Mikendebbie
Senior Member
RV LIFE Pro
Summer hot weather is coming up…and with it will come lots of threads in this forum titled “AC will not cool!” If you experience this in your rig - forum search is your friend! Tons of information can be had on the subject.
Sometimes the question is “Can I add Freon to my air conditioner?”…and 99% of the time the answer is “No - these are sealed units with no way to add Freon.” I follow Kevin Caudill on YouTube, primarily for his expertise and knowledge on the Workhorse motorhome chassis and the GM 8.1L gas engine, which ceased production ~2010. Kevin is also a “tinkering genius”. I don’t know how else to describe a guy that dropped out of school at age 13, but has built successful businesses and a YouTube channel that has helped hundreds of thousands of RV idiots like me.
This morning he released a video where he figures out how to do a Freon recharge a 20 yr old Dometic Penguin roof air conditioner. I’m not saying this a good the solution for an ailing old air conditioner for us commoners - I have no idea what this would cost as compared to buying a new roof top unit. Kevin has the tools, equipment and accessories to do a job like this - I own a bad pair of pliers and a stripped Phillips screw driver, so I would never entertain trying anything like this. The video answers the question “Can I add Freon to my roof top air conditioner”. He also spends a couple of minutes looking at the guts of a Dometic capacitive thermostat- sometimes the weak point (meaning PIA) of Montana AC systems, but apparently he had never seen one. This 19 minute video is worth the time to watch for the educational value, maybe not for practical value.
Sometimes the question is “Can I add Freon to my air conditioner?”…and 99% of the time the answer is “No - these are sealed units with no way to add Freon.” I follow Kevin Caudill on YouTube, primarily for his expertise and knowledge on the Workhorse motorhome chassis and the GM 8.1L gas engine, which ceased production ~2010. Kevin is also a “tinkering genius”. I don’t know how else to describe a guy that dropped out of school at age 13, but has built successful businesses and a YouTube channel that has helped hundreds of thousands of RV idiots like me.
This morning he released a video where he figures out how to do a Freon recharge a 20 yr old Dometic Penguin roof air conditioner. I’m not saying this a good the solution for an ailing old air conditioner for us commoners - I have no idea what this would cost as compared to buying a new roof top unit. Kevin has the tools, equipment and accessories to do a job like this - I own a bad pair of pliers and a stripped Phillips screw driver, so I would never entertain trying anything like this. The video answers the question “Can I add Freon to my roof top air conditioner”. He also spends a couple of minutes looking at the guts of a Dometic capacitive thermostat- sometimes the weak point (meaning PIA) of Montana AC systems, but apparently he had never seen one. This 19 minute video is worth the time to watch for the educational value, maybe not for practical value.
