air conditioners

[ishyooper]

we have an 04 montana and last winter in flordia had our air conditioner freeze up. took it to our local dealership and they can find nothing wrong. it only happens once in awhile,but when it does it leaks from inside trailer. also when this happens i notice it doesn,t drain from the roof. they have tested the system and tell us nothing is wrong. has anyone else experienced any thing like this with their air conditioners? worried we will be in flordia next winter and it will freeze up while we,re gone during the day. also when this happens it still blows cold air.

[H. John Kohl]

When you say freeze up I believe you are talking about icing up. There has been discussions about that in the past. The solution is to use the "HIGH" fan setting not low. With a low fan setting and the humidity it seems to ICE up more often. I believe the thawing out probably causes the water to come inside. I hope this helps.
Welcome to the forum. I am looking forward to more of your posts.
Cheers,

[bsmeaton]

Welcome to the Forum!

John is right concerning the icing up. However, the interior drip could be another Dometic issue if you have the same Dometic Penguin low profile unit your your 04 we had on our 03 Monty. The Penguin could not handle the roof angle in that era, and ours would dump its load all over the fold-out bed or on the kitchen floor. It would also run along the roof seams and dump on the couch or drapes.

The problem was the fan would blow the condensation off of the condensor past the drip tray and it would collect on the inside cover, occassionally dumping out when it was full. I would remove the inside grill and get a face full of water.

Dometic had a fix that consisted of an expanded drip tray that would attach to the existing one to help collect the water. I tried many home remedies, but never did try the Dometic fix before we sold it. I believe others have. Keystone quit using the Penguin on the Monty in late 2004 when they moved the AC rearward and added a midship vent.

Don't want to imply you are having the same issue we were, just a thought. If you have owned it since new, you most likely would have experienced our issue the first trip out.

[jimcol]

Often times the condensing unit will ice up if the fins on the roof unit are dirty. Being an 04 that is a distinct possibility.
Jim C.

[David Salzman]

I had the same problem on my 2005. It would only happen when I went to the beach. The way I fixed it was by moving the defrost sensor down to just above middle of the coil. It is located on the coil that you see when you remove the filter. It looks like a cooper or silver wire attached to black plastic. By moving it down causes the unit to allow air to move trhough the coil and defrost sooner before it freezes completly up and starts to drip.

[sreigle]

The DuoTherms are notorious for icing up in high humidity weather when the fan is on low. We've never had it happen with fan on high. If you have the penguin model Brad mentioned, you may have the problem he had. Otherwise, try running it with the fan on high and see if that solves the problem. This has been a problem with DuoTherm air conditioners for as long as I can remember.