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How to overload the Cruise Airs
Left Colorado this AM at 8:10. within 45 mins, my marginal Bus Air was obviously not going to make it as it was already 85 and the sun shine bright in Colorado. Closed up the bus, started the Gen, cranked up all 3 crusie airs and settled back to a hot drive. Did I say I (we) had also boarded 3 grandkids and their mom for the trip back home? Stopped 2 times at road side parks to water/exercise the dogs/kids…Just as we arrived at the overnight campground both front Cruise Airs shut down. Fans worked ok but no compressor action. Parked, hooked up, long story shortened (a little) hosed down the units from the outside, and ran fans only for awhile. Talked with Nick Hessler and he advised the extra passengers and resulting body heat, moisture (don’t forget our dogs) had probably frozen up the units. The filters, although just cleaned 5 weeks ago before the trip, and cleaned them again. A dusty campground had taken their toll. Took about 2 hrs for the heat to dissipate and get them going. They are doing fine now, I think it was just the 205+ degree heat on the road and running the gen which exhausts below close to the Cruise Airs…..Lesson learned, fewer Psgrs and/or heat consideration. May put off tomarrows last segment, leave ultra early , shade tree for a while and finish up late afternoon when the “Rays” ain’t quite so hot. Gee, its fun though, learning this stuff.
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13 Replies
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Roger,
That must have been miserable, nothing worse then the heat with a bus load when you can’t get it cooled down. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but every one I have had with cruiseairs would shut down in extreme heat from the highway. I like the cruiseairs, but hate the failure due to road heat.
Hope you keep them running for the rest of your trip and I think early departure is the answer. Our forcast for late this week in N Georgia is 99 degree’s…
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Rodger,
Not a pleasant experience for sure. Does you Country Coach have dash air and salon air. My CC has salon dash air and salon air. It took some work to get the salon air working, but it works great now. For your info, during hot times, I will place a small fan/blower in front of the salon/kitchen AC discharge and move the cool air forward to the drivers area. This help significantly. Also, I will lower the silhouette blinds such that they are down, but open so you can see through them. That seems to help keep the bus insulated from the hot glass.
I have roof airs. If it is headed towards triple digits, I will start the generator and run the roof airs also. So far, this process will keep it cool inside. But the best solution is to head north to cooler weather.
The comment on cruise airs is good info for me. Since I have roof airs, I have wondered about the performance of cruise airs. I guess I need to be happy with my roof airs during this hot weather.
Good Luck,
Hector
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I have over the road air. I don’t need fans. I need sweatshirts.
You guys knew that was coming, right?
The problem with the Cruise Airs is when the intake air temp for the condensing unit is very hot, such as that radiating from the highway then the condenser just fails to function as intended. Jim Schoen added misters to his Cruise Air condensers, with the mist controlled by a pressure switch he installed on the condenser. When the internal pressures get up to a certain value that he determined by trial and error, the condensing coil gets a spray mist which brings the pressures down and allowes the Cruise Airs to function well. His water supply is the fresh water from the coach.
If your coach does not have Prevost OTR air, you may have to have roof air units which will function on hot days.
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Yep… me too Jon… that over the road air is a “priceless” feature to say the least !! 102 outside and 65 inside. I just don’t run my cruisairs driving on boiling hot roads.. isn’t worth the effort to me. I do run the big house air sometimes so the bedroom stays cooler…(for some reason the road heat doesn’t affect that unit) the over the road air isn’t as strong in the back of the bus but will freeze us out in the front.
Also when it’s over 90 I always hose down the pavement right under my units before I park… after 5 mins of running the water the temp has to drop considerably and I run the Over the Road until the bus is as cool as I want it.. usually just a few extra minutes does the trick…. once cool, maintaining the temp is easier.
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Just picked mine up from service yesterday. They found a bad seal on the OTR whilst servicing the oil and filters (or some other technical thing like that). Surprisingly, I had to set the OTR to 65 on the drive home to keep cool. Yes, it was 90 outside and the sun was coming in a bit, but usually 70 is cool enough for me.
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Rodger
Leave early, like 0 dark 30!! It was 101 today in Springfield and is supposed to be 102-103 tomorrow!! Best of luck on the drive back. Salina is just 5.5 hours away.
Rob
91 LeMirage XL
Missouri
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My personal rule has always been (even in my truck and fifth wheel days) If it is much over 90 degrees then I am driving at night. It is just easier on tires and everything. We do miss seeing the scenery but we do it anyway.
I do love my bus air! I would hate to depend on cruiseair for going down the road. Mine were pitiful when I was parked much less driving. When they started going out I replaced them with roof airs. The roof airs are noisy and have not been trouble free but they sure keep a fat guy a bunch cooler.
Sorry you had such a miserable day….
