Dreiha Atmos 4.4 Home Install

[Steve Morris]

5 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Very quiet, very efficient and runs at 10A on 120VAC compared to 16A or greater for Penguin and Truma,

You keep repeating this, but I have no idea where you're getting this information. I don't watch my Amp draw constantly, but every time I have looked, the whole trailer has never shown more than 8-10 Amps, and that includes anything else that is running. I don't have a 30A receptacle at home, and need to run my trailer on a 20A circuit breaker though a 50 foot 10 gauge extension cord. So I typically set the grid draw on the Xantrax to 12A when at home, and have had zero problems.

Truma's rated load on the compressor is 8.8A, and the fan at 2.9A, so that maximum is should ever pull is 11.7

[jd1923]

20 minutes ago, Steve Morris said:

You keep repeating this, but I have no idea where you're getting this information.

I'm sorry Steve, maybe I'm wrong re Truma, but remember somebody writing a 15A number on this forum. It's hard to say with your setup plugged in. How many amps are being supplied by shore power and is it being supplemented by your Xantrex? Have you ever run it inverter/LiFePO4 only and measured amps from start-up to cool on a hot day?

Just looked and Truma advertises 12A on high with an asterisk which states 95F external temp and 80F thermostat setting. This likely means 12A to maintain 80F with fan high. It's not like turning the air on one afternoon when it's 98F outside, 92F inside and you want to get it down to 76F. How many amps when full on compressor, high fan in harsh conditions? I did this test on our Dometic P2 and at started at 15A, then 16A and closer to 17A an hour later when the unit got hot from working hard.

Truma is not a viable option for me and many owners who want to replace the Dometic Penguin II. They do not sell to the aftermarket, so given OEM installation, time and travel expenses puts total costs far out of reach for me and many others.

[Geronimo John]

On 3/4/2025 at 2:03 PM, jd1923 said:

I did this test on our Dometic P2 and at started at 15A, then 16A and closer to 17A an hour later when the unit got hot from working hard.

Interesting distinction with regard to the Truma A/C.  I am used to seeing a MFG posting a maximum current and sometimes a circuit breaker recommendation.  But not a amp rating that is qualified at just one set of interior/exterior run temperatures.  I can understand from a liability basis why they would do so.  But it really makes their info a lot less reliable for our real world operating conditions.  

[Geronimo John]

On 3/4/2025 at 12:53 PM, Steve Morris said:

need to run my trailer on a 20A circuit breaker though a 50 foot 10 gauge extension cord. So I typically set the grid draw on the Xantrax to 12A when at home, and have had zero problems.

Truma's rated load on the compressor is 8.8A, and the fan at 2.9A, so that maximum is should ever pull is 11.7

Steve:  So I better understand: 

Does your Xantrax 12A limit apply to the shore power into your trailer?  If so, why do you choose not to use a setting of or approaching 16 amps that a 20 amp circuit is rated to carry continuously??

Thanks

GJ  

   

[Steve Morris]

9 hours ago, Geronimo John said:

Does your Xantrax 12A limit apply to the shore power into your trailer?  If so, why do you choose not to use a setting of or approaching 16 amps that a 20 amp circuit is rated to carry continuously??

   

My house, built in 1976 with apparently no building codes observed, is severely under-powered and under-wired. It is an all-electric home with a heat pump for heating/cooling, and only has 150A service. The entire garage is on one 20A breaker, with two wall outlets, one ceiling outlet, and two ceiling light sockets (one of which has a screw-in outlet for four LED shop lamps.)

There are way too many continuous and/or intermittent loads on that one 20A breaker: the aforementioned LED shop lights, garage door opener, 40 year old chest freezer, dorm fridge, stationary air compressor, 3-4 Battery Tender Juniors, the Oliver, an extension cord to my truck to run the fridge/freezer at home, a buried extension cord to an outdoor weather station and security camera, occasional woodworking tools, two Makita 2-slot battery chargers, a Bose Wave radio w/Raspberry Pi attached, cable TV signal booster, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

So, I keep the Xantrax set low to limit how much it draws from the house. The only loads are the fridge, battery charger, parasitic loads, and occasionally the AC. The vast majority of the time the trailer isn't plugged in to the house at all. The batteries can handle any typical loads, and even AC if I'm not using it continuously.

Edited March 9 by Steve Morris

[jd1923]

6 hours ago, Steve Morris said:

The entire garage is on one 20A breaker, with two wall outlets…

Steve, you should add an electrical sub-panel for your garage. You can replace the 20A double breaker with a 60A. Run 8 AWG wire from there to an inexpensive 60A panel. Buy a panel kit that includes some 15A or 20A breakers.

