Bedroom A/C Non-Ducted to Ducted Conversion
We have a 2015 High Country 343RL that we bought in 2018. We realized the first summer that the air conditioning set up did not deliver optimum performance. We had two Brisk Air units—a 15,000 BTU unit and a 13,500 BTU unit for our 37’ fifth wheel, with the smaller unit in the bedroom being a ductless unit. The larger unit had 4 vents- one in the living area, one over the kitchen, one in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. On the first summer camping trip, we closed the two vents in the bedroom and bathroom thinking it would push more air into the living/kitchen area. We opened the dump vent in the bedroom and put a fan in the bedroom doorway to push the cool air into the living area but that strategy helped only marginally. Our next step was to push in 1” pvc pipe through the duct work to make sure duct work was not collapsed somewhere restricting airflow—still with only marginal results.
At that point we decided that what we really wanted to do was to push air from the bedroom unit into the living room via the duct work. By removing the inside air grill base plate, we could reach into the ceiling and feel the duct work coming from the living room and could see that it extended past the bedroom unit. We knew then that it was possible to join the two units with the existing duct work. (In fact, this model was built with the ducted bedroom A/C as an option.) In studying the duct work, we discovered that there were in fact two ducts running parallel out from the living room unit. One duct ran along the driver’s side with only two vents-one in the bathroom, and one in the bedroom. The other duct ran along the passenger side terminating before reaching the stairs to the bedroom and had two vents—one in the living area and one in the kitchen. That is why closing the bedroom and bathroom vent had little effect in pushing more air out the two living/kitchen area vents located in the other length of duct.
We knew at that point that we needed to install two more vents in the living area and kitchen in the duct running to the bathroom and bedroom. Using a 5” hole saw, we could cut holes through the ceiling into the duct and add two new vents. We chose to locate them directly across from the existing living room and kitchen vents in the other duct. That way we could now get more air coming through that duct on the driver’s side if we closed the bedroom and bathroom vents. Based on suggestions from others in this forum we also decided to change out the vent covers with new adjustable vents made by Thetford that allow more airflow than the old vent covers. Adding the two vents and changing out the vent covers was a major improvement but we still wanted to push the air from the bedroom A/C to the living area through the ductwork to hopefully get the maximum effect of both units where we needed it the most—the living/kitchen area.
We called Dometic and gave them the model numbers of our two A/Cs. They gave us the numbers for the parts we would need to convert the bedroom air to a ducted unit and to connect both units to a dual zone thermostat. The parts we needed were a ducted air grill for the bedroom unit, two new matching controls (one for each unit), a remote indoor temperature sensor, a dual zone thermostat, about 60 feet of 4-conductor communication cable, connectors, a crimping tool to attach the connectors to the cable ends, as needed, a small piece of sheet metal, and some foil vent tape. Shopping online, the total cost was around $400. As mentioned earlier, we also changed out all vent covers and installed two additional vents.
In the bedroom, we removed the old air grill, cut a 7” X 1 ½” opening in the duct running adjacent to the unit, then shaped a small piece of sheet metal to connect the opening in the grill to the duct, using foil tape to seal the edges and any opening where cool air would escape.
Following the instructions sent with the controls, we connected the existing wiring and we ran communication cable through the duct to connect both A/C units, then another cable had to be run from the living room unit to the new dual zone thermostat which we put in the same place where the old thermostat had been. We also had to install a remote indoor temperature sensor to the bedroom unit so it would work with the dual zone thermostat. Most cabling could be hidden within the duct work. We used hide-a-cord and some cable clips in a few places.
In our last camping trip we could try out the improvement and we can say now that the performance of our two units is much improved and the project was well worth the effort and expense. You can definitely feel more air and we are in better control of the air flow. We ran both units during the day and the bedroom air could effectively aid the living room unit in cooling the camper. In the evenings, if we watched a movie, we could turn off the living room unit (directly overhead) and run the bedroom unit to keep the camper cool.
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