Forum Discussion

Rock_jeep's avatar
Rock_jeep
Explorer
Sep 24, 2015

Adding a/c vents

Ok I sold my skyline and bought an Eclipse. So far it seems to be a much nicer trailer but it only has 3 a/c vents one in the bedroom, one in the bathroom and one in the living room/kitchen. The one in the kitchen just doesn't seem to put enough air out to cool it. Has anyone ever tried to add more ceiling vents? Or is there something I am overlooking.

Trailer is a 2009 eclipse Milan 25rks.
  • I used spray foam in some of my cavities. If you use it, go easy and protect the floor or carpet from having a clump of it fall. Less is enough when using spray foam as it expands a lot. It's also often better to let it dry and and then remove excess vs smearing the wet material all over.
  • Ok thanks guys. The aluminum tape was coming loose and was half covering one of the ducts and the divider was at least an inch from touching the top. I moved it up and retaped the whole area and now I have pretty good airflow. It is a Dometic unit with the insulated channels so if I need I don't think it would be to hard to add another vent but I may not need to now. Hopefully we will get to try it out soon.
  • With only 3 vents you should have quite a bit of air flow at each. I would look for obstructions or recirculation at the distribution box as others have said. As for adding registers; that would depend on your set up. If you have individual ducts it would be hard. If it has a foam insulated overhead with air channels you can trace the channels by probing thru current vents and or with a infrared thermometer then tap in where you need.
  • I'd pull the vent and see whats going on there. If your getting cool air in the BR I'm guessing there may be an obstruction somewhere. Hopefully that's the problem, because adding another vent will likely be a PITA. Our ducts are shaped foam and would either need to get the vent right on that channel or do some major fitting to add a new one.
  • Along the lines of what wildtoad is saying. My unit is a Dometic. Another important thing on it is the divider in between the inlet and outlet air ducts. When the ceiling panel is removed there is a divider that seals between the 2 ares. It had also come loose as it was taped in place.
  • Ok thanks. I can't remember the name of the unit but it wasn't a Coleman. (Had to buy a cover because hail damage). I will check that stuff out. I did notice there was a piece of foil that looked like a gum wrapper in one of the vents and I thought that was kinda weird for a ceiling vent. The camper shows very little wear like it sat up most of its life so something may have deteriorated.
  • You may want to remove the grills and see if yours has foil tape sealing the duct and grill area. Mine had deteriorated over the years and was blowing part of the cold air into the cavity and not through the grill.
  • What kind of AC unit do you have. I have the standard roof mounted Coleman AC. The air coming out of the vents was minimal to say the least. I took the inside cover off and found that much of the air coming from the AC was going right back up the return side due to poor installation. I also found the holes that were cut for the ducts were smaller than they could have been and enlarged them. And lastly, I noticed a lot of air escaping around the inside cover, corrected it.

    Your situation may be different of course, but first check to see if you are losing air.