Winnebago basement air

1950panman wrote:
well I am currently ..just looking at a 2004 winnabago adventure..wqith basement air..very good commets so far ,,but the sales people say the front dash air is not working...any response fom previous owner...issues? lane

Don't sweat the dash air as it won't work for long, even with a repair and a worthless expensive add-on IMO.
As for the ac location theory, I stick to having roof air and as for residential hot attics, it's blowing through rapidly and once cooled it falls down into the rooms immediately without much blower power. Not trying to pump itself up hot inside walls and over into the overhead duct work before being expelled. As for the furnace add-on in cold winter climates, it works pretty well, cuz it only gets really hot and humid on occasion, but not so in the tropics, so they do the opposite and for heat on occasion in winter, an electric coil in the air handler works nicely.

well I am currently ..just looking at a 2004 winnabago adventure..wqith basement air..very good commets so far ,,but the sales people say the front dash air is not working...any response fom previous owner...issues? lane

msmith1199 wrote:

Hank MI wrote:

tropical36 wrote:

time_to_go_now wrote:
I have searched and read as much as I can about this. I understand that it takes away outside storage. But, does it work any better that two air conditioners mounted on the roof? Does it really cool quicker? Less noisy?

If so, why isn't everybody else offering it?

Just curious.

Cold air falls, hot air rises. That tells me something about efficiency.
At home, my air handler is in the attic and the vents are in the ceiling.
If one of your roof ac's quits, you still have another or two, until you get it fixed. Not sure about basement air.
Also need all the storage, we can get.
Actually basement air would be a deal breaker for me.

Not sure what you're saying. Our basement air is ducted and blows out through ceiling vents. That fact that the unit is in a basement compartment vs the roof makes little to no difference. In fact not having it sitting on the roof, baking in the sun should help it cool better. Our home AC unit sits outside and is ducted through the furnace ducts, it will freeze you out. Yours is in the attic, the hottest place they could find to put it. I know it's common in some areas but doesn't make sense to me.

The basement unit has 2 compressors so if one quits you still have another. True a total system failure would take them both out.

Your home A/C unit sits outside but that isn't where the air is coming from. That outside unit is just cooling the Freon which is circulating to your heater which is where the fan is except it's blowing cold air chilled by the Freon instead of hot air heated by the burner.

I understand that. My point was the air handler is the furnace, in our case it's located in the basement. In your case the air handler is in the hottest place you could possibly find. I know it works, just doesn't seem efficient to try and supply cold air from the attic which is well over 100 when the sun is shining.

From what I under stand ,when the EPA made diesels add the DEF. This took the space of the basement air. From what I know Winnebago was the only one that had basement air. Unless the
high dollar ones did. One thing I do know is , the roof air is noise. Have been up on the roof of my 13 Winnebago 40U many times. Replaced the exhaust blades twice. The c & d model blades quieted the out side noise but the inside ,not so much.

J-Rooster wrote:
With basement air I don't have to worry about tree branches or low clearances hitting my roof top air. And, I don't have wind pushing my RV all over the road when the wind gusts hit the roof air units.

Okay, I'll buy the tree branch argument (although there is other stuff up there to break with tree branches) but wind gusts pushing you by your roof top A/C units??? I'm thinking the side winds hitting the 35 foot + by 10 foot side of the motorhome would account for about 99.7% percent of getting pushed around by wind gusts, and the rooftop A/C units would account for .3%. And I'm probably giving them too much with that .3%.

In a nut shell, if the wind is strong enough to push your RV "all over the road" not having rooftop AC is not making a difference.

With basement air I don't have to worry about tree branches or low clearances hitting my roof top air. And, I don't have wind pushing my RV all over the road when the wind gusts hit the roof air units.

Gjac wrote:
How many BTU's does the basement AC put out?

On mine, each compressor is 13,500. In the basement the evaporator isn't baking in the sun and is much more efficient that a 13,500 roof top.

How many BTU's does the basement AC put out?

msmith1199 wrote:
I will tell you I was camping with a friend a few weeks ago. He has a Winnebago Adventurer with the basement AC unit, I have a Tropical DP with two roof units. Outside temp got to 106 one day of our trip in California. My AC's were running non-stop and could just barely keep the inside temp below 80. He had his motorhome so cold his wife had to use a blanket to take a nap. I think he got it down to 72.

Is that a valid comparison? I don't know, all I can tell you is the facts. And even when my motorhome was brand new I took it to Vegas in 105 plus temps, and both AC units functioned about the same as they do now. When it's well over 100 out, I can get the inside temp down to 78 to 80.

I can agree. We were recently camping in 90+ degree weather and the basement air in our Adventurer kept things so cold you could hang meat.

Had to have ours removed for repair several years ago in Mexico. Fortunately there was an X-pat American AC tech living and working in the area that was able to bring a new compressor unit down from the USA.

The tech told me that it was essentially the same as a small unit installed in residences and small offices. ANY AC tech should be ablee to service it BUT:

It was very awkward to remove and replace. It can't be serviced without removing it completely. (Other than changing the filters.)

Ours is a 2002 32' DP, very similar to the Winne. I found good help here from a Winne owner who had pulled his..

I like the basement air heat pump other wise. As someone else posted, it leaves room for the solar panels on the roof.

Here is a link to our blog page that describes the process, with some photos. (Scroll down to near the bottom of the page)

UPDATE: Spring 2015:

Having seen the cracked tubes, and realising that the unit was more than 10 years old and had spent the last 100,000 kilometers on Mexican roads bouncing and vibrating for much of them, we decided to replace the unit. We had McKay Truck do the work in Albany Oregon on the way home. This spring, when checking out the rig the heatpump failed to start:E When our mobile tech arrive to check it he found a dead compressor. A call to Coleman, confirmed a 2 year warranty. Checked the paperwork--we had three days to spare!

New unit replaced a month or so later.