Try to separate the wiring to freezer, etc. to separate breakers in the new panel wherever possible. You could add a 30A breaker and a 30A RV outlet on an outer garage wall. You have 150A service, so this is possible for about $200 at the Depot.

I’ve added sub-panels for 2 outbuildings, our spa, and one in the kitchen so that we can have the fridge, microwave and air-fryer all on separate 20A breakers.

You can bring your home out of the 70s. Ours was built in 1980, but I learned in the 90s, on my first project, a 1943 farmhouse with a pole barn that needed power. One new sub-panel is a good weekend project after some good planning. Best wishes, JD

[Geronimo John]

Steve:

In a former home in Houston, I had only a 100 amp service.  My home electrical panel only had 12 beakers, but was not terribly old, just too small.  Same situation as yours in the garage.  We needed more breakers and a larger service to the house.

I  removed the small panel and installed a MUCH larger 42 breaker space panel, kept the main as 100 amps.

Moved the old panel to the garage and ran wires to it for a 100 amps garage sub service.

Called the power company and complained that every time I struck an arc on my Lincoln welder the lights dimmed in the house, our clocks needed to be reset, and the A/C system would shut off.  They sent out a service tech and he determined we needed a 200 amp service.  They wanting to sell more power cheerfully installed new overhead at no cost.

I then proceeded with construction of a 900 SF addition and a bunch of new wiring throughout the house.

GJ

[John Dorrer]

14 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Steve, you should add an electrical sub-panel for your garage. You can replace the 20A double breaker with a 60A. Run 8 AWG wire from there to an inexpensive 60A panel. Buy a panel kit that includes some 15A or 20A breakers.

Try to separate the wiring to freezer, etc. to separate breakers in the new panel wherever possible. You could add a 30A breaker and a 30A RV outlet on an outer garage wall. You have 150A service, so this is possible for about $200 at the Depot.

I’ve added sub-panels for 2 outbuildings, our spa, and one in the kitchen so that we can have the fridge, microwave and air-fryer all on separate 20A breakers.

You can bring your home out of the 70s. Ours was built in 1980, but I learned in the 90s, on my first project, a 1943 farmhouse with a pole barn that needed power. One new sub-panel is a good weekend project after some good planning. Best wishes, JD

About 8 years ago I had an electrician add a 30amp box next to the fuse/breaker panel, and wire a dedicated switch on the panel box. Kinda like plugging into the shore power post and flipping the breaker

 He also added 2 twin 120 plugs, each pair with a breaker in the box. Been very handy.

[Ronbrink]

On 3/9/2025 at 12:35 AM, jd1923 said:

Steve, you should add an electrical sub-panel for your garage.

That’s what I did, self installed a 30A for the Oliver and 50A for my Son’s RV when he visited.

[MAX Burner]

7 hours ago, Ronbrink said:

That’s what I did, self installed a 30A for the Oliver and 50A for my Son’s RV when he visited.

Same here, Ron - added the 30A outlet to the west side of the "man-cave" for visitors to use when here.  Our cave is energized with a 75A sub-panel that powers up the shop equipment as @jd1923 mentioned above.  The main panel is configured with 200A service, which is more than ample to meet our needs.  The 12.5kW whole house standby GENSET gets us by famously during power outages.  

So far, so good - no popping breakers.

[Galileo]

I love it when my head spins…

Im always a little gun-shy about digging into new or relatively new pieces of equipment. With my old beater cars and trucks, I’d be hard-pressed to screw them up worse than they are.

So - assuming I can figure out all the wiring (I think I can, I think in can!) the main concern I have is proper support if the outside part of the unit.

I THINK I read that @Ronbrink cut some piece of supplied foam in half, apparently doubled it up, and that supported the end of the unit. Did I read that right? I think I also understand that OTT changed the roof design at some point, so older/newer hulls need/don’t need additional effort to support the unit?

Once that issue is put to bed, the other is the thermostat. I really don’t care for the capacitive thermostat that came with our unit (“hate” is such an ugly word) so I’d like to just go with the remote that comes with the new A/C. I’d probably even install a more straightforward one to run the remaining furnace. (Unless/until I decide to replace THAT unit as well.)

[Galileo]

On 3/4/2025 at 4:53 PM, Steve Morris said:

I don't watch my Amp draw constantly, but every time I have looked, the whole trailer has never shown more than 8-10 Amps, and that includes anything else that is running.

