Check your A.C. duct work

[Crabman]

Today I was changing an A.C. vent in the bathroom from a non adjustable vent to an adjustable one, I felt like I did not need the full open vent in that small space so the thinking was a closeable one would send more air to the front A.C. vent which seemed a bit weak. When I removed the vent from the ceiling, there was a noticeable gap between the top of the ceiling panel and the duct work, allowing g air to escape into the roof cavity.

I taped the top of the vent to the duct work with....duct tape to tighten the seal. After this I checked the bedroom vent, same thing only I discovered another issue. The duct was broken on one side allowing what has to be a considerable amount of airflow into the roof, and not into the bedroom where it is of course desired. I managed to get my hands in there and reconstruct the broken duct work and used the duct tape to hold it together. Now it's nice and tight again. I checked the vents in the living room and taped them as well, two of the three had the previous!y mentioned gaps, but the duct work was OK.

Last Summer I checked the main duct work at the unit itself and also found a few areas of concern where air was escaping. I have a much better airflow now especially in the bedroom. So if your A.C. Is not up to snuff it just may be the duct work is leaking and not the unit itself.

[SeaDog]

Yes it is good to check the ductwork. You may find that duct tape is great for around the outside of vents but will come loose after time on the inside in the airflow. Next time you check if you find some loose replace it with foil backed tape which seems to work better in airflow areas. JMHO

[Hollywoodgt]

I have a neat little camera that goes on the end of a fiber glass fish tape. Its wireless and comes with a 7" screen. It also has attachments so you can pull a wire etc. It would be excellent for viewing your duct system

[Zak1]

Originally Posted by Crabman

Today I was changing an A.C. vent in the bathroom from a non adjustable vent to an adjustable one, I felt like I did not need the full open vent in that small space so the thinking was a closeable one would send more air to the front A.C. vent which seemed a bit weak. When I removed the vent from the ceiling, there was a noticeable gap between the top of the ceiling panel and the duct work, allowing g air to escape into the roof cavity.

I taped the top of the vent to the duct work with....duct tape to tighten the seal. After this I checked the bedroom vent, same thing only I discovered another issue. The duct was broken on one side allowing what has to be a considerable amount of airflow into the roof, and not into the bedroom where it is of course desired. I managed to get my hands in there and reconstruct the broken duct work and used the duct tape to hold it together. Now it's nice and tight again. I checked the vents in the living room and taped them as well, two of the three had the previous!y mentioned gaps, but the duct work was OK.

Last Summer I checked the main duct work at the unit itself and also found a few areas of concern where air was escaping. I have a much better airflow now especially in the bedroom. So if your A.C. Is not up to snuff it just may be the duct work is leaking and not the unit itself.

Bought this one that uses my cell phone (wirelessly) as the screen.
Delivered for $30.00
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Crabman]

Originally Posted by SeaDog

Yes it is good to check the ductwork. You may find that duct tape is great for around the outside of vents but will come loose after time on the inside in the airflow. Next time you check if you find some loose replace it with foil backed tape which seems to work better in airflow areas. JMHO

Yeah I used what I had at the time but good idea on the foil tape. I will check them after the season to see if it's holding up. I have a friend who also checked his duct work and found some leaks, he used that foil tape as well.

[Hollywoodgt]

Originally Posted by Zak1

Bought this one that uses my cell phone (wirelessly) as the screen.
Delivered for $30.00
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yep that will do the trick also .....mine is more commercial

[scootingranny]

Same thing with our Chaparral. We posted pics about a year ago. Now getting much better air delivery from the ac

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by SeaDog

Yes it is good to check the ductwork. You may find that duct tape is great for around the outside of vents but will come loose after time on the inside in the airflow. Next time you check if you find some loose replace it with foil backed tape which seems to work better in airflow areas. JMHO

Because of similar failures, duct tape is no longer permitted on ducts for residential construction in many areas. There are better tapes including foil-backed tape.

Larry

[Murbella7]

Originally Posted by Crabman

Today I was changing an A.C. vent in the bathroom from a non adjustable vent to an adjustable one, I felt like I did not need the full open vent in that small space so the thinking was a closeable one would send more air to the front A.C. vent which seemed a bit weak. When I removed the vent from the ceiling, there was a noticeable gap between the top of the ceiling panel and the duct work, allowing g air to escape into the roof cavity.

I taped the top of the vent to the duct work with....duct tape to tighten the seal. After this I checked the bedroom vent, same thing only I discovered another issue. The duct was broken on one side allowing what has to be a considerable amount of airflow into the roof, and not into the bedroom where it is of course desired. I managed to get my hands in there and reconstruct the broken duct work and used the duct tape to hold it together. Now it's nice and tight again. I checked the vents in the living room and taped them as well, two of the three had the previous!y mentioned gaps, but the duct work was OK.

Last Summer I checked the main duct work at the unit itself and also found a few areas of concern where air was escaping. I have a much better airflow now especially in the bedroom. So if your A.C. Is not up to snuff it just may be the duct work is leaking and not the unit itself.

You can't but admire the workmanship and professionalism of the manufacturers eh?.

[Scrapper]

Originally Posted by Murbella7

You can't but admire the workmanship and professionalism of the manufacturers eh?.

If they did professional workmanship then we wouldn't have anything to do other than more boating, fishing, sightseeing, tell more stories around the campfire, drink more beer, or chase DW around the RV. Now I'm not saying those are bad things to do, especially the last two.

