Daily Archives: August 18, 2015
Now To Get It On The Roof . . .
Jan and I headed out about 10:30 for a trip into Houston, with our first stop at Schobel’s Restaurant in Columbus for breakfast. They do a great omelet, and good coffee too.
We planned to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon about 5:30, but we were doing some shopping first.
I have been noticing for a while that my front Coleman Mach V AC was laying down on the job a bit. So I had been thinking about replacing it with a new one. I’ve been doing some research on different brands and models, and came right back around to Coleman. The two we have are original, so they’ve been going for 16 years with only a total of $30 of repairs. I had to replace the compressor start caps on both units, one in 2009, and the other in 2013. Not a bad record overall.
Being cheap, my first thought was to maybe do a little RRAN (repair and replace as necessary – a military aircraft term) on the units, probably starting with checking the Freon level.
RV rooftop AC’s are mechanically very similar to home window units. Which means they both come sealed, with no ports to access the Freon in the system. But you can use one of these to check the pressure and add Freon if necessary.
It’s a saddle tap and it’s made specially for tapping into sealed systems like window AC’s and refrigerators. But the compressor also has a lot of miles on it, with the possibility of leaky seals, worn bearings, etc. And of course the whole thing could just die next week.
All that, plus the fact that I’d really like to upgrade the size, led me to the Coleman Mach 15 from PPL. It has 15,000 BTU, an 11% increase over our 13,500 BTU units. And according to the specs, it also has a 1/3 hp fan motor, the largest one in the RV industry, especially recommended with a ducted system like we have in our American Eagle.
I thought about also replacing the bedroom unit, but I think I’ll wait. Since it cools a much smaller area, it’s still doing a good job for now.
So we made a stop at PPL Motorhomes to pick up a new Mach 15 upper unit, along with a ducted, cooling-only, external thermostat, inside unit.
Now, how am I going to get this 110 pound unit up on the roof?
Our next stop was at the Toys R US near Katy Mills Mall to pick out Landon’s gifts for his birthday party this Saturday. We got him 4 different Lego sets, all superhero based. He loves both, so he should be pretty happy.
I also found this other neat Lego set, but Brandi said Landon didn’t watch The Big Bang Theory and wouldn’t know who they are.
We got back to Brandi’s about 4pm, and got in a little nap before Brandi, Lowell,and Landon showed up about 5. Then it was off to have dinner at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro, one of our all-time favorite restaurants. You can’t believe how good their Shaking Beef Vermicelli is.
Finally, after getting our last Landon hugs, and everybody else hugs, we headed back toward Columbus, getting home about 7:45.
So how do I get it up on the roof?
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Thought for the Day:
Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is, it’s the only answer.
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