Alpha 5er

[KENNY]

Doe's anyone know how to cool an Alpha fifth wheel? My AC won't put out below 78 degrees. For a rig that cost this much it should cool down. Any ideas. Thanks Ken

 

[billr]

You didn't give the year of the 5'ver but I would guess it has a thermostat that can be set lower than 78 degrees.

 

[roadranger]

Originally posted by KENNY

Doe's anyone know how to cool an Alpha fifth wheel? My AC won't put out below 78 degrees. For a rig that cost this much it should cool down. Any ideas. Thanks Ken

Sounds like you need a refrigerant recharge.

That A/C should put out around the 56 deg. range.

 

[KENNY]

Alpha

It's a 2000 model 31rlik. Its been back to the factory once. They said it was wired wrong? Anyway It still should have more of a temp. deference the 15 degrees. My home is 1700 sq. ft. and uses a 36000 btu ac and it cools the whole house, and thats with 120 deg. plus. I just hope some has an idea. Thanks

 

[Bob Wagner]

Re: Re: Alpha 5er

Originally posted by roadranger





Sounds like you need a refrigerant recharge.

That A/C should put out around the 56 deg. range.

From what I heard most RV air conditioners can not be recharged,

Sounds more like a wiring problem.

 

[Wolfgang]

I have been told that in RV's with one AC you can not expect more than a 10 to 15 degree difference from the inside air to the outside air. My two previous RV's had this same problem (Jayco 5th wheel and Wilderness 5th wheel) I now have a new Montana and have not been in heat yet to see out it does. They have told me it has something to do with the air conditioner being exposed to the outside heat on the top of the trailer. I don't really know

 

[Mingoglia]

I don' t think it's as much the A/C unit as it is the poor insulation in RVs. Rvs only have so thick of walls and therefore can only hold so much insulation. Also, relative to your house, an RV has a much higher percentage of windows. By this I mean take the square footage of the walls and then calculate how much of this is taken by windows... RVs typically have R-7 rated insulation in the walls and usually in the ceilings also. Roofs that are made to walk on (and therefore thicker) can have a slightly higher rating (R-12 I believe). With RV A/C you can't compare the BTU/square footage to a house which is so much better insulated. You're fighting a losing battle in the extreme heat. To fight this battle, in my 26ft trailer I have 2 A/C units. I live in Phoenix and can't sleep when it's hot. I had a seperate A/C unit installed right above the master bedroom specifically for the nights in the summer I might spend at the lake. It can be 100+ degrees and I can hang meet within 10 minutes in our front bedroom... very nice.

 

[Pogodually]

I could cool my 39 foot Hitchhiker, with 2 slides, with one A/C in hot Texas summers. Only problem I had when it would not cool is when the A/C coils were dirty. Remove the cover, take a water house and wash the coils from both directions. This cleaning method sure solved any cooling issue or problems I had. Should do this at least yearly.

 

[billr]

The Alpha trailers are some of the best on the market and your 2000 should still be under warranty. My air conditioner froze up in use in Mesa AZ this spring and I would have to shut it down and let it thaw out for about an hour. When started up again it would spit ice chunks at us for awhile. Dealer said it may be overcharged and I took it in for repair. Company that made the unit said to just replace with a new one. I'm thinking what was said about not being able to recharge could be accurate. Hope you get it fixed, it's warming up out there.

 

[Driftwood Ram]

Kenny:

I would call Alfa again. You are still under the 5 year warranty. I assume you are running the ceiling fan when you are running the a/c and have cleaned the filter. Living up where we do the a/c does not get a lot of use so I do not have any real life experiences with hot tempatures to compare. Good luck.

 

[RoryTek]

Hey Kenny, just make sure that your heat strip is not comming on, if your unit has one.

