Air conditioner opinions sought

[Sailshabby]

We’re considering upgrading our old MarineAire units (16K and 9K) that came with the boat and are giving us signs they’d like to retire from service. I did a quick internet “marine AC products” review and it didn’t help much. As best I can tell, the big dogs in the US are Dometic and Webasto.

Our goal is to replace at least one with a Soft Start device to enable running it off a Honda 2200. Realize it won’t be like shoreside powered temps below but we’ll take what we can get. I’m also thinking they’d run more efficiently (and quieter, perhaps).

Opinions appreciated.

[ranger58sb]

We just replaced one of our 16K BTU Marine Airrrr Vector Compact reverse cycle units with a new Dometic Turbo (DTU16, in our case). The original 17-year-old Vector Compact units were pretty good, still working well enough, but loud...

Very noticeable improvements with the new Turbo thing. The compressor is MUCH quieter, airflow seems to have increased, it allows wider fan speed settings... and the drip pan is a composite, so all that rust from the previous steel pan should disappear. I'll be replacing the other one as soon as my wallet recovers from the first.

Marine Airrrr had introduced their Vector Turbo to replace the Vector Compact, and then Dometic acquired Marine Airrrr (and others, including one of the Cruise Air companies)... so the Dometic Turbo is the successor I guess.

There are some others, besides Webasto. MarineAir (I think, something like that; not the same as Marine Airrrr), another with a name like "King" something or other... You might try a search here (used the Advanced Search) to find other brands to consider.

-Chris

[svHyLyte]

We have a 16K BTU King-Air A/C unit on our boat and have been very happy with it, and the predecessor unit that lasted 16+ years before the compressor gave out. That could have been replaced but the other bits-'n-pieces were of the same age, used very often, and no assurance how much longer they'd last. We use the unit for cooling and heating in the winter months and during the summer leave it in the "Away" mode such that it cycles every few hours to control humidity. On a sailing yacht it is wise to ask for a drain on both sides of the condensate pan so that it drains regardless of which tack one takes up under way. It does make a difference. The 16K BTU unit is quite adequate for a 42' boat in southwest Florida during the summer months BTW.

FWIW...