I’m on the outside looking in here, so feel free to tell me to take a hike.

Pretty sure the “high” amperage figure(s) being tossed around are starting amps, not running amps.

We’ve had out trailer plugged in to a friend’s very old, very iffy 15/20 amp circuit with our stock 30 amp cable, a 30-20 amp adapter, and a 100’ 12 ga extension (yeah, not one of my prouder moments) and tried out the A/C (Dometic) JUST to see if it would work. We have the soft-start option. 

I watched the LED display on the power monitor, and it spiked at about 12-13 amps for a moment when the compressor kicked in, then settled down to about 6 amps or so and worked fine. The voltage stayed above about 114, so no serious concerns about frying things. 

That’s not a situation I’d feel comfortable running under for any length of time. More of just an experiment. 

The only time we’ve had the power monitor call things off and shut the whole show down was at a campground that swore they had good power, but my Multimeter said it was barely over 100v open circuit. 

BTW - I had one of those old Skil 77 work drive circular saws. It did NOT like running on that 100’ extension - even if it was 12ga. I now have a 10ga one - but sold the saw.

[jd1923]

2 hours ago, Galileo said:

I love it when my head spins…

Im always a little gun-shy about digging into new or relatively new pieces of equipment. With my old beater cars and trucks, I’d be hard-pressed to screw them up worse than they are.

So - assuming I can figure out all the wiring (I think I can, I think in can!) the main concern I have is proper support if the outside part of the unit.

I THINK I read that @Ronbrink cut some piece of supplied foam in half, apparently doubled it up, and that supported the end of the unit. Did I read that right? I think I also understand that OTT changed the roof design at some point, so older/newer hulls need/don’t need additional effort to support the unit?

Once that issue is put to bed, the other is the thermostat. I really don’t care for the capacitive thermostat that came with our unit (“hate” is such an ugly word) so I’d like to just go with the remote that comes with the new A/C. I’d probably even install a more straightforward one to run the remaining furnace. (Unless/until I decide to replace THAT unit as well.)

Val, if I was you and wanted this upgrade…

Given you’re a full timer and travel frequently to Chicago, why not go to the supplier SDG in Elkhart and have them install it?

I’m too far away and with rising costs, have to save the money by installing it myself. Also like Ron, I have all the time needed to do the install, leave things half done for a week or two and we have full workshops and tools. SDG would install in one day!

Mike @rideadeuce went to SDG as I’m suggesting. Search for ‘Atmos’ to find his post. Best wishes, JD

[rideadeuce]

SDG will get it done professionally, while you wait, in less than 2 hrs at their facility in Elkhart, IN. I think it is about $300. Well worth it. My Dad lives about 45 min from them, so it was an easy decision to do on our last visit. 

Edited March 11 by rideadeuce

[Tideline77]

56 minutes ago, rideadeuce said:

SDG will get it done professionally, while you wait, in less than 2 hrs at their facility in Elkhart, IN. I think it is about $300. Well worth it. My Dad lives about 45 min from them, so it was an easy decision to do on our last visit. 

Couple questions since I’m late to the game 

Can SDG reconcile the suburban furnace  thermostat function on the install

is SDG also a vendor for the Atmos ?

how much did the overhead clearance height change on the Oliver with the new unit vs the dometic ?

 

thanks for all the contributions for us rookies 

 

 

[Ronbrink]

17 hours ago, Galileo said:

I THINK I read that @Ronbrink cut some piece of supplied foam in half, apparently doubled it up, and that supported the end of the unit. Did I read that right? I think I also understand that OTT changed the roof design at some point, so older/newer hulls need/don’t need additional effort to support the unit?

My year model Oliver had a fiberglass landing that supported the aft of the former Dometic Penguin ll (11K), whereas in @rideadeuce’s instance (DP ll 13.5K) there was no such support in his year model. In his install the “supplied foam” you reference was installed in accordance with the installation instructions provided. Said foam installed in like manner in my instance would not make contact with the roof and offer support due to relief of the landing and thus, it was halved and positioned on each side as added support. Regarding OTT’s retrofit of the Truma Aventa on earlier models to replace a Dometic and new models ordered with the Aventa upgrade option, a fiberglass landing was specifically designed for that unit. 

[Galileo]

3 hours ago, rideadeuce said:

SDG will get it done professionally, while you wait, in less than 2 hrs at their facility in Elkhart, IN. I think it is about $300. Well worth it. My Dad lives about 45 min from them, so it was an easy decision to do on our last visit. 

