C...but we do have a second unit. If you only have one unit, all the "vent repairs" in the universe aren't going to help with excessive heat.

As for improvements...yes, Heartland now has rigid ductwork incorporated into the laminated ceilings that they use on the Landmarks and Bighorns. Haven't heard of anyone having vent problems in the newer units....

I see that everyone here has a problem with the bedroom not cooling properly.
Look where the bedroom is situated, its 3 feet higher then the rest of the RV ceilings. The return air for the A/C is 3 feet lower then the bedroom. Warm air goes up so it gets trapped in the 3 ft section while the cold air from the ducts travels down to floor level.
When we put the A/C on I always open the bedroom vent, to vent out the warm air, because its the only method of cooling the bedroom.
Having a smaller unit in the bedroom vent area would surely be my solution to cool this air off, and the same time run it when the amperage is at a premium.
i always installed A/C units high up when I installed them in the mill control rooms with 105F, 100% humidity condition in the mill areas.

Thanks guys. Again, I don't intend to rehash this because I submitted a long involved thread on this last summer. However, my issue was in the main part of the coach and all it took is for the ambient temp to start climbing over the low 80's and the temperature in the coach started climbing to uncomfortable levels. The bedroom was actually cooler. The problem seemed to be airflow since none of the ducts seemed to be blowing much air. I have tried to seal up the inside of that compartment. I have put a good number of hours trying to rig up the tent. At this point I don't know where I left it because I ran out of hot days last summer before I fully resolved the issue. I do have a separate bedroom unit but with 30 amp service, that doesn't help. Anyway, maybe I am closer to having it work right than I think. However, if it is where it was last summer I could have some interesting days in the Oklahoma sun.