Does air conditioner on Lancashire work?

I have been having some discussions with Marquis about the air-conditioning on our Lancashire which did not seem very effective in Croatia and in Southern France last year. In an outside temperature of about 30C it only succeeded in bringing the inside temperature down by about 6 degrees in over 2 hours (between 4:30 and 6:30 when outside temperatures were already falling). I am told that my complaint is unique. Has anybody else had this problem?

I've never had a camper with air con, but IMO you seem to be expecting a lot of a small aircon unit. The problem is that the whole contents of the van will be at ambient when you turn it on, and so the aircon is not just having to cool the air - the entire contents of the van will be radiating and convecting heat into the interior. So it has to work hard for a long time to (effectively) suck the heat out of everything around you.

Also bear in mind that every occupant of the van generates heat - IIRC in light clothing around 100W per person.

Add to that the fact that - unless you fit screens - the whole glass area of the van is a very poor insulator through which heat will leak in, and also that during daylight hours you will get significant solar input too, six degrees in 2 hours doesn't seem (to me at least) surprising.

Hi there,

I agree with Mojo on this one.

Also, did you check the inlet and outlet air temperatures for the Unit?

The reason I ask is that when the Met Office issues a "temperature" it is always measured in the shade.

A sun state that is providing a shaded air temperature at 30 degrees may easily generate 35 to 40 degrees on an exposed surface.

To exaggerate the situation imagine that your AC Unit is pulling air in across a heated surface and the inlet air is heated to 40 degrees.

If the Unit then drops this temperature to 25 degrees it is working perfectly but it will take a long time to drop the internal temperature down to a comfortable level.

If the same Unit is pulling air in at 30 degrees it will drop the temperature to 15 degrees and the time taken to make the interior comfortable will be reduced.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Van was in the shade at that time of day - Screens were down with internal silver screens on front windows. Any sun through trees was coming from rear of van. All windows, doors and vents were closed. The A/C is recirculating and does not take in outside air. I did check the input air and output air temperatures. The unit has 4 outlets. With all 4 open the temperature difference between air sucked in and air expelled was about 6C, with just one open that rose to about 10C but with far less airflow of course.

I never had occasion to make this type of check with our old Hymer. That had a bigger unit and we NEVER needed to run it for long because it was so efficient. It is the comparison that makes me ask the question.

BTW All temperatures were taken using portable digital thermometer (in/out) type with the "Out" remote probe taking the temperatures of inlet and expelled air and the unit sitting on the surface above the fridge (which does not get hot!) to measure the van temperature. The Van's internal temperature is measured at high level by the door so is an unfair measure. Outside temperature was taken from the sensor that A/S use, probably the Peugeot one so should be in the shade.

My 2010 Marquis Lancashire which I purchased privately in May last year is fitted with a Domestic CA1000 air conditioning unit. I have not yet used my motorcaravan abroad and given last summer's disappointing weather I have not really fully tried out the performance of this roof mounted air conditioning. However a number of brief trials were somewhat disappointing with the output from the unit not feeling noticeably chilled and more akin to what one would expect from a fan. Perhaps tellingly the Auto-Sleepers Handbook recommends the fitting of the significantly larger output model B2200 for the Nuevo its badged version of the same motorhome.

The Domestic CA1000 is heralded as working everywhere without fail even on campsites with low starting power. This however does not seem to compensate for its poor performance and I would be very surprised if Marquis have not had previous complaints in this respect.

If you have a Dometic CA1000 then it's hardly surprising it struggles - it's tiny!

Input power of only 450W and max cooling rating of just 1kW.

inspiredron wrote:Van was in the shade at that time of day - Screens were down with internal silver screens on front windows. Any sun through trees was coming from rear of van. All windows, doors and vents were closed. The A/C is recirculating and does not take in outside air. I did check the input air and output air temperatures. The unit has 4 outlets. With all 4 open the temperature difference between air sucked in and air expelled was about 6C, with just one open that rose to about 10C but with far less airflow of course.

I never had occasion to make this type of check with our old Hymer. That had a bigger unit and we NEVER needed to run it for long because it was so efficient. It is the comparison that makes me ask the question.

BTW All temperatures were taken using portable digital thermometer (in/out) type with the "Out" remote probe taking the temperatures of inlet and expelled air and the unit sitting on the surface above the fridge (which does not get hot!) to measure the van temperature. The Van's internal temperature is measured at high level by the door so is an unfair measure. Outside temperature was taken from the sensor that A/S use, probably the Peugeot one so should be in the shade.

Sorry for tardy response. Have been away from home.

It could be that the refrigerant has leaked out! It's a relatively rare occurrence but will reduce the chilling capacity of the unit.

Best regards,

Ian

Wearsider wrote: . Perhaps tellingly the Auto-Sleepers. thatndbook recommends the fitting of the significantly larger output model B2200 for the Nuevo its badged version of the same motorhome.

Can anybody with a 2009 nuevo EK please pm me some photos of the roof. Marquis have told me that "The Dometic B2200 is indeed more desirable than the CA1000 unit in terms of output however, as previously advised, the options available for the Lancashire EK are compromised due to the roof profile."

I would like to know what changes were made to the profile that "compromised" the fitting of the B2200.

Certainly, once the hole has been cut for the CA1000, there is no way that any other unit can be fitted as all others have the aperture further forward in the unit and more of the unit sits behind the aperture.

It seems decidedly odd that A/S would design to include a unit which has less than 40% of the power that they previously recommended for the same size van - but then is that any different to the provision of a 30w solar panel as part of the spec of some current A/S models instead of the 80w that is usually regarded as a practical minimum