[MacGumbo]

My ducts are cut out of the Styrofoam in the sandwiched roof material. Unfortunately I found out the black and grey tank vent pipes to the roof were cut right through them allowing A/C air to travel down the sides of the pipe all the way out the bottom on top of the tanks.


I removed the vent covers on the roof and sealed around the pipe at both intrusions with expansion foam.


I also filled in the openings to the duct for the A/C air discharge with the same foam. After full curing I then took a long sharp knife and cut a new channel back into the ducts but with a more streamline angle to allow for smoother air flow instead of the turbulent one that had existed.


I get more air out of the ducts on low fan now than I used to on high.

[Crabman]

The duct material in mine is almost like a cardboard material, unlike the floor heating duct which is metal. Not very substantial and can easily become compromised. I would wager that some of the posts we see where the member reports " my A.C. will not keep up" is duct work related.

[SailorSam20500]

The heat ducts in my unit have the consistency of mylar with coiled wire for support.

[Murbella7]

Originally Posted by SailorSam20500

The heat ducts in my unit have the consistency of mylar with coiled wire for support.

Which is pretty normal, even for a domestic dwelling ducts. Most duct material also have a plastic covering on the inside to smooth the airflow, which eventually disintegrates by the way.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by SailorSam20500

The heat ducts in my unit have the consistency of mylar with coiled wire for support.

Sometimes these come in fixed lengths. Instances have been reported where installers don't bother to cut them to fit the dimensions between ducts. They just stuff the extra in serpentine fashion. The extra lengths and kinks tend to starve the downstream ducts and overload the furnace blower. (Suburban furnaces need a certain blower volume before they will ignite. As the serpentine ducts fill with dust, this volume becomes harder to achieve.)

Larry

[Platokidd]

Perfect timing for this thread. Last week i noticed little pieces of black foam on the bed below the a/c vent. So this weekend I ran my endoscope thru the vents.

We had a visitor in our a/c duct-work.
Seen some saw dust left over from mfg too..



Point of entry between bedroom and bathroom.

Think a mouse may have climb up the black tank stack vent and broke into the vent or the hole is left from mfg. Either way something was in the vent.

Front of camper- 3 feet past the bedroom vent and last vent inline. Will be closing that section off and direct air flow thru the bedroom vent. Why cool the dead space ??


Think I will use a vac and air pressure to clean the vent. Not sure how to patch the the hole in vent.

Wonder if I can get access thru the roof vent to repair like dea49 did??

Any ideas , I dont want to be real destructive.

[MacGumbo]

Originally Posted by Platokidd

Think I will use a vac and air pressure to clean the vent. Not sure how to patch the the hole in vent.

Wonder if I can get access thru the roof vent to repair like dea49 did??

Any ideas , I dont want to be real destructive.

What a conundrum. Tear up your ceiling and duct to repair the duct.

Do you know in what area the removed foam is at and can you get to it easily from below?

Is it in a spot that you could easily add another down vent?

If so, it might just be easier to cut a hole and add another vent. That way you would be able to repair the foam directly.

Good luck!

[CaptnJohn]

It is not like building these things is rocket science. It is not only many of the workers are not real bright. The biggest problem is they do not care. . It is no more difficult to do something correct than to just slap it together. It was posted on I think the Dynamax thread where instead of using a hole saw to make a small hole for 2 wires they just hit the wall behind the tv with a hammer. That stuff is uncalled for in a $200K MH and a $10K TT. Too little pride, too little respect for others, and too little self-respect!
Rant over.

[Thurman]

We bought a brand new TT back in January '15. I never did think that the A/C air flow was adequate and made numerous calls to the selling dealer 90 miles away. Finally I took it back to them and they had it for one month. They stated that they could not find anything wrong with the A/C unit nor the air flow. Back home I did exactly what the OP stated: I removed the A/C vent over the front bed and there was at least a 1/2" gap between the top of the ceiling panel and the bottom of the duct work. I removed all six (6) vents in the ceiling and found each one to be the same way. I found that I could bring the ceiling panel closer to the duct material then used foil tape to hold them together and seal the gap. I also discovered using only my eyeballs that the duct work was not closed off on the end over the front bedroom. I managed to use the black foam material normally used to insulate pipe to stuff in there then used foil tape to seal it off. After doing that there was twice the air flow from the registers and the TT cooled off much better. But that was before the Dometic 15K A/C unit(s) started failing on me. I am now on my fourth Dometic 15K A/C unit since January '15 and all seems well.

[Crabman]

Originally Posted by Thurman

We bought a brand new TT back in January '15. I never did think that the A/C air flow was adequate and made numerous calls to the selling dealer 90 miles away. Finally I took it back to them and they had it for one month. They stated that they could not find anything wrong with the A/C unit nor the air flow. Back home I did exactly what the OP stated: I removed the A/C vent over the front bed and there was at least a 1/2" gap between the top of the ceiling panel and the bottom of the duct work. I removed all six (6) vents in the ceiling and found each one to be the same way. I found that I could bring the ceiling panel closer to the duct material then used foil tape to hold them together and seal the gap. I also discovered using only my eyeballs that the duct work was not closed off on the end over the front bedroom. I managed to use the black foam material normally used to insulate pipe to stuff in there then used foil tape to seal it off. After doing that there was twice the air flow from the registers and the TT cooled off much better. But that was before the Dometic 15K A/C unit(s) started failing on me. I am now on my fourth Dometic 15K A/C unit since January '15 and all seems well.

Wow, looks like you had the same issues regarding ductwork. As for the A.C. unit I have the Coleman Mach, so far so good. My previous trailer had a Coleman Mach as well and it performed flawlessly for the 7 years I owned it.