Air Conditioning
AHHHH! Creature comforts…..and living in Texas commands that one has air conditioning. It’s a MUST! It gets really hot here no matter what part of the state you’re in (well Ft. Davis is nice…but it still gets hot there…maybe not as much as Pecos or Laredo though). The joke about this is…”when Texans go to hell…they take blankets”!
So when I bought my Trailmanor, I was really glad that it had air conditioning and that it was in good working order (oh yes that was one of the first things I asked about it when I first talked to the folks at Spillmans Auto Parts in Bloomfield Iowa). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have purchased it.
It was a Coleman Mach AC and blew wonderful cold air. It kept my trailer very comfortable even on the hottest of days no matter where we were. The only problem with this unit was THE NOISE! A person who goes by the name of Padget on The Trailmanor Owners Forum describes his Coleman as having two speeds, high and ludicrous! Yes it does have two speed, but both are very loud. So much so that to hear the television you would have to really crank it up…and forget having a conversation at a normal decibel level…you’d have to almost shout. This is the price you pay to be comfortable with that Coleman. I don’t know why they are so loud…I’ve heard other AC’s in RVs that were a lot quieter. This bothered us both and so we decided that the RUMBLING WHOOSE-A-MATIC had to go.
I started looking and doing some research on the different brands and models of RV ACs to try and find the quietest one made. Amazon is always a good place to look first because of the reviews of the products they sell by the folks that actually use them. So deducting from what a lot of people said on Amazon, it steered me to good ole youtube where the story becomes clear. What I found out was the Atwood AC was the quietest one out there. It was compared to all the major brands by folks who replaced their units with the Atwood. They all pretty much said the same thing…It’s twice as quiet as my old WXYZ brand unit. This is what I was looking for…a comparison to the Dometics, Advents, Colemans, etc….and not just the make but the different models made by these manufacturers as well.
That did it…the Atwood won out. What I needed to know next was were there any people on the Forum that had any experience with the Atwood….and so I asked and my reply was……NOTHING! No one there had ever exchanged there AC for the Atwood. RATZ! So with a huge leap of faith, I blazed new trails for the Trailmanor folks once again. I went ahead and bought one and being “Mr. Overkill” I got the biggest bad boy that they make. It didn’t cost very much more than the basic unit (13.5K btu) and I got the 15K btu unit that has a heat pump as standard equipment. So not only does it cool, it heats as well. Plus it wasn’t any larger than the 13.5K model either.
There are several things that I liked about the Atwood over the competitors units. These include having two separate motors, one for the blower and the other for the condenser. That way if you’re running the unit’ blower on low, the condenser doesn’t suffer and always has the proper cooling for it. So one doesn’t affect the other and vice versa. Next I liked the fact that it has a remote control, so I can control it from anywhere in my trailer. It also has a dehumidifier setting to suck out the moisture in cold weather. It has a heat pump (something my old Coleman didn’t have) so if it’s not down to freezing, I’ll not have to crank up the furnace and burn propane. But best of all…it’s really quiet and blows super cold air! So all in all, this is a good investment. I did learn that Atwood is owned by Dometic now. They bought out Atwood about the second week in June 2016. So before I purchased my Atwood, I got in touch with Dometic as I was concerned that they would shut them down and discontinue the Atwood AC line making parts impossible to find. However, Dometic answered this with the assurance that the Atwood line would continue and that they had no intention of canceling this product line. Why should they…the Atwood blows away the Dometic air conditioners (no pun intended) when it comes to performance. Nothing like being in competition with yourself eh? So I got mine (one of the last two they had at the time) from PPL Motorhomes and was told that they are on back order now and they a lot of folks want these…I can’t blame em for that! I guess I got lucky!
The install was easy. It was like the Atwood was made to replace the Coleman, being a perfect fit. As it turns out, the Atwood is almost 20 lbs. lighter than the old Coleman and when you look you’ll see that the Atwood has a smaller footprint too (image 2056). Being lighter made opening the front shell much easier…especially by myself! On the inside it fit perfectly in the recessed space where the Coleman once was (image 2041). Taking out the Coleman was a snap accept for two things…the bolts were so rusted that only two of them would unscrew all the way. The other two unscrewed enough so I could use my electric carbon wheel cut off tool to cut the heads off the rusted bolts so it was easy to move it after that. So to remove the Coleman here’s what you do:
Turn off (unplug) the shore power.
Make sure the AC breaker is turned off.
Undo the two screw heads that hold the filters in place and remove the filters
Once that is done, look for four screws that have springs on them and remove these. The plenum (air distribution panel) will now drop down to expose the main bolts.
Disconnect the wires to the control box (fan motor and thermostat).
There is a box that contains the electrical wires. Go in there and cut the wires or untwist the wire nuts to remove these.
Now unbolt the four main bolts (one in each corner) and the AC will be free to move around
The second hard part….is getting the old Coleman down from the roof. Make sure you put down a piece of 4×8 plywood sheet on the roof where you will be working to remove the old AC. This takes TWO people (unless you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Once you have the Coleman down you basically do the removal in reverse. I have included photos of the installation manual (images 2047 – 2055). Have a look. The only part that is a bit tricky is the install of the extension duct (image 2050). The Coleman does not have an extension duct. But the Atwood needs to have one. It goes between the “adapter”(which screws onto the bottom of the A/C unit) and the “brace assembly” (image 2047, 2048) that mounts on the cieling and screws into the A/C unit’s bottom. The duct that is provided with the unit is too long for most installs and will need to be cut. A chart is also provided giving cieling thickness and therefore how much one will need to be cut off to make the extension duct the right length. I found that in my case with the cieling thickness of 1″, plus the recess gap, that the extension duct should be around 2 1/4 “s long. So this is how long I cut the extension duct. If you cut it too short, don’t worry. They give you enough duct for several attempts.
The Atwood has a swing down panel where the controls are and it doesn’t have to be in the down position to work (image 2042). The output vents are on each end and blow in opposite directions and fit perfectly into where the old Coleman AC went. The air flow is not restricted in any way and blows very nicely (image 2043, 2045) just like the Coleman did. The ONLY con to the Atwood (and it’s not that big a deal) are the filters. They slide out from the side of the plenum (image 2049). But in the case of the Trailmanor, there is not room for this operation (image 2044) because the plenum fits so snuggly in the recess where it goes that you can’t pull the filters out sideways. So to clean the filters, I’ll (you’ll) have to unscrew the plenums four screws that hold it up to the ceiling. Luckily the Atwood has a blue suspension cord that keeps it from dropping to the floor when it is loosened (image 2053).
It may not be a perfect world…but it sure is a quiet one now!