Air Conditioner leak

[mrxlh]

Just wanted to post my fix. My Bedroom AC began to leak only when raining, weather the AC was on or just the fan was on. It didnt leak when the unit was off, even in a sideways 45mph rain/windstorm, which really had me baffled. I searched this forum as well as the entire web and came up with tightening the gaskets, or that the drip pan was cracked. It is an Airxcel 49000 series non ducted. I checked the tightness of the hold down bolts and inspected the gaskets. Still leaked, some had suggested that dirty air filters would also cause this. Cleaned them, no avail still leaked. Finally the rain quit here and I was able to get up on the roof and look at where I though the leak was coming from. The base pan of a 49000 is metal, not plastic, so no issues with cracking there. I also inspected my drain holes, and made sure those were clean. You really cannot see the drip pan without disassembling the entire unit, but no rain really gets through to the a-coil. My RV parts guy said it sounded like the unit has some tape fail somewhere on a seam letting water in. If you really want to be sure and leak check get a $10 kiddie pool from wal-mart or the dollar store, it made it easy and mess free. I taped what was the most obvious and leak checked with a water hose. Still leaked. I then removed the condenser (you have enough slack to get it out of the way, one side at a time) and removed all the old foil tape and re-taped the entire unit, re- assembled and then leak checked for over 10 minutes with a garden hose on full blast, leak fixed.

[mrxlh]

Yep, kiddie pool on the bed, no worries about flooding the mattress that way. Coils were not dirty, or I would have washed them. I didn't think about the furnace fan and soap, but I will next time, thanks for the tip.

[Golden_HVAC]

So the kiddy pool. Did you put that under the A/C unit on your bed to catch the leaking water while blasting it with water hose? I have never thought about that.

Many have used a furnace fan to pressurize the RV with a roof vent, then spray the whole RV with soap bubbles from a 1 gallon pressure tank (chemical sprayer). This leaves huge bubbles at ever air leak, and probably would have found the air leaks in your A/C if the cover had been off.

When you said "Kiddie pool" I started thinking cut a 24" X 30" Hole in the bottom of a plastic kiddie pool, and tape that to the roof. Fill it and look for leaks. . . Ha Ha.. ..

I hope that you took a couple of minutes and washed the rooftop A/C cooling coils, that is something that everyone should do each spring. ..

Have fun camping!

Fred.