Drip, Drip, Drip

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 91, low 74)

We’ve been getting lots of rain this past week.  Fortunately, for us we haven’t had any severe weather or strong winds. 

Between all the rain, we’ve been dealing with a water leak from the front a/c unit.

The front A/C unit started to drip water inside the coach, both when it was raining, and when it wasn’t.    That led us to the conclusion that we had a two issues going on.

Before we left Lazy Days last year when we bought the coach, we had the same issue.  Mike, our technician removed both a/c units and replaced the gaskets. 

Apparently, due to the design of our units, we have two stacking gaskets on each unit.  This is unusual.

There is some duct work visible from the inside that directs the cool air into the vents.   It’s a rectangular silver box that covers up about half the “innards” on the a/c unit.  It makes it very difficult to see what is going on inside the unit, and it also covers 2 of the 4 bolts that are used to tighten the gaskets.

Al managed to tighten the front two bolts, but we couldn’t figure out how to get to the rear ones without removing that silver box.   After he snugged the front bolts, we seemed to be getting more water than we had before.

The picture below is one of the front bolts.  Easy to find and easy to access.

This next picture is where the rear bolts are.  A little difficult to get to, huh?

You are not supposed to over tighten them, and  make sure the gasket is at least 1/2 inch thick so that it does it’s job.  The problem with our unit, is that having two gaskets, you couldn’t tell how thick it was after tightening, and the silver box blocked our view of most of the gaskets.

After tightening the gasket, we were hoping the problem was solved, but then we started having a condensation problem.  A big condensation problem!    Drip, drip, drip.

We have been reading Rv-Net Forum for guidance and most said if you have a condensation leak, it is because:  

1.  clogged drainage tubes.

2.  cracked pan

We have had to try to live with just running the rear a/c unit.  It works well, but just couldn’t keep up with the heat and humidity of Florida.

We’ve been working on this issue for days, trying everything we could think of to do.   Drip, drip, drip.

We finally decided we needed professional help.

We called a highly recommended mobile rv tech Friday afternoon.   He told Al they were closed for the week-end and to call Monday morning.

Monday morning we called, got his voice mail, left a message,  and are still waiting for a call back.

Al did some checking and got the name of another local guy who does nothing but rv air conditioning.  They rebuild units.  Al called and spoke to Greg Bedard.  Al got a good vibe from him, so we asked him to come out. The service call was going to be $75.

Greg came out, listened carefully to the things we had tried, what worked, and what didn’t work.  He got up on the roof to check everything out.  He thought everything looked good. 

He ended up tightening the gaskets a little more, and then totally re-taping up the little silver box.

The cold air comes from unit down to this little silver box.  Then it’s diverted into the vents of the motorhome.   If any of that cold air leaks out, it can cause condensation outside the box which has no where else to go but down and onto the living room floor.

In our uneducated attempts of solving the leaking problem, we damaged the seal on the silver box and probably made the situation worse.

Greg was here a couple hours.  He worked hard, but we also did quite a bit of gabbing.     I was wondering if we were going to be charged his hourly rate for all the gabbing.

I prepared myself for a bill of a few hundred dollars and was pleasantly surprised when he only charged us $75!

Yea…..

So…..the a/c unit ran all night.  It was plenty cool and so far, no leaks!!!!    It rained pretty hard overnight too and we should have had plenty of humidity.

Fingers crossed, we have solved the issue.

We can recommend this company. 

DICK BURGSTROM A.C.  (813-783-7823)

Greg Bedard was our tech. (813-363-8377)

They do nothing but Rv,  a/c work.  If you need a new unit, they can get you a new one, or install one of their rebuilt units.  I think I would trust their rebuilds.

So…..that’s what we’ve been up to.  So far, so good, but the heat of the day will let us know if our problems are fixed or not.

At least we haven’t been dealing with the issues Sherry and David have, or Howard and Linda who need a new engine on their diesel truck, to the tune of $18,500!