Some feedback on the Houghton air conditioner

[hobo]

9 hours ago, Corcomi said:

Hello from Hull 275, an Oliver Ellite ll 2017. I have been wanting to replace the Dometic air conditioner because my wife HATES the noise even when using earplugs. So I went to last week to D&N RV service located in Guntersville and asked to order me the Houghton H3400 caravan air conditioner. They placed the order and 3 days later they called me to tell me that it had arrived. Today, Monday August 23, I took the trailer at 8 am and they had it installed by 1 pm.  This unit is a game changer, it is so quiet that my wife and I can have a conversation and watch tv within the horrendous noise we used to have with the Dometic unit. The remote control is great as I can have it on the nightstand and change the temperature without getting up. It doesn’t need the soft start as it has a ramps up without it. The only drawback was that they could not drain it with the drain that the Dometic use that drains the water down below the bottom of the camper but I will be installing a gutter so it doesn’t run down the window. Best ever. By the way the RV tech is name Brandon and he has won twice the National Championship of RV Techs. This was his first time installing this type of unit and he loves the unit. So it you are in the Guntersville area and want to have them exchange your unit, give them a visit. 

Curious as to how you have the controls for AC and heat configured now?  Do you retain the original controls for the propane furnace (only)?  Also, does your Houghton have a heat strip also?

 

[katanapilot]

Just completed 8 weeks in the Oliver.  The Houghton A/C was flawless.  We used the heat pump function most mornings in Alaska and the Yukon - saving us a bunch of propane.

I've said this several times - if you can't stand the noise of the Dometic and don't want to spend what I expect will be several thousands to have Oliver replace yours with a Truma - the Houghton is an excellent choice and very reasonably priced. 

[Corcomi]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:18 AM, hobo said:

Curious as to how you have the controls for AC and heat configured now?  Do you retain the original controls for the propane furnace (only)?  Also, does your Houghton have a heat strip also?

 

The air conditioner has a remote control and also on the unit itself you can make changes in case you lose the control. My unit also has the heat strip. The original controls continue to be used for the propane furnace 

[Corcomi]

On 9/21/2021 at 9:01 AM, Minnesota Oli said:

https://www.recpro.com/rv-air-conditioner-low-profile-13-5k-quiet-ac-with-heat-pump-remote-non-ducted/

That’s what I paid too

[katanapilot]

33 minutes ago, Corcomi said:

The air conditioner has a remote control and also on the unit itself you can make changes in case you lose the control. My unit also has the heat strip. The original controls continue to be used for the propane furnace 

Does your a/c have a heat strip or is it a heat pump?  Two very different things...

[hobo]

21 hours ago, Corcomi said:

That’s what I paid too

 

21 hours ago, Corcomi said:

The air conditioner has a remote control and also on the unit itself you can make changes in case you lose the control. My unit also has the heat strip. The original controls continue to be used for the propane furnace 

Thanks.

 

[Olivers Travels]

For those whom have replaced the Factory AC with a Houghton unit, How did you wire the thermostat to run the heater ??

 

[GAP]

Can anyone who has done the Houghton install themselves go into a little gory detail of what it took?  I would love to give it a go.  Am happy to end up using a remote to control the unit as long as the heat could still run off the existing thermostat.

[SeaDawg]

I think that has been covered, in a couple posts,  for newer trailers. 

Our old school, analog t-stat 2008 was super simple.

 

[Olivers Travels]

Original thermostat works fine, though it flashes E5 which is an open circuit code because there is no more AC unity to connect to. Just toggle to thermostat to heat when you turn it on and the heater works as normal. 6 month now using the Houghton and we love it! Its quiet, the Heat pump works great, as long as outside temps are above 40" F. Runs 5-6 hrs so far on the lithium 640 amp Hr batterys. Hull 1144 LEll, FORD F150 2014 

[Ronbrink]

On 9/7/2021 at 4:55 PM, Minnesota Oli said:

Besides the huge improvement in the sound level there is also another area where it surpasses the Dometic AC that I had replaced. The Houghton with the compressor running draws 10 amps while the Dometic was pulling 16 amps. So I decided to install a second transfer switch for the air conditioner to test it running off the batteries.

 

It was 11 o'clock in the morning on a cloudless sunny day the temperature was 88 degrees. I had my batteries 400 Ah fully charged with 340 watts on the roof and 230 watts remote ready to feed it. I set the thermostat at 70 degrees and turned on the AC. Once it brought the temperature down to 70 I noticed it was cycling four minutes on with the compressor and four minutes off. I left it running until about 5 o'clock and was surprised to see that the batteries were at 97 percent. So I was happy with those results but time will tell if that is the norm.

 

 

I put the picture in to also show it's nice low profile.