The installation price sounds great!

From my 5 whole minutes of research, it looks like the 15k btu Dreiha sells for about the same amount as the 13.5 k btu Houghton…

Sounds a little better than $4,000 to have Oliver install the Truma….

[rideadeuce]

9 hours ago, Tideline77 said:

Couple questions since I’m late to the game 

Can SDG reconcile the suburban furnace  thermostat function on the install

is SDG also a vendor for the Atmos ?

how much did the overhead clearance height change on the Oliver with the new unit vs the dometic ?

 

thanks for all the contributions for us rookies 

 

 

Yes, Yes and about 2 in taller.

[Tideline77]

Thanks a bunch !

[jd1923]

18 hours ago, Tideline77 said:

Can SDG reconcile the suburban furnace  thermostat function on the install?

SDG includes an new thermostat that they would install. Ron in the thread above has shown how the original Dometic thermostat can be rewired for furnace only. The Atmos is controlled by the surface panel or remote.

[mountainoliver]

On 3/11/2025 at 10:58 AM, Ronbrink said:

My year model Oliver had a fiberglass landing that supported the aft of the former Dometic Penguin ll (11K), whereas in @rideadeuce’s instance (DP ll 13.5K) there was no such support in his year model. In his install the “supplied foam” you reference was installed in accordance with the installation instructions provided. Said foam installed in like manner in my instance would not make contact with the roof and offer support due to relief of the landing and thus, it was halved and positioned on each side as added support. Regarding OTT’s retrofit of the Truma Aventa on earlier models to replace a Dometic and new models ordered with the Aventa upgrade option, a fiberglass landing was specifically designed for that unit. 

So is the “fiberglass landing” actually part of the roof construction or is it an additional molded fiberglass piece bonded/glued to the roof? The reason I ask is if it is a separate piece we could purchase it from Oliver and glue it in place to support the air conditioner. If it’s part of the roof on the newer models……well I’d have to use part of a new roof gasket for support. Thanks 

[Ronbrink]

5 minutes ago, mountainoliver said:

So is the “fiberglass landing” actually part of the roof construction or is it an additional molded fiberglass piece bonded/glued to the roof? The reason I ask is if it is a separate piece we could purchase it from Oliver and glue it in place to support the air conditioner. If it’s part of the roof on the newer models……well I’d have to use part of a new roof gasket for support. Thanks 

The landing appears to be bonded and sealed around the edges based on review of photos and thus, probably added as support for the former DPll on my year model Oliver and 11K unit. If you’re thinking if necessary for an Atmos install, likely not due to success of @rideadeuce’s SDG install wherein there was no such landing and the supplied foam adequately provided aft support. I only know that OTT uses a similar landing for the upgraded Truma installs, perhaps someone else can confirm if a landing is added on newer models with the standard DPll. 

[Galileo]

I guess I was thinking some kind of durable plastic material (HDPE, LDPE?) cut or milled to shape and “glued” to the room with RTV or some other sealant would be required. 

“Foam” is a kind of vague term. Could be squishy, compressible foam, or could be rigid. (I’d assume rigid would make more sense.)

[Ronbrink]

18 hours ago, Galileo said:

I guess I was thinking some kind of durable plastic material (HDPE, LDPE?) cut or milled to shape and “glued” to the room with RTV or some other sealant would be required. 

“Foam” is a kind of vague term. Could be squishy, compressible foam, or could be rigid. (I’d assume rigid would make more sense.)

With the Atmos, the foam strip supplied to support/level the aft is the same density as that used around the roof cutout, which supports the weight of the unit. 

Edited March 13 by Ronbrink

[Geronimo John]

On 3/11/2025 at 4:59 AM, Galileo said:

From my 5 whole minutes of research, it looks like the 15k btu Dreiha sells for about the same amount as the 13.5 k btu Houghton

The houghton IS a great unit.  But if they have not gone back to their SET 1 configuration with a remote thermostat and where the fan shuts down when the compressor shuts off then that is a significant concern for most owners.  WHY?  Most owners will not want to risk making the two mods to fix these SET 2 issues. 

Once the mods are made, then I still feel that the HOUGHTON 13.5 k unit is GREAT.  It however does not have a condensate drain system as of last week when I I checked.  But the larger 15K does.  

That said, I think the 15K unit is oversized for even hot weather use and would not recommend it as such.  Also check the height difference.  The 13,5 is a reduction over the Dometic OEM on most OE2's.