Dropping the ceiling and an update

[John316]

We had a welder out today and he welded the frames around the roof airs to support the roof. I will post pics later. It was a little interesting getting the bus ready for welding. I disconnected the batteries, tranny ecm, and engine ecm.

My question for today is simply, what is the best way to drop the ceiling inside (the clearance that we need for the ducting). We were wondering if we need to weld a beam up inside for support. Will just using wood to build the ceiling down be strong enough or will we have to weld a support system up? (The reason I ask is because the welding needs to be done now before the foam is squirted.)  I just wasn't sure what the preferred method is.

Any thoughts would be great.

We are now planning on it getting foamed next Wednesday. I was disappointed to see below our windows in the bus that there is are big metal plates, welded in place, that run the length of the bus. This means that we won't be able to foam that bottom half of the bus... Oh well. Hopefully we won't lose to much energy to that. It is foam sheets back behind the metal though, so I guess that is one redeeming factor.

Thanks for all the advice that I've already gotten!!!

God bless,

John

[JohnEd]

John,

Not to mess you up at this late date...but.  Have you looked at mini splits?  Do a search on that topic and get reams of info.  Not many can realistically fault that system and make it a heat pump also.  The more spendy models/brands have seers of 18.   Really!  I.5 ton in the rear and 1.5 ton near the driver that also serves the living room and your done.  Hang the airhandler on the wall and run two freon lines to the basement and the hard part is over.  Repeat for the rear.  I thought a dual unit with a 2.5 ton capacity for the front and a single for the rear would be fantastic.  No ducts and maybe a litle less space used up in the bay and you had to ex hot air anyway.

Roof airs are cheaper and easier anyway.  But you can use the holes for the ceiling ex fans so all isn't lost.  Price the different options and I think you will find that splits are cheaper if you consider the duct work.  Research it now.  Good info that you can use smaller units taken from home applications cause they are stronger when compared to RV stuff.  RV stuff uis good but is rated funny.  You duct roofs you lose a lot of their capacity and in a pinch you open the duct under the ac unit and it will perform much stronger.  Ducts are only noise reducers and even at that they will always be inferior to anything else in that department.

HTH,

John

2 cents,

John

[John316]

John,

Thanks for the info. I ran the search that you suggested, which was very interesting. I have never heard of the splits before. Maybe I have heard of them but I think of them as different names or something. Oh well, maybe some other conversion. That's what happens when we don't tell you guys everything that we are doing...

Right now were are pretty committed to what we have. We have five low profile, 15k btu, dometic (due therm) penguin roof airs. We already have all five holes cut and we are going to place them on their gaskets and place them in their spots today. We are going to seal the roof all up while we are up there today too. That is too bad about losing efficiency with ducting. I think we still will since they are very noisy right now without ducting. We are also going to take our OTR out, so the roof airs will be our only source of air. BTW, with the roof airs, is there any other option for quieting the airs down?

As for heat we will probably go with a Aquahot or Oasis (we are also looking at Webasto but they don't have an on demand water heater). I really like the engine preheat too on those products.

Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it, John.

God bless,

John