 

Paul

How was the second transfer switch for the a/c wired in? I have a 2020 OLEll with the 2000 w inverter and just upgraded with 460Ah lithium, want to run the a/c on batteries for short duration during stops/breaks when traveling. Thanks

Edited Saturday at 12:22 PM by Ronbrink

[Kenny]

This thread has been a great help to me. I thought I would share my problem and fix in case it helps others. My wife and I recently bought a used RV. The previous owner had installed a Houghton AC/heat pump. On our first trip, I noticed the unit was cycling on and off about every 4 or 5 minutes. A post above stated that the manufacturer said that this behavior is normal when the temperature is near the setoint. I hung a Govee temperature logger from the AC unit. My unit was cycling even when the temp was far from the setpoint. As a test, I set the setpoint at 60 degF. The unit cycled when the temperature was 78 degrees and cooler. Needless to say, the unit never brought the temperature down to the setpoint.

After much puzzling over the situation, I discovered the trouble. My system is a ducted version. When I removed the control panel/shroud from the unit, I discovered that there were two 2"x3" openings on the sides of the unit into the hollow ceiling. The hollow ceiling serves as a cold air plenum to feed the outlets in the ceiling of the RV. These openings were allowing cold air to short cirtuit back into the return of the AC. This was artificially lowering the temperature that the sensor in the return air stream was reading.

I cut pieces of rubber and used aluminum duct tape to seal the holes. Problem solved! The unit will now run constantly and can cool like a champ!

Another tip: Get yourself a Govee temperature logger or something similar. The Govee stores 2 years of data and lasts well over a year on a battery. I have this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R586J37/ and a few other Govee models. Highly recommended for monitoring refrigerator temperture or anything else.

The attached pictures may be enlightening. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of my finished repair. I had installed the cover and 8 screws before I realized it.

Again, thank you all for this very helpful thread!
Happy Camping!
 

 

Illustrations of cycling and slow temperature movement:

 

Cycling beginning at 78 degrees F when setpoint is at 60 degrees.

 

Before fix - 6 hours to drop from 71 to 68 during the night:

 

After fix - 2 hours to drop from 77 to 63 during mid afternoon:

 

Pictures of holes into the ceiling from the AC unit:

 

With flash:

Edited September 4, 2023 by Kenny
Added captions and a couple of additional pictures.

[TimD]

Reviving an older thread.  Thanks to all who posted!

We are preparing to replace the Dometic AC  in our 2021 LE2, mostly because it is so crazy loud.   At the moment the Houghton unit looks like it is as good or better than anything else out there.  Would anyone care to offer an update to their experiences?

We live in New England but haven't done much winter camping, mostly en route to/from warmer climes.  We're not dissatisfied with the propane furnace, but one less thing to break is always good..  Anyone wish they'd gone with the heat pump and eliminated their furnace?

Last, anyone more confident that 9.5K BTU is enough cooling?

Thank you!!!
Tim

[jd1923]

3 hours ago, TimD said:

We are preparing to replace the Dometic AC  in our 2021 LE2, mostly because it is so crazy loud.   At the moment the Houghton unit looks like it is as good or better than anything else out there.

Last, anyone more confident that 9.5K BTU is enough cooling?

We haven't read re a Houghton install in about 2 years. There are other competitive brands today. Not sure anybody has proved the 9.5K version is viable. Houghton had humidity and thermistor location issues requiring rewiring. @Geronimo John is the resident expert re Houghton and he has all the fixes well documented.

If QUIET is your main goal, look at Gree! Great unit as compared to most. Brand names include Atmos, then Tosot, all made by Gree. I witnessed @Ronbrink's Atmos installation, purred like a kitten and performed excellently! @mountainoliver just had SDG install a new Tosot and has a current thread. Search our Forum for 'atmos' 'gree' 'tosot' and/or 'SDG'  to find these posts. This is likely the best all-around product offered today.

Some of us are interested in "Inverter A/C" RV units that copy the "mini-split" units installed in many remodels/room additions today. The upside is less power consumption for us boondockers! Brand names include 'Greenland' and 'Pioneer' and the company name is Turbro. Search for these brand names or "Inverter.” BTW, this unit is on sale with promo code at $1200 plus tax. Likely the best price we’ll see this year or next, see turbro.com (turbro not turbo)!

I'm still on the fence, but really want a viable inverter A/C which may take another 1-2 years to perfect! We just came off a 36-day trip up north, thinking A/C would not be an issue. Yet I had to book lame RV parks to run the G-awfully LOUD Dometic P2 almost 10 nights! PLEASE, just shoot me before we have to do that again! 🤣

There is a new thermostat on the market, the Cielo Breez Max! This product forces a fan shutdown when the compressor cycles off (to reduce humidity). Has not yet been tested on the Houghton, but works well with the Gree and Turbro products which may eliminate rewiring the Houghton re this specific issue. Search our Forum for “Cielo!”

