Holy Grail of air conditioners

[Ddozier234]

Hi to all you AC experts,

I really like my 2011 Cardinal 3150rl. In my opinion the AC’s are undersized. The fifth wheel and AC’s are loud and inefficient. Comfort is more important than cost. I live in the RV in all 48 states all year long. I was in Michigan this past winter -11 and now I’m in Arizona 118. Is there a beefed up, efficient, quiet AC on the market that will fit the bill. Like I said “Holy Grail”.

[Bama Rambler]

There have been a few people who have installed mini split A/C and heat pump units in RV's. They are a lot quieter than the RV A/C's but they're not compatible with most RV layouts.

[mbutts]

If you want to try a couple of free or low-cost method, here's what I've done:

1. Follow the instructions at https://www.thorforums.com/forums/f2...ice-12980.html This made an immediate difference and lowered the temps inside by about 10°F. There's a risk of freezing up your AC unit in very hold & humid weather, but since mine runs a LOT less with this adjustment, I haven't had any trouble with freeze-ups.
2. For the noise issue, try one of these: https://wackoproducts.com/
   It is $189 and it makes the AC quiet enough that we could use the TV inside the RV and actually hear what was going on.

I agree that the air conditioner manufacturers could do a MUCH better job, but these two fixes have made the RV a lot more comfortable and quieter for a pretty small price.

[clhjsh]

On our previous Lexington it had a low profile Dometic 15k btu heat pump that was so noisy you couldn’t talk while it was on. Based on some threads we read here we replaced it with an Atwood Air Command heat pump. The noise level difference was amazing, we measured an 8 db decrease. We also found that the Atwood provided additional cooling capacity and used less power.
I know that Dometic purchased Atwood but hopefully they haven’t changed the design