Coleman Trueair basement HVAC

dadwolf2 wrote:
We are looking at buying a 2009 Winnebago Journey 34Y. I noticed that it has the Coleman Trueair basement style air conditioning unit instead of 2 units on the roof. Should I be concerned? Is this a good or bad thing? Anything I should know or is this a non-issue?

As you can see and read, the majority of owners of basement A/C units have been, are now and will, for the most part, be thoroughly happy with them. As for them "Freezing" you in HOT weather, well, that's a matter of opinion and of course, the condition of the A/C unit itself and corresponding ducting. Our coach is an '04 Itasca Horizon 36GD with the C-7 330HP CAT and the basement A/C in it has worked very good for the 7.5 years we've owned the coach. I did have to replace one bronze bushing for one of the fan shafts but, no biggie.

They are an easy unit to remove and service. One issue that is not all that common is, the ducting at or near the "Y" joint in between the back of the coach and inner wall can separate some. Some will repair through removing a tail light. But, by and large, they are a good unit.
Scott

Had one on our Suncruiser from 2001 thru 2018, mostly trouble free. I did have to put a new control board in it. Beyond that it worked great. Liked the fact that I didn't have to worry about it being damaged from tree limbs striking it.

Another plus for the basement air is a lower roof clearance if you have a 12 foot garage door opening. I believe the height of the highest item on our MH roof is about 11 feet, six inches. My RV garage door height is 12 feet and anything with a roof mounted unit would be too high to get through the opening.

We have had three Winnebagos with basement air without any problems for about 160,000 miles. Our Aspire has three roof airs; one needed a control board and now another is waiting a diagnosis.

We have a 2003 35ft. Winnebago with the basement air. It's nice if you're not rving in hot weather. We ended up replacing our fantastic fan in the kitchen area with an Atwood Air Command Rooftop RV Air Conditioner - 11.3 Amps - 13,500 Btu - Non-Ducted. It was the best thing we ever did to the RV. When we're in Palm Desert we have both airs going, makes a huge difference.

I wish my current coach had basement air. It's much quieter than the roof units, so it's much easier to hear the TV.
My basement air was in the 2000 Itasca Horizon. It didn't have the heat pumps, just AC. As it aged, I did have to replace a circuit board, start/run capacitors, and compressor relays. After that work, it performed like new. Parts were all readily available; I got them all from Makarios RV; prices were reasonable.

Our basement air works good, heating and cooling.

Our 2004 basement air still works good, heating and cooling.

We have friends that has a the same coach about the same year and they have never had any issues with theirs.

You will hear both good and bad but this is my take. I have a 1998 Winnebago Luxor with this set up that I have had near 20 years, it has never failed. And after 2 Monacoes with roof a/c there is no comparison. The basement a/c will freeze you on the hottest days, a limb will not knock it off the roof, and it pulls right out for service. I use this unit for my drag racing and sometimes it runs 4 or 5 days without ever being turned off. Gen has 4000+ hours so the a/c is near that. Also neither of the Monacoes had as much storage as the Luxor so put that myth to sleep also. That's my take.