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Airconditioner problems


John and Julie

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Another problem has reared its head.

I turned the aircon on today and the compressor isn't working!! It was up till three weeks ago when I last gave it a run. Will have to give Dometic a ring on Monday. We had a replacement unit installed under warranty last July in Darwin and the van wasn't even a year old. The compressor had died then too. Of course, this aircon is not under warranty.

The other problem with the original aircon was that whenever we went on a bumpy or gravel or dirt road, the inner workings of the aircon jumped out of its proper place and made a dreadful banging noise when turned on. Thank goodness we carry a desk top fan. Dometic couldn't fix the problem permanently but showed us how to fix it every time it happened-gee thanks. Luckily we carry a ladder. The second aircon had the same problem and was finally fixed by the good people at Dometic at Brendale last December.

Does anyone else have problems with airconditioners??? Should we replace the dometic with a different brand? Ideas please!!!

Cheers

Julie

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Hi Julie

After reading your aircon problems I recall what happened to ours. After some very rough, hard tracks we also noticed that when we turned on the aircon. to heat we heard a knocking noise. Quickly turned it off.

Climbed up and took the cover off to inspect the damage and maybe if lucky the cause. I found that the main shaft that rotates with the fan was 'dangling'in midair. This certainly was the reason the fan was making this noise. The shaft of the fan had vibrated out of the rubber housing. Why? There was nothing to hold the shaft in place if under severe irratic vibration other than the rotation of the shaft. Fortunately, there was no obvious damage and no problems have arisen since that time (3months).

To fix this I noticed that there was thread on the end of the shaft so I found a nylex lock nut that fitted.

I screwed it on the end of the shaft which was protruding out from the rubber and have had no further issues. I really thought this should have been there in the first place. So, I contacted a repairer of this brand and they confirmed my doubts and said what I had done should be ok.

I hope you can under stand this.

Oh, also we have found in very high temperatures such as 35-48 deg. the aircon will be no better than 10 degrees less. I have not heard of a roof mounted one that does any better yet. One or two other brand vans I have seen have split aircons fitted and the owners reckon they are able to cope much better.

If you or someone else hears of a better system I'd certainly be interested to read about it.

Cheers Reg and Fran :shades:

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Hi Reg and Fran

Thanks for the reply. The fix you made to the aircon was exactly what Dometic did in Brisbane-that was the end of that problem. Our aircon was also dangling even after some not too bumpy tarred roads!!

We have actually found the dometic aircon to be quite good for cooling. Last year we worked on Windemere Station out of Winton for six weeks up till the end of September-35 to 38 degrees every day-and the aircon worked really well. The aircon is quite noisy but that's the price you pay for cooling I guess. For heating it works quite well too, but for a quick fix to the cold nothing beats the diesel heater.

The problem at the moment is that the compressor isn't working-so no cooling. Not sure if the compressor runs the heating as well.....I'm sure someone will let me know that one.

Hopefully dometic will be able to help?? when I give them a call on Monday.

Thanks again for getting back to me so quickly

Julie

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Hi Reg and Fran

We picked up our van on the 30th June last year since then we have been through 5 Dometic air con units with different installers offering different fixes each time. I will be applying a permanent fix when we are next at the factory as a new air command unit will be going in. Hopefully this will fix the problem. We are currently working at the tip with another dometic which is giving us very poor cooling so can,t wait to try a different brand.

Re the compressor doing heatig as well this is not the case it has a little electric element to heat with.

The other thing I find amazing about Dometic is that they do not carry out any form of servicing on there units simply if it does not work they replace the whole unit. They must get them pretty cheap to able to do this!

Hope this helps see you on the road :thumbsup:

Adam

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