When we got our coach the AC was not working. After some fiddling I got on the roof and pulled the shrouds and found wasp nests filling the coils and blocking the fans. Luckily for me they were all abandoned or it would have been a long stinging fall to the ground!
After pulling all of these out the AC’s fired up and worked well blowing super cold air. We had 2 problems though, they were power hungry and the Onan (still in the coach at the time) was struggling to keep them both running on a hot summers day. The second issue was noise, they were loud, and not just on startup. If you still have the original AC’s you know what I mean.
So the search was on. As with everything on the coach I wanted to do it once and not deal with it again, and the looks matter to us. Everyone seems to recommend the Atwood Air command units, and they do seem to be the top performer in the AC world, but I just couldn’t get past how damn ugly they are! I’m putting thousands and thousands of dollars and hours into this restoration, I just couldn’t have that hideous hunk of plastic eyesore sticking out of my roof! So this basically narrowed it down to the Dometic PenguinII and the Coleman Mach 8.
After comparing specs, prices etc I settled on the Coleman. They are nice and low profile, relatively low amp draw, and they have the same BTU’s of cooling on low and high, which is pretty cool. Also I very much like they way they look, they aren’t so curvy that they look like cartoons (I’m looking at you dometic) but they are small enough and slim enough to still look nice. We got a very good deal on the set from a company in Minnesota (prices have since been raised, I think we got a “someone mislisted that” kind of deal)
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The install was pretty straightforward. Pull the old units (and spend an hour and a half removing that nasty gunk sealer stuff they saw fit to put them on with) and put the new ones in. They fit like a glove….almost. The Coleman’s are much longer and thinner than the stock Duo-Therm’s and thus won’t fit into the rear AC space without interfering with the lights. After much debate we decided to mount the rear AC backwards, as we are never going to use it going down the road anyway so it really doesn’t matter. We are quite pleased with the way it turned out. You’ll have to ignore the horrific state of our exterior in these shots!
Really enjoyed this article.Thanks Again. Cool. Tibwell
“Great article post. Much obliged.”
Any regrets and/or issues resulting from your choice of A/C’s or your decision to mount the rear unit backwards? I am curious because I am in the market for new air conditioners and mounting options are limited with the longer low profile units.
No regrets and no issues at all. We don’t run the rear while on the road so no idea if it works well when driving, but I can’t see why it would matter.
If I had it to do again I’d probably have saves a few dollars and put a 9KBTU unit back there as it’s primarily used at night while sleeping and the 13K is overkill for the small space.
Good to hear. I would have no need to run the rear unit going down the road either. What model of Coleman did you use?
Thanks
How much interference was there with the rear marker lights? Would a smaller marker light have allowed forward facing installation?
The only option would be to remove the lights, it overlaps them directly.
I’ve had zero issues with it facing this direction.
I have a Duotherm on my roof now that works great. Relatively quite too.. I only have 1 air con, and a max air fan in the back.. . lol, gonna break the bank and get the mach 8 w/ heat pump.. around $1260.00 all in.. on average.. I am hoping that in my 26 Royale that it will be enough out in AZ next year..
What model number was the coleman unit? I have a 1977 and looking to replace both
They are Coleman Mach 8 13.5K BTU units