www.iFourWinns.com

We see the water temp affecting efficiency greatly. A couple of the marinas we will use are shallow and in the summer water temps of 90+ deg is not uncommon.

Having the extra capacity can only help. One thing we do do in the summer. Boat goes in Genset and A/C goes on.

_________________
Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

Hi, I'm the guy who changed the a/c unit in tker's 258. A 5000 btu unit is no way large enough for a 25'-28' boat that is is used to overnight in , unless your in michigan. The problem is also insufficent amount of ducts. I would suggest to change the unit to a 10,000 btu unit and also add a extra vent or two. Its a very time consuming job to do and do it right. you have to really dissamble the cabin of your boat to run the duct work, the fridge has to be removed along with the electrical panels, to run the new ducts, but when you are done you will have a system that works great even in the deep south. The problem with fw engineers i think is the smaller cruisers have so much limited space and they try to cram everything into them, therefore leaves the owner with some problems. I am on my 3 four winns i started with a 258 then a 99 278, and now a 2000 328. The engineering on the 328 is superb, the factory 12000 btu heat and cool unit works great, we love the layout, the storage the handling , and ride, and best of all is the looks. Good luck with your A/C.

Below is the log I kept for the AC from Saturday night. I used a digital thermometer/hydrometer from Radio shack. It was placed on the shelf, upright above the starboard porthole in the V-Berth. Air temps out of the vents were measured using an infrared handheld thermometer with laser to pinpoint the target. Measurements were taken with no portholes open and minimal opening of the companionway door. Thermostat was set to 55 degrees, COOL and the fan on MANUAL HIGH:


Water temp at 4:30pm: 78 degrees
Outside Air temperature at 4:30pm: 85 degrees
Outside Humidity at 4:30pm: Unknown, hazy and high humidity
*** Obviously, as the sun went down and the outside air cooled, the inside of the cabin cooled.

Inside readings
4:30pm 84 degrees 54% humidity After 5 mins, air from the vents ~70 degrees
5:20pm 82 degrees 46% humidity
6:06pm 82 degrees 47% humidity Air from vents blowing @ 60 degrees
7:21pm 79 degrees 42% humidity
8:14pm 78 degrees 42% humidity

After nearly four hours the A/C cooled the cabin only 6 degrees and lowered the humidity 12%.

I'm pasing this info along to my dealer, who is in contact with the regional FW rep about this.

_________________
SOLD! 2006 30th Anniversary Vista 278
"Conch'd Out!"

http://vista278.com

We spend three nights on the boat his weekend. The last two were in Fernandina Beach. Weather was in the mid to upper 80's with 50 - 60% humidity and a wind from the ENE @ 15mph. Water temp was mid 70's and A/C easily kept the cabin at 72 deg. When we arrived in the afternoon, the cabin was 86 and the A/C had it in the mid 70's two hrs later. By dinner (6:30 pm) it was cycling on and off at 72 deg.

I have a 10k BTU unit and I'd estimate the cabin on my 288 is probably 30 -40% larger than your 278.

_________________
Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

For what its worth, the 5000 btu unit cooled our 258 this weekend with no problem. As a test, we were able to drop the temp to 68 degrees. Of course we are in the Midwest so maybe we are within what the system is engineered for.

I hooked my AC up to a five gallon bucket this weekend and was running the AC on the trailer. The AC was doing a fine job untill the water in the bucket got to 100 degrees!

I gues I need a bigger bucket!

We've got an '03 268 with stock air conditioner (haven't confirmed but assume 5000 btus). In Michigan last summer I don't recall any problem cooling the cabin down to low 70s with relatively high humidity (going by feel only), when outside temps were in the mid to high 80s. Based on positioning of vents, the airflow from the vent by the air conditioning controls definitely gets less flow than the vent in the mid-berth area.

I know water temp/humidity/outside temp play a huge role in this, but based on experience I would expect our air to outperform yours based on your data, even though I'm guessing we have same btu systems.

10000 would definitely provide more cooling, but it sounds like it may be specific problem with your system?

Still no progress on this front, and at least it's consistent. We started the genset and turned the air on last night around 5:45 or so. Here is a photo at 6:27pm:




Here is a photo at 7:15pm, cooled down a whopping 1.4 degrees F:


Here is the temp out of the vent:


We're now using two clip-on fans to simulate air conditioning in our boat.

_________________
SOLD! 2006 30th Anniversary Vista 278
"Conch'd Out!"

http://vista278.com

where are the vents located on the 278, and where is the a/c unit installed?

_________________
Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

A/C Unit is stored in the mid-berth directly aft of the stairs. One vent is located just forward of the cold air intake, about 6", and the other above the galley coming out of the electrical panel area blowing forward.

_________________
SOLD! 2006 30th Anniversary Vista 278
"Conch'd Out!"

http://vista278.com

So, it appears they installed it in relatively the same location as they did in my 248 Vista. The issue we found was that the A/C unit was "open" to the portside hull. So, it was cooling the cabin return air but sucking hot air from the inside of the hull (between the cabin interior and outside of the hull). This dramatically reduced the cooling efficiency as the weather got warm. I'm going to guess that if you look up in the space where the unit is installed, it is open to the inside of the hull like mine was. If we hadn't sold the boat, one of the projects on the list was to seal the unit off from the outside of the hull so mostly all the return air going thru the unit was cabin return air.

_________________
Jvalich
http://www.badcock.com

'04 FW 288 Vista "Mental Floss"

I spoke with Four Winns today, and things moved quickly.

The space allocated on the 278 for the AC unit has incredibly tight tolerances. In fact the back of the unit actually touches the hull in some fashion. Consequently, upgrading to 7K or 10K unit is out of the question as there has to be enough room all the way around. Aside from that, it would be a huge undertaking to help one customer. Many times I've though to myself, "Surely I'm not the only 278 owner that is having this problem."

A short while after speaking with FW, I get another call back. They spoke with Dometic and came up with a solution. Dometic/Cruisair has a new model of AC out called the Turbo Series. It's not actually for sale yet, only available to OEMs. Dometic offered this unit to FW who agreed to pay to have it installed for me. This also includes relocation of at least one duct. The new unit is 6K BTU but also has a much higher airflow volume and some other benefits like lower power consumption and most importantly a smaller footprint, i.e. the unit will FIT in the existing space without re-engineering the boat.

There are still some details to work out, such as the fact the units are on backorder but I was told they were going to make one for me. Also, scheduling of the AC tech. The expert in the area travels all over the southeast and is about 6 weeks out.

I'm confident we'll get the issues worked out and cautiously optimistic this will help my situation. This is great news and I give both Four Winns and Dometic a big thumbs up for their willingness to do this.

I'll continue to provide updates as I get them.

These ar the only links I could find regarding what I believe to be the new units:
http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/509188
http://www.cruisair-southeast.com/

_________________
SOLD! 2006 30th Anniversary Vista 278
"Conch'd Out!"

http://vista278.com

The new 6,000 BTU unit is installed. It's a Marine Air Vector Turbo model. Preliminary results are very positive.

We ran the AC this weekend, while anchored in the sun with an ambient temp of 90+; the humidity was also very high. Within 30 minutes the cabin cooled 10 degrees.

To put it into perspective, the old unit ran for four hours only to acheive a 6 degree temp difference; at least half of which was at dusk.

It's going to take an overnight for me to be 100% this is fixed, but I'm very pleased thus far.

_________________
SOLD! 2006 30th Anniversary Vista 278
"Conch'd Out!"

http://vista278.com