The Countdown Has Begun & A Hiccup

Only a few more days until we leave for our 16 day trip to the Ozark Mountains.  We pulled the 5th wheel around, hooked it up and the A/C isn't getting cold!  Now I know it's hot here in Florida and the temps are hitting 100+ degrees but the coolest the camper is getting is 83 degrees!

What are our options?  It being a holiday weekend we have to wait until Tuesday to call a mobile repair to look at the Air Conditioner.  In the meantime we drove to Orlando to borrow a portable air conditioner.  After hooking it up and venting it out the living room window I realize that this wasn't going to be an option of us.  It took up way too much room and it didn't cool as good as I thought/hoped it would.  This unit was rated to cool 300sqft and our camper is only 178sqft.  But it only cooled about 5 feet around it..............? Not what I was thinking!

After a long weekend of watching YouTube videos and Googling every possible scenario I could think of Dear Hubby decided to do a process of elimination on finding the trouble.  The air blowing out of the vent was 57 degrees but the camper never cooled below  83 degrees, where was all this cold air going?  We could hear the compressor kick on but if we turned the fan to Auto it would shut off even if the temperature was 85 degrees. 

We made sure the coils on the roof were clean, the inside filter was clean and the inside coils were clean.  We shut all the cargo doors, started the air cooling early in the morning, and kept all the blinds closed.  But still the temperature never got below 83 degrees. 

Finally Dear Hubby thought that it must be either the thermostat on the wall or the junction box in the unit.  He started with the thermostat and luckily our local RV repair/sales store had an analog thermostat in stock. 

Analog thermostat

There were 7 wires and all were color coded and the switch was easy.  Within about an hour the camper was cooling down to below 80 degrees.  By late evening the camper was down to 77 degrees!  Turning the fan to Auto we could hear it cycling on and off and when we checked on the camper early the next morning the temperature was a cool 73 degrees!  That is more like it!

Such a relief knowing that we won't be sweating during the night and that the sweet puppies would be cool if we left them to sight see during the day.

I'm so happy that the fix was under $100 and we are ready for our vacation in 3 more days!

Until next time...............

Bonnie