A/C Duct Vents

First topic message reminder :

Good Evening,

I was considering changing out my vents in the ceiling that carry the A/C. I would imagine that everyone else's factory ducts look like this:



I want to replace with something that can be opened and closed with more directional flow control, like this:



Has anyone made a change like this? These products can be found at:

http://dwincorp.com/index.php?cPath=55

Your input is appreciated.....

Got my vents installed this weekend. It really made a huge difference. Just a note if your thinking of getting them. I am usually a skeptic so I used a screwdriver and removed the centers from the factory vents while I was on my trip to Georgia last weekend. It was 100 degrees outside and my a/c did not have to run all the time to maintain 70 degrees. It was actually cycling off when it hit the thermostat setpoint. My 32QBBS has a 13.5 unit so thats amazing. Still thinking of adding a 2nd unit to the rear bedroom(I like sleeping in the cold..LOL). I used a cutting tool attachment on my Dremel and it made it really easy to cut the hole out. I only needed the width of a pencil lead to get the correct size hole.

Factory vents with center removed




Marked for the cut






Dremel Cutting tool




Complete and retaped. Ready to install vent.

Nicely detailed, thanks for sharing and glad you are happy with the outcome. I know I am very pleased with the difference they made with our 13.5 AC unit too.

I too ordered the vents after reading the good reviews everyone gave. Headed to Gulf Shores in a couple weeks . Hope it makes a difference. I've never had a problem staying cool but if it helps any its worth the small price for them.

Are the OEM vents too restrictive?

We're really happy with our new vents. The trailer gets much cooler since Scruffy installed them. The A/C did a great job on our recent coast to coast trips, and we know it was because of the new vents.

Tater

scottz wrote:Are the OEM vents too restrictive?

Scott,
I think they just let the air blow out across the ceiling instead of down. With the new ones, you can direct the air anywhere you want, including straight down.

Or close them, which we sometimes do to make one room cool more quickly or better.

Ditto, on all the positive comments on the new vents! I used a 2" drum sander, (coarse. grit), in my drill, to enlarge the hole.

One glitch.... the second vent, from the rear, had a piece of 3/4" plywood, partially obstructing the hole. The installers did a "work-around" on the hole.... nicely sealing everything with duct tape. I was going to have to saw the plywood, so that it matched the curvature of the hole, because the P/W would not allow the vent to open and close.

Well, HELLO!!! I go to cut the P/W, and it MOVES! It is a good-size hunk of P/W, attached to NOTHING. It slides fore, and aft, about 3", and side to side, about 8-10". I wonder if one of the "TECHNICIANS" that installed the A/C, just slid the material cut from the roof hole, out of their way, and left it between the roof, and ceiling. ("HEY, Bubba, look at the clock. It's almost beer-thirty".)

Lazy, dumb, inept, etc., etc. Yet another item, for my gripe list.

mbatte wrote:Ditto, on all the positive comments on the new vents! I used a 2" drum sander, (coarse. grit), in my drill, to enlarge the hole.

One glitch.... the second vent, from the rear, had a piece of 3/4" plywood, partially obstructing the hole. The installers did a "work-around" on the hole.... nicely sealing everything with duct tape. I was going to have to saw the plywood, so that it matched the curvature of the hole, because the P/W would not allow the vent to open and close.

Well, HELLO!!! I go to cut the P/W, and it MOVES! It is a good-size hunk of P/W, attached to NOTHING. It slides fore, and aft, about 3", and side to side, about 8-10". I wonder if one of the "TECHNICIANS" that installed the A/C, just slid the material cut from the roof hole, out of their way, and left it between the roof, and ceiling. ("HEY, Bubba, look at the clock. It's almost beer-thirty".)

Lazy, dumb, inept, etc., etc. Yet another item, for my gripe list.

You probably paid extra for that feature.

That's the sort of thing that could cause one of those "mysterious" noises in the middle of the night..... and all you can do at the time is imagine how bad the repair will be. Fortunately, you found it before it started rattling around.

OH NO! I just got my new vents in and noticed I ordered model 8850 with 2 1/8 extension!
has anyone tried using these..... should I return them? I did not even realize there were two, I just saw the vent listed with extension and thought it was the right one, seeing that they do not tell you the other comes with an extension...

I think some members here have the vents with the extensions, but I think they might be 2 inch, not 2 1/8. I can't remember if we got the extensions or not...... but, I think not.

Tater

When I replaced my vents, I took 1 out from the bedroom(easiest to reach), and noticed that I could use the 2 inch extensions.

Well, when I replaced all the others, not 1 of them needed 2 inches, all were shorter. I cut them down using my band saw. But you have to be very careful and cut very slowly else they break.

I removed my old vent covers today to measure to see if I need extensions. The first layer of the ceiling seems to be plywood, but what is the opening of the duct made of? It seemed soft, so did you make it larger as well to fit the extension? I'm thinking that if I use foil tape instead of extensions that I won't have to enlarge the duct hole as well. The vent just seems to open up into a larger space. I couldn't see a round enclosed duct coming to the vent opening. It just seemed to open up into a large void area. Is that the actual duct? There is foil tape between the ceiling and the opening. It seemed fairly wide and I couldn't reach the edges with my hand. Also the top of the duct seems to look like a greenish color soft foam insulation. The pictures on shown on here show an aluminum type of foil on the top of the duct. Just curious. Thanks for all of the posts here.

Just did ours this evening. I ordered the 1-5/8" extensions, enlarged the holes, put foil tape all around and installed the new vents. I came across one section of duct where the two seems were not taped together, so I fixed that.
I also exchanged the floor vents with these ones: http://dwincorp.com/product_info.php?cPath=61&products_id=310

After taking off my vent covers I noticed that mine looks like lakejumpers. I have the West Coast model 27RL. Lakejumper, have you proceded with you mod? I noticed there have been no comments on your question.

Sierra Cat,

Yes I did my modification yesterday. It took a couple of hours to do all 5 vents. The foam board above the ceiling is the actual duct. It is just made out of soft green colored foam sheets. The top of the duct sagged in a couple of vents and wasn't letting much air in so I made a spacer to keep the duct from collapsing. After cutting the ceiling, I cut out the duct opening with a safety cutter and it worked well. I can feel a much better air flow from the new vent covers. We will test it out next week as we are camping in hot temps over 103 degrees!

I ordered ours a couple of weeks ago. Picking up the trailer tomorrow and plan on installing them. Hoping its as easy as everyone has said.

I just upgraded my vents to try to do a better job of directing the cool air to where i need it. Like the others the holes were just a tad smaller than the new vents, so i used a rotozip to enlarge the hole. It worked pretty good. If any of you have used a roto zip, it tends to have a mind of its own, and standing on a small ladder trying to cut a little bit off to make the hole bigger overhead was no easy task. Thankfully the vents overlap the holes nicely. We are leaving to go to South east OK on Sunday...so I'll get to test it out.

I am guessing the 2 inch extension seals the duct work to the vent.