Dometic A/C

greynomad · 10-30-2013, 12:21 AM

At 0100hrs this morning the A/C decided to quit. Checked the breaker box, no problems there, everything else in the RV was working.
What I did find out was if I pushed the buttons on the wall mounted thermostat the A/C would come on for a short period of time before shutting down again which is leading me to believe that the thermostat could very well be the problem.
The A/C is still under warranty, the question is has anyone had to deal with Dometic for service?

SAD · 10-30-2013, 02:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greynomad

At 0100hrs this morning the A/C decided to quit. Checked the breaker box, no problems there, everything else in the RV was working.
What I did find out was if I pushed the buttons on the wall mounted thermostat the A/C would come on for a short period of time before shutting down again which is leading me to believe that the thermostat could very well be the problem.
The A/C is still under warranty, the question is has anyone had to deal with Dometic for service?

If you truly suspect the thermostat... Personally, I would just go to Lowes/Home Depot/Walmart.... Buy a $19 digital thermostat and see if that fixes it.

If it does, then great... you get a better thermostat and you save yourself a trip to the dealer for roughly 20 minute's worth of effort.

If it does not fix it... Put factory thermostat back... THEN trek to the dealer, have them deal with it... When your trailer is returned from the dealer, re-install digital thermostat... You get if fixed AND a better thermostat.

Shelbs · 10-30-2013, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAD

If you truly suspect the thermostat... Personally, I would just go to Lowes/Home Depot/Walmart.... Buy a $19 digital thermostat and see if that fixes it.

If it does, then great... you get a better thermostat and you save yourself a trip to the dealer for roughly 20 minute's worth of effort.

If it does not fix it... Put factory thermostat back... THEN trek to the dealer, have them deal with it... When your trailer is returned from the dealer, re-install digital thermostat... You get if fixed AND a better thermostat.

I would be careful about grabbing a $19 thermostat at Walmart. There are only a few out there that actually will work in an RV system. There are instructions available at various places online that outline which thermostat to use, the alterations needed to make it work and install directions.

That said, if it doesn't work and instead creates damage, your warranty could be voided.

I will agree SAD that dealing with your dealer is a much better option than trying to work with Dometic directly. In fact, I don't think Dometic will do warranty business directly with the owner anyway.

Good luck!

**JRTJH** · 10-30-2013, 04:26 AM

Dometic sells "extended warranties" to customers and has a dealer/service center network to honor their claims for warranty service. They do honor the original warranty for their products at their service centers. There is a list of service centers available at the dometic website:

https://www.edometic.com/allusr/srvc...rvctr?openpage

I do agree, simply taking it to your dealership (if the thermostat doesn't fix it would probably be the simplest and fastest way to get it repaired. But, if you're a long way from the dealer, you may find a Dometic service center much closer.

hankaye · 10-30-2013, 08:09 AM

graynomad, Howdy;

Quote:

Originally Posted by greynomad

At 0100hrs this morning the A/C decided to quit. Checked the breaker box, no problems there, everything else in the RV was working.
What I did find out was if I pushed the buttons on the wall mounted thermostat the A/C would come on for a short period of time before shutting down again which is leading me to believe that the thermostat could very well be the problem.
The A/C is still under warranty, the question is has anyone had to deal with Dometic for service?

What was the temp. when it quit? Could it have been just cool enough to allow
the A/C to take a break and rest awhile... otherwise known as normal function.
By-the-way where are you that A/C is still needed?

hankaye

twstdpear · 10-30-2013, 09:34 AM

If you do replace the thermostat, be careful if it has 6 wires. One is likely 24v (maybe 7.5v) AC power (aka "common") and you need to be careful where you connect that.

I had a spare programmable thermostat which has an "oil" setting needed for for my house which has an oil boiler and a separate a/c, a very similar setup to the trailer. On my trailer, the common wire was the wrong color and that led me to connect it to the thermostat in the wrong place. That caused one of the circuit board traces to get hot and I disconnected it promptly before any damage could occur. I think it used blue, but blue in the household HVAC seems to be for the changeover valve on a heat pump, or something like that.

I believe the wires were:
Ground (GND - A/C and Furnace)
Heat (Rh - Furnace)
Cool (Rc - A/C)
High fan (Gh - A/C)
Low fan (Gl - A/C)
Common (C - A/C)

There was no place to put the low fan or common on my thermostat, so I taped them off. Common is usually used with thermostats that require/accept external power but my replacement was battery-power only. Some people add a small manual switch to the thermostat to select between high/low fan. I recall the original Coleman thermostat was fairly clearly marked for everything except the common. Definitely do some research before attempting it yourself. There have been a lot of write-ups on here about upgrading thermostats.

SAD · 10-31-2013, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shelbs

I would be careful about grabbing a $19 thermostat at Walmart. There are only a few out there that actually will work in an RV system. There are instructions available at various places online that outline which thermostat to use, the alterations needed to make it work and install directions. ...

Interesting. I find the opposite to be true.

As long as you purchase a household thermostat intended to work with a gas furnace (as opposed to an electric heat pump)... There's nothing particularly special about the RV furnace.

Research online. Take pics of the original wiring connections prior to disconnecting. Easy.

I elected to only wire up the "high" fan speed and tape off the lead for the "low" fan speed. Some have added their own hi/lo switch to keep that feature.

allmi01 · 10-31-2013, 06:44 AM

In my old TT, I did htis mod with a $32 Hunter thermostat with set back features. I saved the cost fo the unit in propane the first month (I was using the TT as a house on a long term contract in PA during Nov to April).

I diddo the fan switch as well.

The trick with these is that the thermostats for residential use are setup for 24v DC so make sure the one you get uses batteries for its power or it won't work. The furnace / AC systems in the RV are 12v DC.

The installation took about an hour including cutting a custom hole for the fan switch and labeling it.

Used for for 5 year after that, no issues. Changed the batteries only once in that time. Use good AA's and you won't have issues.

The newer Dometic A/C units don;t work the same (not sure if it is thermostat or the A/C unit control board) than the old ones did. When the fan speed changes (low to high or vice versa) it seems the unit itself stops.

I'd suspect the thermostat might be the issue.

Mike

bobbecky · 10-31-2013, 06:04 PM

Had a 13.5 Dometic replaced by CW this past July. It was under warranty, but from what I read, I think the Dometic warranty is 2 years. There was absolutely no problem getting it replaced, and even though the trailer was less than 1 year old at the time, CW just called Dometic and had no problem getting OK. Don't think it took much more than a couple hours total.

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