Hope this helps! And please keep us posted re your upgrade! 😂

Edited Saturday at 03:25 AM by jd1923

[Steve and MA]

JD, good summary of the DIY options posted in this forum for a quiet AC. There's one other that's been mentioned in previous threads that's much quieter than the Penguin 2, but it's another Dometic product, the Fresh Jet. An advantage of this unit is that it requires no modification to use with the existing internal drain lines.  I'm surprised that it hasn't been discussed more than it has in this forum. 

There was an LE2 owner at the Oct '24 Texas rally that had this upgrade.  (Sorry, forgot whose LE2 it was.) It wasn't as quiet as the Houghton; its noise level was comparable to the Truma to my ears.  It would be worth considering if the internal drain is important to you.

[CRM]

10 hours ago, jd1923 said:

I'm still on the fence, but really want a viable inverter A/C which may take another 1-2 years to perfect!

I think the noise level is the one thing they need to focus on, maybe a variable speed fan motor instead of 3 speeds too. Not as loud as the Dometic, but not as quiet as the others you have mentioned. They get that sorted out and I don't see any reason to ever go with a single speed compressor unit again. They use half or less wattage (no soft start needed)  and can control humidity much better which are the two biggies for me. I doubt it will be long before all the big names make the move to inverter tech and we'll see even more advancements in RV AC units. 

 

Edited Saturday at 01:10 PM by CRM

[TimD]

Thank you @jd1923 and the rest of youse for all that!  Very helpful!

I've looked at the Gree unit and the Turbro previously.  Continuous fan run seemed like it might be a problem, as did lack of a condensate drain connection.

I was not aware of the Cielo thermostat.

More homework to do!

Thanks again
Tim

[jd1923]

5 hours ago, Steve and MA said:

There's one other that's been mentioned in previous threads that's much quieter than the Penguin 2, but it's another Dometic product, the Fresh Jet.

Perhaps Mary, @Roadlotus can chime in on this. She started the thread that Steve & Ma linked above and she just recently started this post where she now wants to remove the Fresh Jet after two years:

https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10990-12-volt-ac-outequip/

Yes, Dometic products will use the same internal drain plumbing and most others with not. Dometic A/C products will also in Auto mode will turn the fan off and most other products will not do that. But I've heard from some Oliver Owners at rallies state they leave the fan on all the time since when it kicks back in so loud it wakes them up!

@TimD like I wrote, I've been on the fence and similar to you, given Chris and I generally do not summer camp, we can get away without A/C most of the time, so still waiting...

Also, check out these threads on the Turbro and Pioneer (Greenland clone) Inverter A/Cs. Yes, lot's of research required and keep us posted!

https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10752-inverter-rv-air-conditioner/

https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10884-installing-pioneer-inverter-ac/

[Roadlotus]

Hi everyone,
I still have the fresh jet and it does work fine. And yes, in auto the fan will keep going with the compressor going off and on, which is a nice thing I guess. I have decided to wait on trying to find a 12 V or heat pump but it's still a long-term goal. I think when I get maintenance done this spring, I will take it to the tech who likes the 12 V and really explore whether it's a viable to run that line or not.
Not sure I want to be the first one to try this:) I'm hoping someone else gives it a shot before me. And I still like the idea of a true inverter rather than the traditional AC.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. It does fit in perfectly to the existing slot that the penguin had.

-Mary (roadlotus)

[Geronimo John]

On 9/8/2021 at 5:08 AM, NCeagle said:

So far I give the Houghton a 10 out of 10 when compared to the competition.

Is yours a Set 2 unit?

If yes, did you do the two mods?

thanks

GJ

[Geronimo John]

On 8/15/2025 at 5:58 PM, TimD said:

Last, anyone more confident that 9.5K BTU is enough cooling?

For out west the 9.5k BTU would not be my choice.  Our 13K unit works like a charm.  Has RecPro modified the design for new ones that have a remote Thermistor and compressor shut down when the fan shuts off?  I heard that they may have a fix to use the existing drain,  True?

GJ

Edited Sunday at 02:50 PM by Geronimo John

[katanapilot]

21 hours ago, Geronimo John said:

For out west the 9.5k BTU would not be my choice.  Our 13K unit works like a charm.  Has RecPro modified the design for new ones that have a remote Thermistor and compressor shut down when the fan shuts off?  I heard that they may have a fix to use the existing drain,  True?

GJ

There is a condensate pump 15k btu version of the Houghton available now from RecPro.  As to continuous fan - their website has a note about the fan running continuously. Did not see anything about a RecPro provided mod to allow intermittent fan.

Houghton also has inverter style units - but I don't think RecPro has contracted with Houghton to bring 60hz versions here yet.  Maybe soon?