I recently purchased a 2008 Beneteau 31. The owners were older and rarely used the boat. The interior looked almost new but the sails looked terrible. I knew going into this that I would find things that failed from lack of use, but I wasn't expecting the boat to fight back so intensely.
The battle with the Cruisare 12k BTU unit has been hard fought but I think I have finally prevailed. The previous owners said they never used it. I'm not sure they even knew how. The boat has two shore power inlets. The cord has to be moved from one inlet to the other to power the AC unit. They knew about the shore power but they didn't know it had to pump water. They do have a house close by and didn't really need the AC.
Before I bought the boat I check for water flow and found none. I cleared the through hull and had water flow but still no cooling. Then I checked the freon and found none! I purchased the boat knowing the AC unit might be dead.
I borrowed some gauges and a vacuum pump and gassed the unit up. It started working but suddenly quit after about a minute and the pressures equalized while the compressor continued to run. The accumulator also froze over but the evaporator did not. The unit would do the same thing in heat mode. I took the home and over to a friend that does a little AC work. We didn't have any luck with it.
Over a week I made many attempts to reach tech support. They would not return messages. I finally started harassing the operator for a manager, that worked. The tech that finally contacted me thought the reversing valve might be bad, I did too. He did ask me if the thermostat was displaying any error messages and that prompted me to dig a little deeper.
I couldn't hook up the thermostat while I had the unit at home because the darn thing requires a RJ12 cable (not an common RJ11 or RJ45) and the one I found wouldn't work. I did discover that the unit would start and run at the last setting before the thermostat was unplugged, this I how I was working on the unit away from the boat. Out of desperation I decided the to remove the thermostat cable from the boat so I could properly test the unit at home. The cable must have been factory installed by Beneteau because it was deep inside the wiring harness zip tied about every 10 inches. It was also smashed under one of the keel bolt washers! This wasn't easy to see until you tried to move the wiring harness. I cut the cable out and spliced it back together. The AC unit started up and failed just like before but this time I got a high pressure alarm, but the pressure was not high. The spade connectors were loose on the high pressure switch, as if someone had unplugged them many time. After pinching the connectors closed and reattaching them the unit has ran correctly, but the accumulator still freezes over though.
I now have the AC unit reinstalled in the boat and it works. It's too small for this boat size but it's better than nothing.
In the end I found four things wrong. I was really shocked to find the thermostat cable smashed under a keel bolt, thanks Beneteau.
The battle with the Cruisare 12k BTU unit has been hard fought but I think I have finally prevailed. The previous owners said they never used it. I'm not sure they even knew how. The boat has two shore power inlets. The cord has to be moved from one inlet to the other to power the AC unit. They knew about the shore power but they didn't know it had to pump water. They do have a house close by and didn't really need the AC.
Before I bought the boat I check for water flow and found none. I cleared the through hull and had water flow but still no cooling. Then I checked the freon and found none! I purchased the boat knowing the AC unit might be dead.
I borrowed some gauges and a vacuum pump and gassed the unit up. It started working but suddenly quit after about a minute and the pressures equalized while the compressor continued to run. The accumulator also froze over but the evaporator did not. The unit would do the same thing in heat mode. I took the home and over to a friend that does a little AC work. We didn't have any luck with it.
Over a week I made many attempts to reach tech support. They would not return messages. I finally started harassing the operator for a manager, that worked. The tech that finally contacted me thought the reversing valve might be bad, I did too. He did ask me if the thermostat was displaying any error messages and that prompted me to dig a little deeper.
I couldn't hook up the thermostat while I had the unit at home because the darn thing requires a RJ12 cable (not an common RJ11 or RJ45) and the one I found wouldn't work. I did discover that the unit would start and run at the last setting before the thermostat was unplugged, this I how I was working on the unit away from the boat. Out of desperation I decided the to remove the thermostat cable from the boat so I could properly test the unit at home. The cable must have been factory installed by Beneteau because it was deep inside the wiring harness zip tied about every 10 inches. It was also smashed under one of the keel bolt washers! This wasn't easy to see until you tried to move the wiring harness. I cut the cable out and spliced it back together. The AC unit started up and failed just like before but this time I got a high pressure alarm, but the pressure was not high. The spade connectors were loose on the high pressure switch, as if someone had unplugged them many time. After pinching the connectors closed and reattaching them the unit has ran correctly, but the accumulator still freezes over though.
I now have the AC unit reinstalled in the boat and it works. It's too small for this boat size but it's better than nothing.
In the end I found four things wrong. I was really shocked to find the thermostat cable smashed under a keel bolt, thanks Beneteau.
