A Women's RV Forum run by Women RVer's!

I have driven my motorhome for well over 6,000 miles in the last 2.5 months in temps from extremely hot to pretty cold. (It has been pretty chilly in the last 5 weeks, especially at night, so I have not used my AC at all during that time, although I did use it a lot driving through the midwest and central states in July.) One would think I had already figured everything out. Well, yesterday, I happened to notice that my AC unit in the ceiling has some vents around the edges that can be opened and closed. They have been closed.

Question !: Should they be open when I am using the AC? Or closed?? Or are there conditions when they should be open and other times when they should be closed? What about driving? It is not mentioned in my instruction booklet. I also figured out there is a filter up there that needs to be vacuumed occasionally, but at least that is mentioned n the booklet.

Question 2: In the last two campgrounds we stayed at, there were two water faucets at each site. One had a plain metal handle and the other had a handle which was painted green. I hooked up to the green handle. Was that right? What is the other faucet for? Guess I should have asked at the campground.

Obviously, I am still discovering new things all the time!

Judy, I think I have the same vent things you described on my air conditioner. The guy I bought it from told me that if it is really hot when you first turn on the air conditioner you can open these vents to cool the RV faster. But then you need to close them because they will make the AC freeze up if you leave them open. They are close to the air intake and it will be taking in the cold air. I never looked in my air conditioner book to see if it says anything about that.

I have no clue about the water faucets.

Martha

Martha answered your ac question. As to the water - I've never seen that and would have asked, for sure. There must be a reason they are different, but I haven't a clue.

On my AC units, if the vents are closed, it forces the cold air through the ducting and out the round vents in the ceiling for more even cooling through the unit. It is also a little quieter. It cools down faster when the vents are in the open position on the two units when it is really hot in the rig. The filters can be washed monthly by opening the big return air portion, taking out the filter material, washing them in soapy water, rinse well, dry and then put them back. Just like in your S&B, the filters need to be cleaned at least monthly.

Don't know anything abut the faucets. Have not seen this yet.

I would have definitely asked about the faucets. I would suspect that one was for drinking water and the other maybe from a well and not for drinking????

Travelinana wrote:...there is no dumb question...

Uh, can you say "Vickie"...
I'll say no more.

Mitch, I was waiting for a response from you. There are just some comments you can't let pass carold

When I am in a commercial RV park, I seldom drink the water, although I do use it for cooking, figuring that boiling it will kill anything, so I did not drink any of that. I will definitely ask the next time before I hook up.

I always feel better about drinking the water at state and national parks, because I assume being government organizations, they get tested more regularly. On the other hand, we lived in our cottage on Lake Huron for 50 years drinking well water and it was tested only once. I loved the taste of that water. Ditto for several roadside springs in Michigan I drank from and that people used to fill bottles from.

It is amazing that we all can still learn things about these rigs!

Nancy,

I DO love living in my rig. Moving in here has brought me a lot of peace. I am no longer expecting to see or hear Chuck at every turn. This was a really good decision we made. I will just be soooooo glad to be finished with the storing and slashing. I am mostly finished with the storing, I think, except for a couple things I am still looking for in the boxes still outside. Other than those things, everything else is being trashed. That is uplifting too.

mitch5252 wrote:

Travelinana wrote:...there is no dumb question...

Uh, can you say "Vickie"...
I'll say no more.

Meany Greeny

Okay, okay, I guess you're right though, because I just learned that I need to close the side vents on my ac intake thingy.

looking up at mine as we speak I think there is a difference in the faucets but don't remember what it is
when we got the 5th wheel to SLC Larry wasn't up to helping hook things up so we (myself, friend who brought it to SLC and possibly daughter) hooked
it all up we put the water hose on the wrong faucet..like I said don't know what was different but it was changed...
when some one finds out what the difference is let us know ok?
When I worked at one store only time I worked retail told the boss I had either a dumb or stupid question not sure now which but his response was
there are no dumb questions only dumb answers...
keep asking and we will keep answering
in fact the more I'm on my own the more I realize I don't know so will be starting to ask my own dumb questions
sheila

The water in the parks is the same as in the cities they are in. Would you drink the water in the restaurants or in a motel/hotel if you stayed there. I do put a filter on my hose, mainly to try to keep the extra stuff out. But don't expect the state/federal parks to have water tested any differently. Now, if anyone is on a well, the water has to be tested at least annually or it can't be on - commercial, state, federal, all treated equally there.

I would think that the green faucet would be for irrigation...like for watering the grass, but I could be wrong. I think I was wrong once before, but I'm not sure.

Air Conditioner- You have an airconditioner that comes through the roof and that has vents in it that are either opened or you can close them, now if you have vents in the corners of your rig it means that IF you close the vents ON the airconditioner, you will get the air through the vents in the corners of the ceiling and if you close the vents in ceiling and open vent in the actual air conditioner than all the cool air comes out of the bottom of the air conditioner. Some people feel that the rig will cool faster closing the vents in air conditioner and opening the vents in ceiling as they distribute the air more. Some feel that closing the vents in ceiling and opening vent in air conditioner pours out cool air harder so that may cool the rig faster when it is hot when you arrive etc. NEITHER will freeze your air conditioner if it is working correctly. IF you have a generator you could run the "house" air conditioner while driving OR you could put a curtain behind the seats of the rig and put the dash air on and you will be cool and you will not need to run the generator while driving. The generator uses gasoline from your gas tank so your "milage" goes down since the generator is sipping some of the gas.
Water faucets with different colors- Most campgrounds give you written matter when you first come with rules etc and possibly it was written there for you to read so you would know which to hook up to but always, ALWAYS ask when you have a question, could mean life or death in some areas like what to do if a tornado warning comes up etc.
Hope this helps,
RVer