Meet the "BloeRV" (rhymes with swerve)

[JA Savage]

Thanks so much that was very helpful.

[johnbloem1974]

Welp - back in Texas for a bit. Our summer definitely didn't turn out the way we thought, but oh well! My hotel never got to open because of COVID related shutdowns. MY wife did still get to work, albeit in a different role. At least we made it through safe and sound!

Since I was not working, I did some little bus projects...mostly "behind the scenes" stuff like cleaning up/re-doing wiring. Making some minor plumbing changes, adding an outlet, etc...



We also had a nice, extended trip from Montana to Texas - took our sweet time and got to see some National Parks/Monuments that have been on the list!

Now, we wait in TX for some family-stuff that needs to be taken care of, then hopefully can get back on the road again!

In the mean-time, I am doing some more bus projects since we are at one location for a bit and not living in the bus....more to come on those as I somplete them!

Cheers!!

John

[johnbloem1974]

Yipee!! We now have proper rooftop A/C!

Back in December, finally plunked down for a Furrion 15.5K BTU rooftop A/C. After putting it off due to nerves with having to cut a hole in the roof, I finally sucked it up and did it.

Honestly, the hardest part was getting the damn thing on the roof! Here's how I did it: since I didn't have a crane or lift, I decided to use a ladder and a "sled". I made a sled using plywood and some 2x4's, placed the unit on the sled and used some ratchet straps and my Brother-in-law to help me get it up. took longer to fab the sled and figure everything out than it actually did to get it up there.

Used a long extension ladder and almost fully extended it so the angle would be fairly low to the roof. Unfortunately, I did not get pictures if it actually going on the roof as my wife was too nervous about it falling off the ladder or me falling off the roof to take any!

Here is a few pic of the sled: on the underside I put 2 2x4's to fir over the ladder so it wouldn't slide around.

On the other side, I made a U-shaped cradle to keep the A/C unit from sliding around as well.



All-in-all, it worked our really well and we got it up there without incident!

So, before we got it up on the roof, I had prepared the opening and ran the wiring.

To prepare the opening, I measured about 40 zillion times to make sure the 14x14 hole I was about to cut was centered and square. I used a combination of drilling a pilot hole and then using some sheet metal nippers to cut the actual hole. Again, not really a big deal, but I made myself super nervous about it.

Then, I braced the area between the 2 roof panels and used aluminum tape to seal off the area.

Ran the wiring and got it ready to go.

I also realized a minor oversight - The Furrion unit is designed for a roof thickness of between 3.5" and 6". After cutting, to my surprise, I saw I only had 2" of roof thickness. Crap! So, I had to fab additional framing to make the proper thickness and seal that off as well.

Once that was all done, all I had to do was connect the wiring and torque the bolts that connect the actual rooftop unit to the inside baseplate.

flipped the breaker (which I has to add an additional 20AMP breaker to the box) and listened to the sweet, sweet sound of the compressor kicking on and nothing tripping!

The thing really isn't super loud and it cools quite nicely!

Bottom line: very happy with the unit and how the installation went!

John