Air conditioner not cooling

[Hikegsm]

Our air conditioner is not cooling. It comes on and blows air but never cools. It cycles on and off like it has done the job but the camper is still 95 degrees inside! Could it be a bad thermostat? The thermostat is not showing the ambient room temperature. I have the fan set to high, cool, and temp set to 70. There isn’t a drop of Condensate on the ground under the drain or any where else except for the sweat running down my face ?. It was working fine just last Friday. Any ideas what could be wrong? We were planning to leave on Saturday for a summer long trip.

 

Yvonne

[roguebooks]

Your fan set to "high" should never turn off no matter if the compressor is running or not. Could you try to reset the fan to "auto", cool, and 70 and see what happens. The manual says it takes the compressor two minutes to kick on after setting. It also says to cycle on and off once as well to set it. May not work but worth a try. Sorry for your trouble.

[roguebooks]

The good news is that somebody smarter than I am will surely get back to you quickly on here. This forum is a lifesaver.

[John E Davies]

I can’t help directly, but you can read this troubleshooing article and decide how deep into your system you want to go..... you may end up taking the trailer to an RV repair shop. But if you can locate a helpful handyperson (relative or neighbor), You might be able to at least eliminate the most likely possibilities.

 

https://axleaddict.com/rvs/How-To-Service-And-Repair-A-Motorhome-Air-Conditioner-AC

 

One thing to keep in mind is the complete “shore power” load. You need to make sure you do not have too many appliances sucking power at the same time, especially if you are on a 15 or 20 amp supply. If you have the built in surge suppressor you can study the remote display under the street side bed to see how many amps are being used as the air conditioner unit turns on. That might be informative. You should see a really big increase on the amp reading as the unit starts. If that does not happen, you may have a problem with the starting capacitor or the compressor itself...

 

You can turn off extra 120 volt circuits like the electric water heater to reduce the overall load. Consider turning off ALL 120 volt circuits except the AC one, to see if it will run OK.

 

Good luck, and please let us know what you find.

 

John Davies

 

Spokane WA

[Hikegsm]

My camper is not at my house but I just got back from checking it again. I got the thermostat to to tell me the ambient temperature, it was 100 degrees! I unplugged the microwave and the water heater was off and nothing else was on. We are plugged into a regular 15 amp outlet at a friends house. We have the easy start and everything sounds fine on startup. The surge protector shows no error codes. I started the a/c it ran for less than one minute then shut off for about 30 seconds before restarting again. It ran for 7 minutes then cycled off again. The fan was on high. The thermostat supposedly has error codes that it will display if it detects a problem but I did not see any. I did not see your reply’s before I went to the camper so I didn’t try the auto setting. I will try that in the morning. I have left a message with Jason so hopefully will hear from him tomorrow. I think I am going to pour a glass of wine and read the A/C repair link that John so kindly found. Thanks for all your concern, help and advice. Oliver owners truly are the best! I will let you know what happens.

Yvonne

[KountryKamper]

Do you have all the vents open. It has a freeze protection and will shut down the compressor and run the fan for about 10 minutes then come back on if it does not have enough air flow. I just had this problem and could not cool the trailer and with the EZ start could not hear the compressor cycling off unless I listened real close. If you have them all open it could be a bad sensor.

[Townesw]

So, if not enough air flow and the vents are all open could it be a plugged return filter?

[KountryKamper]

So, if not enough air flow and the vents are all open could it be a plugged return filter?

 

Yelp, same effect.

[Hikegsm]

The vents are all open. The filter was dirty so I cleaned it but it didn’t seem to make any difference.

Yvonne

[Try2Relax]

When ours stopped blowing cold air, I found that the fan on the roof was broken (Coleman Mach 8) replaced the fan and all was good.

 

Otherwise you may just need to clean everything up top so it can breathe properly.

[STEVEnBETTY]

One thing you may not have thought of, if you have your refrigerator on the automatic setting, when ac power is introduced the refrigerator will change over from propane to ac power without you noticing it and that can overwhelm a 15 amp circuit.

[DavePhelps]

First thing I would do is get up on the roof, pop off the AC shroud, and have a look at the fan and condenser fins. These fins can be easily clogged, especially if you're using the AC around Cottonwood trees when they're seeding (like now). Dirt and pine needles also get in there. I blow mine out carefully with compressed air (I have a radiator blow wand), some use water. Just be careful not to flatten or damage the fins. With my Mach8 unit, I have the fan on low and that is plenty! Don't know about the Dometic units they now use. If it was working before, then that's where I would start. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Dave

 

[geO]

My camper is not at my house but I just got back from checking it again. I got the thermostat to to tell me the ambient temperature, it was 100 degrees! I unplugged the microwave and the water heater was off and nothing else was on. We are plugged into a regular 15 amp outlet at a friends house. We have the easy start and everything sounds fine on startup. The surge protector shows no error codes. I started the a/c it ran for less than one minute then shut off for about 30 seconds before restarting again. It ran for 7 minutes then cycled off again. The fan was on high. The thermostat supposedly has error codes that it will display if it detects a problem but I did not see any. I did not see your reply’s before I went to the camper so I didn’t try the auto setting. I will try that in the morning. I have left a message with Jason so hopefully will hear from him tomorrow. I think I am going to pour a glass of wine and read the A/C repair link that John so kindly found. Thanks for all your concern, help and advice. Oliver owners truly are the best! I will let you know what happens.

Yvonne

 

Doug, mine does the same same when on 15amp outlet at my house.I just checked... It works fine when I use my Honda 2000. It also 100 degrees here in Alabama. If you have a generator I would try that or a 30 amp outlet. Might still be to much of a amp drawl.

[geO]

Just to make sure I just tried it again with the Honda 2000 with easystart installed. The inside was 103 degrees and I set the thermostat to 82. In 10 minutes the trailer was 95. When hooked up to the 15amp plug I did get an E7 code from my thermostat.