Maximum height of bus

[freds]

Anyone mounted the outdoor portion of a mini-split on the roof?

When I installed my solar panels I set the height to be one inch above the RV air-conditioners. So my height is about 12 foot and three inches.

The solar panel behind my front air-conditioner is about ready to give up the ghost (it was ran over by someone before I mounted it.).

Sort of kicking around the idea of pulling it and putting the outdoor unit of a mini-split in it's place.

What's a safe maximum height and anyone know of a mini-split that has a low vertical profile or maybe could be tilted or mounted horizontally?

[epretot]

I was told the unit cannot be mounted horizontally because the oil will run out of the condenser

Skoolie conversions often mount them on the back.

Mine is in the rear bay and I'm having an efficiency issue because it isn't venterd well enough. However, I'm installing a vent shutter this weekend assuming the parts arrive on time.

Also, mounting it on top may affect the fan speed when driving. Not sure what the consequence of that would be.

[Iceni John]

Most people mount their minisplit's outdoor unit either in a luggage bay or below the floor (I have no more space there for one), or put it on the back or on the roof (which looks horrible in my opinion).   So, because I'm a contrarian, I put mine directly above the front axle between the frame rails there.   It's not a bad place:  when parked it's getting all the cool air under the bus, and while driving it has all the airflow it will ever need;  it's nicely protected from rain, bird poop, tree branches and curious people, and being between the front wheels it won't get any stones kicked up into it either;  it's using space that's otherwise unusable;  and best of all it's completely invisible.

John

[mqbus767]

You definitely don't want to mount the condenser any way other than vertically; the pump will definitely fail. Same goes for the evaporators. I've never seen a low profile evaporator. I'd also be a little hesitant about exposing the condenser fan to 65+ MPH winds. You might consider a DC powered AC unit, but I'm skeptical of the cooling capacity. And, for the BTUs you'd need for a full-sized bus, you're now talking about 2-3 condensers on the roof:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=24v+air+conditioner+for+trucks

https://www.amazon.com/Treeligo-Parking-Conditioner-Cooling-Excavator/dp/B0BW3SZDH5/?th=1


There are some rumblings that you can rotate the compressor and then possibly flat mount them. However, you'll still need to make sure there's ample air flow. I've been considering one of these to provide supplemental cooling up front when going down the road.

[Dave5Cs]

There is a schoolie with one on top up front and they built a shark fin looking thing around it. Kind of looks strange but he said it works.

[Glennman]

I'm planning to install a 24v unit on the rear similar to the ones mqbus provided a link to (ebay). It will be run off the bus system while driving, then switched to the house when parked. It will serve as a secondary unit to supplement the Pioneer unit (installed in the AC bay) that cools the rest of the bus (it's a little lacking being above the windshield, as the bedroom gets a little warm). I will not run them both at the same time, unless connected to shore power. Should be a pretty clean install.

I was going to install another Pioneer unit on the rear cap. I planned to install a bunch of support behind the cap so that I could mount it. I figured it would be pretty high though by the time I installed it high enough to avoid the rear louvered fan cover. It would hide the rear clearance lights, so I would need to relocate those to the unit. That all got pretty complicated, so that's why I decided on the 24 volt one. I cannot feature installing a unit on the roof as when vertical, it would stick up like a sore thumb about 26". Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth!

[freds]

Most people mount their minisplit's outdoor unit either in a luggage bay or below the floor (I have no more space there for one), or put it on the back or on the roof (which looks horrible in my opinion).   So, because I'm a contrarian, I put mine directly above the front axle between the frame rails there.   It's not a bad place:  when parked it's getting all the cool air under the bus, and while driving it has all the airflow it will ever need;  it's nicely protected from rain, bird poop, tree branches and curious people, and being between the front wheels it won't get any stones kicked up into it either;  it's using space that's otherwise unusable;  and best of all it's completely invisible.

John

Hi John, Any pictures? How did you route the lines and drain?

[Iceni John]

Hi John, Any pictures? How did you route the lines and drain?

No pictures, sorry!  I'm photographically challenged.

The indoor unit is in the open front half of the bus, on the right wall above the windows;  the outdoor unit is on a cradle bolted to the frame rails' lower flanges above the front axle.   From the indoor unit I have a length of Electriduct 3" x 2" aluminum raceway to enclose the lines and drain hose and wiring, and this feeds them into a 2.5" hole I cut through the floor to the underworld below.   (I'm thinking of capturing the drain water and maybe using it for watering the house batteries if it's clean enough, or for the radiator mister if it's not clean enough for batteries.)  There's about 21 feet of lines between the two units, but as another recent thread explained I cannot use the supplied copper lines because they aren't flexible enough to get where they have to go under the bus.   I could have instead easily run the lines inside the bus at the bottom of the interior side walls, but then I wouldn't have any space left over for wiring which is the priority there.   After buggering up the copper lineset while trying to fit it, I bought a 16-foot Parker Davis flexible lineset and two 6-foot RectorSeal NoKink flexible lines that will extend the complete lineset to 22 feet, just right for my needs.   A pair of 45-degree flare unions will join the two sections, and I'll have the 6-foot lines at the indoor unit's end to make it easier to tighten and protect the unions.   Having flex lines throughout will also make it easier to slightly move either unit if I need to do maintenance on them.   Once everything's connected I'll vacuum out the lines (and leave them under vacuum for 24 hours to be sure there are no leaks), then if everything's OK I just have to open two small valves to let the R410a into the lines.   Wish me luck!   

[Bill Gerrie]

Your original question was "what is the max height of a bus". It is 13 ft 6 inches.

[Jim Blackwood]

Interesting idea. If I was considering that I believe I would think about mounting it at the rear somewhere oriented so that you can see the fan from the side. That way it is not going to be affected much by airflow at speed and presents a smaller profile to oncoming wind. A wind deflector in front would be pretty simple and vanes to direct air to the inlet if desired would also be easy, maybe nothing more than a louvered panel. And if you need more than one you could fit them in a line across like the aforementioned shark fins, maybe even like the fins below a surf board in the case of 3 units with a little longitudinal offset. Done that way I don't think it would really look any more terrible than the traditional warts.

What I wonder is if it would be hard to gang them to a common manifold, include the engine driven compressor in the circuit, and use the OEM evaporators and blowers. Is it possible to find them in 110V with a 1-1/2 ton rating?

Jim

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

Several Skoolie people mount the Condenser underneath behind the rear wheels, which seems like the worst place to mount it. Behind the rear wheels is where all of the dust, dirt, salt, rocks, and everything else gets kicked up, as well as oil from the engine if it is a rear-engine bus and maybe grease and oil from the drivetrain if you lubricate it as much as I do mine. I can't imagine a Condenser would last very long mounted back there.

[somewhereinusa]

I installed my mini splits 10 years ago on my skoolie. The front one is lengthways between the front bumper and front axle. The rear one is where the factory AC condenser was, on the side right behind the rear wheel. I did hang a second mud flap in front of that one. I haven't had any  dust, dirt, salt, rocks, and everything else problems.  I did clean the coils this spring but they weren't really that dirty.