 

[KENNY]

Alpha ac

Wolfgang, the 15 degree deference in temp. is at the return filter and the floor vents. As for the insulation, it's R-20 ceiling and floor and R-8 (I think) in the walls. I don't have the slide out roof cover yet, does anyone know if this is worth the money? I will be cleaning the coils when I get back to the river. Thanks.

 

[Archive]

The Alfa has a basement A/C located under the trailer... It shouldn't be subject to roof heat, etc. I believe the Alfa is rated at 27,000BTU while most others are rated at 15,000.



I agree with several of the other folks... . take it back to the dealer.



You should have one of the best A/C's on the market and they should make it run that way.



I had a roof top Coleman on a Teton before and it would get the coach cool, yours should work better.



Good Luck !

 

[Mingoglia]

I've noticed that many of the posts have come from people in cooler climates. I have found that cooling anything above 100 degrees tends to get exponentially more difficult. I have an electronic thermostat in my house here in Phoenix an I can monitor how long the A/C runs. It will run from about 30 minutes to 3 hours per day when it's between 80 and 95 degrees outside (approximate of course). When it gets to 110-112 degrees here, my inside A/C unit (in my house) will run for 15-16 hours. This shows you how much of a losing battle the A/C has to deal with in higher temps. In addition to heating the interior space, the A/C unit has to deal with the radiating heat off the walls. The heat just gets the better of the insulation... once the interior walls start to get warm it's all over. Just think of the walls as a radiant heater that puts out BTUs. One somewhat off the subject example is I'm currently at work working in one of our computer networking closets. It's 4ft wide and 11 feet long. I have a portable A/C unit in this closet to keep things cool (I just installed it Monday). I'm currently staring at the box and it says that it's rated for 8500BTU. According to the instruction manual, it can cool a 250 sq/ft room... my room is 44 sq/ft. I can barely keep it to a tolerable level in there w/out the main A/C on also... and this is in a 44sq/ft room! The air blowing out of it is cold as heck, but still not enough to fight the battle of dealing with the networking equipment's heat. In the main computer room, I have no problem keeping the room at 68 degrees during the fall/winter/spring months but in the summer time with the roof/walls baking I can't keep it below 80 degrees... big difference several degrees outside makes. Now try to relate this to RVs... An RV has far inferior insulation value compared to a home or office. Just imagine the losing battle it has to deal with.



In conclusion, I just wanted to point out the difference a few degrees can make when you're wondering why your A/C unit that your using in Imperial, CA isn't able to perform quite as well as someone who lives in Washington or even someone that visited Arizona in the spring time. I personally deal with it because the climate I live is similar to yours. I can run my 1 13,500 BTU A/C unit in my 26ft rig and keep it comfortable up until around 98-100 degrees, after that it seems like the interior temperature increments 1 degree for every 1 degree the outside temperature increases after 100 or so degrees. This is why I installed a second A/C unit. Your A/C unit is rated at a much higher BTU but it's a basement model. In my opinion, it takes a basement model more BTUs to cool a similar space. I don't know if it's because it has more complex air ducts, or because it may be hotter where it's stored, or because it doesn't have the air flow that a roof model has but I would say your larger basement model is probably equivelant to a 15k BTU roof mounted A/C unit. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had a basement unit. I just think that although you have a high BTU rated A/C unit, it probably performs similar to how mine does in the extreme heat with regards to the temperature it can maintain.



Oh, one more thing... Back to my interior walls generating BTUs theory... I have a generator in my rig. If I'm going on a trip in the summertime here in Phoenix I start my generator and get the A/C unit going before I start my trip so it has a chance to get a head start. Since I leave in the morning, the whole rig hasn't had a chance to get crazy hot yet (I just made up a new term). Also, if I think I'm going to camp by the lake in the summertime, I bring my rig to the house, plug in, and get the A/C going the evening before... then I start up my generator, turn back on the A/C and head down to the lake. You don't want to start off a trip in 100 degree plus weather without first getting the core temp of your rig down well before you start to camp or else your rig will be hot as heck for several hours.



All this of course is IMHO.