Yellow Pages My RV air conditioner is not cooling, or it keeps tripping the breaker
Before you touch anything
Most RV air conditioners run on 120 volt power. That is enough to kill a person. Do not open the unit, and do not open any box with wires in it. The checks on this page are all things you can do without taking anything apart.
What kind of air conditioner do you have?
A technician will ask, so find out first.
- Rooftop or basement. A rooftop unit sits on the roof. A basement unit is down in a storage bay.
- 120 volt or 12 volt. Most RV air conditioners run on 120 volt power. Some newer ones run on 12 volt power.
Three things to check before you call
1. Is power really getting to the RV?
Make sure the power pedestal is turned on. Then check that the air conditioner's breaker is not tripped.
Do not go by the lights. The lights and many other things inside an RV run on 12 volt power from the batteries, so they can be on even when no 120 volt power is coming in from the pedestal. Some RVs also have an inverter that runs a few 120 volt things from the batteries, but not the air conditioner. So the lights can be on, the TV can be on, and the air conditioner can still have no power.
2. Is the air filter clogged?
A clogged filter chokes off the air. That can make the unit freeze up and stop cooling.
3. Does the thermostat turn on?
If you have a digital thermostat and the screen is blank, that points to a 12 volt problem, not a 120 volt problem. Tell the technician. It changes where they start looking.
The thing that turns a small job into a big one
The biggest one is taking things apart and putting them back together. It is easy to mix up the thermostat wires or hook something up backward. That can burn up a control board or a thermostat. Then the technician has two problems to find, and the second one does not show up until a full diagnosis is done.
If you already took something apart, say so when you call. Nobody will be upset, and it saves time.
Why the first fix doesn't always hold
An air conditioner that keeps tripping the breaker often has a failed capacitor. That is a cheap part and a common fix. But a bad capacitor can make the compressor pull as much as 60 amps on a 20 amp circuit. The relays on the control board inside the air conditioner are not built to carry that much for more than an instant. So you can replace the capacitor, do everything right, and still have an air conditioner that will not run, because the control board was damaged too. A cheap, easy fix can turn into a bigger job when more than one part has failed. A technician with the right test equipment can check the control board and the unit at the same time and find all of it in one visit.
What to tell the technician when you call
- Rooftop or basement, and 120 volt or 12 volt.
- What it is doing: not cooling, not turning on, or tripping the breaker.
- Is this new, or has it happened before?
- Was there a storm with lightning lately?
- How long have you been at this RV park?
- Is this the first time it has happened since you moved the RV?
- Anything you already checked or took apart.
Technicians near you who do this work
Type your town or zip code to see the nearest listed businesses that say they work on air conditioners.