roof air or basement

I have one bus built out of stainless steel and the roof is stainless steel and I don't want to cut my roof as there are two escape hatches in it and the less penetrations like a house the better. My Flxible conversion has basement air installed from the factory and two roof air units, My other bus I will install a basement type system.

mike brez wrote:

JimM68 wrote:
Our roof air's are horribly noisy, especially if I open the main vent (bypasses the ducting)
Generally at night, we'll run the front only and let the ducts feed air to the bedroom, then we don't have to hear it.

I've heard common basement a/c's used in class A's are obsolete and very hard to get parts and repairs for. Far as I know, Winniebago/Itasca was the only mainstream manufacturer to use them. (note I'm not talking buses here, just regular class A's)

I think even two million dollar Prevosts have roof air. Four or five of them.

Mike, generally, the 'bus' motorhomes will have four roof-air units, the entertainer buses will have five (and probably two generators). We have one 20 kW Kohler generator on roll-out with centrally controlled air bag suspension.

The conversion buses can have what they call 'bus air'. The air unit is in a vented side compartment with air vents at the window sills that can only be used with the main engine running. There can also be a combination of 'crusie-air's' that is really a basement type unit. I've seen our converter use two cruise-air's and two roof top air units on two or three slide coaches.

'Bus-air' can only be on a two slide or less coach. We have four slides, so 'bus-air' was not an option. Since we've never had it, I don't feel like we are missing anything. There are some bus owners that would never have a coach without 'bus-air'.

Our coach has four roof top 13,500 btu air/heat-pump units. The venting was designed from a computer program to optimize air flow and noise reduction. I have yet to use all four units at once. Two seem fine 90% of the time. The force of air that comes out of the vents is really surprising. When you walk through the salon and happen to walk under a vent, it is startling at how much air comes out compared to the air flow noise.

The four air units are low profile so you can't see them sticking up beyond the upper roof-line awnings.

MM.

bsinmich wrote:
When I had my Mountain Aire with 2 ducted roof ACs it was so quiet that I did not have to turn the radio up to hear it. Quality MHs have quiet roof air. Less expensive and entry units can be very noisy.

We have two roof mounted heatpumps. Very quiet and I've got all of my bays free. I don't think, nowadays, that you can generalize that one mounting system is better than the other...it really boils down to the implementation design of individual manufacturers. I much prefer having those boxes on the roof as opposed to giving up almost 25% of my basement storage. We snowbird, and my wife would have serious withdrawal issues if I told her we couldn't take her weaving look with us; in fact it could be a life and death situation...mine, not hers ??

When I had my Mountain Aire with 2 ducted roof ACs it was so quiet that I did not have to turn the radio up to hear it. Quality MHs have quiet roof air. Less expensive and entry units can be very noisy.

mike brez wrote:

JimM68 wrote:
Our roof air's are horribly noisy, especially if I open the main vent (bypasses the ducting)
Generally at night, we'll run the front only and let the ducts feed air to the bedroom, then we don't have to hear it.

I've heard common basement a/c's used in class A's are obsolete and very hard to get parts and repairs for. Far as I know, Winniebago/Itasca was the only mainstream manufacturer to use them. (note I'm not talking buses here, just regular class A's)

I think even two million dollar Prevosts have roof air. Four or five of them.

I bet those make some noise...

JimM68 wrote:
Our roof air's are horribly noisy, especially if I open the main vent (bypasses the ducting)
Generally at night, we'll run the front only and let the ducts feed air to the bedroom, then we don't have to hear it.

I've heard common basement a/c's used in class A's are obsolete and very hard to get parts and repairs for. Far as I know, Winniebago/Itasca was the only mainstream manufacturer to use them. (note I'm not talking buses here, just regular class A's)

I think even two million dollar Prevosts have roof air. Four or five of them.

JimM68 wrote:
Our roof air's are horribly noisy, especially if I open the main vent (bypasses the ducting)
Generally at night, we'll run the front only and let the ducts feed air to the bedroom, then we don't have to hear it.

I've heard common basement a/c's used in class A's are obsolete and very hard to get parts and repairs for. Far as I know, Winniebago/Itasca was the only mainstream manufacturer to use them. (note I'm not talking buses here, just regular class A's)

Gulf Stream TourMasters also had them in 2007

Our roof air's are horribly noisy, especially if I open the main vent (bypasses the ducting)
Generally at night, we'll run the front only and let the ducts feed air to the bedroom, then we don't have to hear it.

I've heard common basement a/c's used in class A's are obsolete and very hard to get parts and repairs for. Far as I know, Winniebago/Itasca was the only mainstream manufacturer to use them. (note I'm not talking buses here, just regular class A's)

I sure like my basement air (it's ducted through vents in the ceiling) and would prefer another like it. Haven't needed any repairs by a tech on this 15 year old unit, and the guy that does my home heating/AC would work on it. Once someone takes the duct off the unit and slides it part way out, it's just another home AC unit to work on.

I did that once to get rid of the noise a copper tube was making as it vibrated against a blower housing. It wasn't that big a deal-----probably a half hour's work.

I can't figure how some can say that roof air conditioners are noisier then the floor which is on the compartment right under the bed. According to club members that have the basement air conditioners, they say the humming sound can get to you while you are trying to sleep.

On the roof air, all you have to do is run the front air only and you will never hear any sound. OR if it is like my coach, just close the vent and send the air through ducts. Which makes it real quit.