DKO
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I bet that was a big job adding roof airs…. wow… hard to imagine all the duct work and wiring involved… you are a brave man! Your cruise airs were great units and very fixable and also very quiet & efficient. We have redone our entire a/c system as in all new compressors etc and it was a worthwhile investment they are so very efficient & very quiet… but not always highway friendly… guess that’s why the invented over the road air !!. We had a 45′ 4 slide plastic coach with 3 roof airs and they were horribly noisy and no way could they keep the bus cool in peak of the Texas summers and were worse when we were running down the highways when it was very hot… they were always freezing up and tripping inside breakers… and they were new (in 2005) too… they may be improved since that time. Of course the insulation factors and differences in plastic coaches and a Prevost are not apples to apples either… but I would choose cruise airs over roof units any day… just my personal preference… plus having experience with them in our boats made believers out of us too!
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I am not sure since the purchase by Dometic that the Cruise Airs as we know them will continue to be available. They were and may still be a heavier unit built more like commercial equipment. That is what made them not only reliable, but serviceable. They weren’t cheap, but they weren’t considered a throw away device either.
Their cooling was never greater than comparable roof air units, but with the SMX controls and enough units to cool a coach (at least 4 for a 45 footer, especially if it has slides) they will do a great job and go about doing it quietly with the variable speed fans and no resonance from the roof structure. But as we owners know they could have marginal performance when drawing the very hot air radiating from a heated highway. If I had to rely on Cruise Airs instead of Prevost OTR, such as in an emergency, I would fire up the generator and turn on all four units and get the coach interior cool and the units cycling. Waiting for the coach to get hot, and to rely on limited capacity AC units to bring down the temps to a comfortable level is going to be difficult.
Using a mister to cool the condensing unit coils or jamming more air past the fins via increased condensing fan performance is the only way to offset high cooling air temps .
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Have 3 cruise airs and 1 froze up (front) a week ago at the beach. Got home called my mechanic and he checked and found it low on freon. He told me it doesn’t take much pressure loss to start that problem. You might check there first.
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I bet that was a big job adding roof airs…. wow… hard to imagine all the duct work and wiring involved… you are a brave man! Your cruise airs were great units and very fixable and also very quiet & efficient. We have redone our entire a/c system as in all new compressors etc and it was a worthwhile investment they are so very efficient & very quiet…
It was a big job but a friend sent me to a entertainer converter and they needed the work badly. They added four roof airs in 2009 for an excellent price. They told me when I picked it up that they had definitley taken the job way too cheap but they were happy to keep a couple of their employees busy.
My experience with the cruise airs was very poor. My 45 ft. XL had only three and we were never cool enough. Temps above 90 made for miserable afternoons. I told my wife I was not going to pay the money I did for this bus and melt every summer. Not when I could freeze in my old fifth wheel for a fraction of the cost.
All three were nearly completely inaccessable as far as working on them was concerened. I have since seen a bus at Prevost Nashville that all of the outside units slid out for easy maintenance. I am sure that would make a difference. Two of the inside A coils are buried so deep behind the cabinets that I still have not laid eyes on them.
I plan to keep this bus for the duration but if I was trading I would not even consider one with cruise airs. That is just my experience but I am glad that others have had better luck.
DKO
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That sounds like you got a good deal… huge job… glad you had 4 put in too… I am surprised when I hear of 45 footers with 3 rooftops staying cool when its over 100 outside… I can see 4 cooling properly…. glad you are happy and cool.
Diane -
One of the things all of us have to recognize is our coaches are a compromise. Everywhere we look we see stuff crammed into place. The converters are trying to balance the wants and needs of the original customer who is spending serious money and wants it all. So the converter has to provide “all” to that customer, fitting it in a defined amount of cubic feet.
Just jamming stuff in open places is not enough. The converter has to consider accessibility for service, weight and balance issues, the environment in the available space, noise, and many other considerations we never think about.
Whether it is Cruise Airs, roof airs or a “packaged” AC system all of the concerns are the same. The units need air flow, access, and noise isolation. While DKO may be happy with his roof airs now compared to his Cruise Airs it needs to be said that even if the Cruise Airs were in perfect working order and installed in an ideal fashion, 3 units in a 45 foot coach is just lousy design. Assuming the theoretical requirements for capacity were met, the owner of a 45 footer needs to have all three in perfect working order for them to do the job. If one quits, or if the coach gets warm before they are turned on having a cool coach is wishful thinking. This applies to roof airs as well, but they are less likely to have a compromised installation than Cruise Airs unless the roof is filled with stuff to block the air flow or is painted black.
Owners of coaches with roof airs are going to be much happier going down the road if they rely on the house AC units and do not have OTR. But the price they pay will be noise levels and AC units that are not as robust, therefore being considered throw away devices. There is no right choice because when all things are considered any option has pros and cons. We could fill a thread with the discussion and in the end there would still be no clear cut benefit to any of the choices.
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