Air Conditioning Vents

[nfisherman]

How difficult is it to get into the ceiling to check out the air conditioning ducts. I checked below my floor and had to do a lot of work on the heat ducts. My air conditioning vents seem to work well, except for the one in the bedroom. It doesn’t put out much air at all. I’d like to check the duct to the bedroom. I’ve already seen the other thread about checking the air conditioner itself. I watched the video and checked everything out. It was fine. I have a White Hawk 26 RK.

[La Cajun]

First thing I would do is pull off the AC directional vent covers inside the trailer and check that the hole cut in the duct in the ceiling is round and the same size as the vent part that goes in it. On my Jayco Seismic Wave, the holes were bigger so some of the cold air was going into the attic rather than through the vent and into the living area. Also there is a plastic ring/sleeve attached to the vent cover that goes up in the ac duct in the attic - it's higher than the bottom of the ac duct so the cold air has trouble getting into it. You can remove it completely. Did take AC Foil Duct tape from Lowes/Home Depot and cut small strips and tape all the way around the hole in the ceiling and up into the ac duct running in the attic. By doing this no cold air leaks into the attic and there is no obstruction restricting how much cold air comes out into the living area. The vent cover will hide the ac foil duct tape you put unless you let it stick out past the area of the vent cover. Once I did that on all the ac vents, the ac units had no problem keeping the inside cool. Very poor craftmanship on these rv's. I'm not very good at explaining stuff, but hope this makes sense. If not let me know and maybe I can figure out how to attach some pics of the ac duct foil tape.

[nfisherman]

Thanks for the tips, La Cajun. I have plenty of flex duct and foil tape left from my work on the heating ducts. I’ll try what you described before I mess with the ceiling.

[La Cajun]

On mine the ceiling duct is not flex duct like the heating. The AC duct is aluminum rectangular box approximately 2” high X maybe 10” wide. No room in attic for flex duct in mine. They cut a round hole in bottom of box to add vents into living area. But sometimes the holes cut were not exactly in correct spot so they cut more to match ceiling vents & that’s when some of the cold air escaped into the attic. Also with the plastic ring protruding into the duct it cut off too much air & harder for cold air to go into living area. Very poor design.

[La Cajun]

Also pull off AC grill / cover inside living area. Check to make sure there’s no untaped areas where the cold air enters the rectangular duct. May have to add AC duct tape in this area also.

[nfisherman]

Originally Posted by La Cajun

Also pull off AC grill / cover inside living area. Check to make sure there’s no untaped areas where the cold air enters the rectangular duct. May have to add AC duct tape in this area also.

I did this part already. My A/C was in pretty good shape. There’s only one vent in my bedroom and there’s very little air flow from it. I think the problem is the vent or the duct. I put my camper back in storage yesterday. I’m taking it out again in a couple of weeks. I’ll take the tape and tools I need to fix it while I’m camping.

[norty1]

You may need to purchase an inexpensive camera that will allow you to see into the duct. Only way to access it as it was built and installed before the roof was installed.

[travelingjw]

Might seem obvious but we have the same issue in our bathroom. I pulled the vent cover and found that the ducting was much smaller than all my other ducting. I had some suggest I install a fan to pull the air but just too much trouble.

[nfisherman]

I improved my A/C airflow by a lot. There are two ducts attached to my Furrion A/C. I took the cover off and made sure that the warm air in was well separated from the cool air out. All seemed good. The ducts are made of some kind of rigid foam material in my trailer. They’re only maybe 1 1/4 inches tall; not very big. I noticed that they air coming off of the squirrel cage fan seemed to be pushed toward the duct feeding the back half of the trailer, leaving little air for the front bathroom and bedroom. I made a small baffle that covers about 1/3 of the air box below the fan to help push more air toward the duct for the front. It worked! My air flow is much more balanced now. I also used foil tape to seal the vents to the ducts so that no air is lost to the attic.