Helpful Gadgets: Air Flow Meter
Dave SolbergDescription
When something seems wrong with the cooling or heating system of an RV, it’s helpful to have an accurate description that you can provide to your mechanic to try to solve the problem. A handy gadget that every RV owner should keep in their unit is an air flow meter.
The best air flow meter is one that shows both the air flow coming out of the air conditioner/furnace and tells the temperature. When the air conditioner seems to be running inefficiently, the air flow meter can help identify specific problems, such as air not cooling or a decrease in air flow velocity. To test, turn on the unit and hold the meter up to the vent of the air conditioner. Then, try adjusting the temperature while keeping your air flow meter in front of the vent.
If you are starting to see a decrease in air flow, chances are the cold air return filter is the problem. Low air flow coming out of an air conditioning unit may be a sign that it’s time to change or clean the filters. To change the filter on a standard A/C unit, unscrew the cover from the top of the inside of the unit. You will see two filters inside the cover. Replace or clean these filters, put the unit back together, and retest the air flow. Your unit should return to normal air flow. For ducted roof air units, the filter is generally located behind the cold air return vent.
If the temperature is not what is used to be, it may be time to take the RV to your local mechanic and have the air conditioner recharged.
It is a good idea to keep an air flow meter handy so you can test the air flow and temperature of your RV’s air conditioning unit during normal operation. It will allow you to provide a mechanic with more specific details if something is not working properly.
A cool gadget that I like to take with me when I go RVing is an airflow meter. This will tell me two things. It'll tell me the air flow coming out of my air conditioner or on my furnace, and it'll, it'll also tell me the temperature. If I just tell somebody that I don't think my air flow is coming out enough, my air conditioner isn't cool enough, that's a little too general. So what I want to do is just periodically test the air flow coming out of it, test the temperature.
If I see it start to decrease, then I know I probably am gonna have to change my filter inside my air conditioner, or if I see the temperature going up, and it's not cooling quite as well as it was before, then I'm gonna have to take it into my dealership and probably have it recharged. So it's real easy to do. Just simply turn this on here. I'm gonna turn the air conditioner here. And we've got air flow on the front side here, also on the back side.
So I'm just gonna take this, put it up there. So now I'm gonna change my settings. And we're gonna get to temperature. I see I'm running at 67.6. Now one of the things I did notice with this is I have a little less air flow than I've had in the past.
So that's telling me that my, my filter up here is probably plugged. Very easy to change. Two screws. Take my knobs of the front. And we see we've got some filters that start to look like they need to be changed.
Now, I can use the same air flow meter on the furnace, so I can get air flow out of that and temperature. So it's a good idea to know exactly what temperature, what air flow is coming through it rather than just have the generality of saying, "I don't think my air conditioner is cooling as efficient."
what should the temp be in relation to outside temp? that would have been helpful.as a guide line.
You never actually said I what the temperature should be. The 67 degrees you registered on you meter seems warm. I just had my ac serviced on my truck and the reading was 32 degrees at outside temperature of 84 degrees. How much of a temperature drop should we expect from the outside temperature?
When testing temp and air flow always try to test using the same conditions (same vents open, same speed setting and same set point temperature).
Where do you get a meter like the video is showing? One that shows air flow and temp? I might add at a reasonable cost...
I don"t use Adobe Flash Player because of the numerous articles about its lack of security. Is there another program I can use?
Where do you purchase the meter, and what meter do you suggest?