Winnebago basement air

You should compare what it costs to work on the basement unit vs the roof top units, or, what it costs replace the basement unit vs one or two of the roof units. I also think it's more difficult to find truly competent people to work on the basement units.

Bill

Basement A/C

Does it really cool quicker? No.

Is it quieter? Oh yes.

Is it easy to work on. You bet. No climbing on the roof.

Is it installed on new units? No.

For us the basement air cools the same as our roof tops.

Is it quieter? Only in the living room area. The bedroom it's was noisier. It was so bad we just turned it off and used fans. Now with roof top ducted Air, we run the living room A/c when we sleep. Nice and quiet.

There must be a reason they are getting away from them.

We got use to the noise in the bedroom. But other than that works great.

Trackrig wrote:
You should compare what it costs to work on the basement unit vs the roof top units, or, what it costs replace the basement unit vs one or two of the roof units. I also think it's more difficult to find truly competent people to work on the basement units.

Bill

not sure why.. Its exactly like a residental A/C
As far as noise, its quietier than running the bedroom A/C above your head unless you are also comparing roof ducted and running the one on the opposite end of the coach

We have it in ours and it is fantastic. I don't even hear it in the bedroom when it is running. It cools real well. The best AC ststem I've ever had was in our Newmar 5th wheel. It would cool that trailer down to 70 from 90 in an hour. It was a ducted unit and first tume I turned it on I had to feel the vents to make sure it was working

creeper wrote:
...

There must be a reason they are getting away from them.

According to Winnebago

Why change? The advent of new diesel emission standards requires chassis components to be placed in the basement space previously used for our TrueAir compressor package and the future availability of that cooling unit package is in question due to new refrigerant regulations that require larger re-designed compressors

OP,

We had basement air in two coaches, an Adventurer and a Journey. We like the basement air in both. They were definitely quieter in the living area and quieter than a bedroom roof air from the same time frame.

There was an issue that I didn't like. One could not decide which compressor(s) were running. The management system used the number one compressor, by itself, if the temperature in the coach was no more than one degree above the set temperature. That created situations in which the first compressor was started because of a one-degree differential and it was able to maintain that differential but could not bring the temperature now. So the one compressor could run for hours, unable to satisfy the call, but "not needing" the second compressor.

Our current coach has two roof heat pumps. They are quieter than roof heat pumps used to be. I do like running the front unit at night and leaving the back one off.

This summer in 95º temperatures, I found that I had to close the bedroom vents to force all of the cooling capacity to the front. That worked.

We did not see a similar issue with the heating cycle, during the winter. But then, the heat cycle only works down to the high 30's.

Tom

I was in a coach with basement air but admit I didn't sleep in it. Even in the bedroom I doubt it was louder than the roof top unit over our bed.

We had a 2001 Winnebago Adventurer 32V with basement air and loved it. As previously mentioned they were discontinued for a number of reasons. One that hasn't been mentioned is the units in the larger coaches were at their limits as far as cooling capacity was concerned. The newer and even larger motorhomes would have needed an even larger AC unit. That in conjunction with the addition of the DEF requirement on diesels would have greatly limited outside storage space.

Great responses. I have a 2008 Tiffin Allegro with four slides. I have two 13.5 BTU Coleman AC units. Those two units struggle to get the temp down in 105 degree weather. I am considering replacing the two units with newer 15k units. I understand the newer units are much more efficient and cool better.

Now we are looking at this 2008 37' Winnebago Journey. I don't really want the basement air, it just comes with it. I don't really care about the noise. And I can maybe do without the storage. But, if the basement air can't cool a 37' coach any better than what we have now, my DW will kill me.

So, is 37' toward the upper end of what a basement air can adequately cool? Or were they put on even larger coaches?