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 shout duration during stops/breaks when traveling. Thanks

[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.