Up at 7 am for me. A bit later for Reneé. We planned to sleep in, didn’t work for me.
So, we debated plans for the day. I thought about working on the furler for the jib, and running the outboard to flush it. Then thought about the AC unit.
So, I got my temperature laser, and found it was dead. The last set of batteries in it had leaked and one of the contacts broke off. So, I called Danny (S/V All Set For Now) they live here year round and have had guests for the last couple of weeks. Their boat is just down the dock from us. I was able to borrow theirs.
Back to work on the AC.
Step 1 clean the sea water strainer! Oops, should have been done 2 weeks ago! Oh well, it’s clean now.
So, onto the AC unit, nope still not working.
Step 2 Tried checking the Freon pressures, they didn’t make sense to me, I tried watching YouTube videos, seemed pretty straight forward, still not understanding what I was seeing.
Step 3 I called my friend Gar and got technical advice. First I had to install Duo the app for video calls without FaceTime. He uses an Android phone. We looked at pressures and temperatures, which left him scratching his head as they didn’t make sense to him either. More looking around, and we noticed the heat exchanger was very dirty. So,
Step 4 clean the heat exchanger. First can I move the AC unit so I can access the heat exchanger? After a half hour of trying, nope. Can I vacuum it and get it clean? A half hour later, nope. So, I got a hose hooked up and sprayed it out. Being careful to not spray the electrical stuff.
Step 5 let it dry for a bit and then test it. At first it seemed to be working, but after about 5 minutes, nope.
Step 6 put everything away and think about options. I will get an HVAC tech out here and see what they can do.
Oh, this is a boat project, so I had the cabinets open in all three sections of the boat. This took from about 9 am until 7 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner.
Reneé did her nails, went to the store, made the meals, and stayed out of my way.
After dinner we went to the amphitheater to see the show at 9 pm. It started with disco (recorded) and then an Elvis show.
I wandered inside to get a couple of drinks. As a disco Elvis is just not my thing.
We realized we have seen this show before. It wasn’t to my taste then.
BTW, we have history with this AC unit. When we bought the boat the unit that was in this location was dead, we knew it and planned to replace it. Of course, I bought the least expensive (read CHEAPEST) one I could find. I “saved” about $1,000. Of course it was a pain to install, Bob Miller did most of the work, and after a very long day, it didn’t work. We were out of time that day. I went down the next day and figured out it had a PROPRIETARY CABLE AND CONTROLLER, so when I replaced those it worked. Of course the controller is an LED type, meaning a very bright blue light in my eyes at night.
But wait there’s more!
It was very noisy! After much back and forth, and having to pay an HVAC tech to come check it out, (coincidentally he used to be the San Diego representative) so he told me to call the seller back and give him his name and tell him it needed a new compressor. Oh and he didn’t pay enough for the investigation or work, so we spent about $500. So maybe we saved $500. Of course, 3 years later it’s not working again.
