Roadtrek Cool Cat Replacement

... Mayby A better way..2 wire nuts; 4 if you want fancy

rhythmtone said:
Awesome thank you for the reply! This is getting a little heavy it but makes total sense, I'm going to think on it for a little while - I don't really want to open the chassis of the furnace, if that's what's necessary to do this, but maybe.

My furnace does use that wiring diagram I posted, 2 for power (for the fan motor I'm sure) and 2 for control (both blue wires). If those "control wires" are connecting the ground, to activate the unit, as you say is most common, then there should be no voltage between them, I assume, but I will check with a meter.

I don't want to mess with the power wires to the unit, obviously, because I'm sure that it's designed to warm up and cool down with "independent" thermostat control, which is why it takes a while to shut off even when you've disconnected the control wires, but your explanation of the solenoid function is great. It's a 2006 Suburban propane furnace if that helps, but believe that they do have several possible wiring diagrams, so I don't know exactly how it's set up.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the Fan control was only applicable to the AC fan, not furnace. To the best of my knowledge the furnace fan is a constant single speed.

But I did a little more exploring for easiest way to rewire to Tstat.
What seems best is to jumper the two furnace wires back to the tsta via existing leftover wires in the umbilical cord. Two wire nuts is all it takes.

DETAIL:

Reflecting on your comments, I decided to take another look at Tstat wiring options to see if it might be possible after all.

Took a better look at the wire interfaces to the Cool Cat unit interface in the alcove.

All 7 Tstat wires (now unused), the 2 Green furnace control wires and a Red and Black pair carrying 12Vdc (bonus) were all in the single umbilical cord plug at the roof end.

So, chopped the plug end off of the discarded Cool Cat unit and jumpered some wires together (wire nuts) and plugged it back into the cable where it was originally.

Jumpered one of the Green furnace wires to White the other Green furnace wire to Tan (one of the 7 unused wires traveling to the Stat location above the bed. In the new scheme Org, Blu, Yel, and Tan are unused. Use which ever you want. I chose Tan. The others have a color coded terminal location and though still unused, are more astheticaly logical).

Went to the Stat location and shorted the White and Tan together, furnace worked fine. (This is all that is needed to do furnace)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Wanting 12Vdc at stat for future tinkering; Jumpered the 12Vdc Red to stat Red/Wh and Black 12Vdc to Green.

The white and tan are all that is needed to employ the 2 wire Battery operated Heat only Tstats (such as a Honeywell TH1100DV1000).

But I saw the Honeywell RTH111B stat at Lowes for $22. Cheaper than a heat only at Amazon; and available immediately in store and it had an 8 wire terminal so we could land all the wires (even though unused) into the termainal (neat freak thing).

Removed jumper from Rh, Rc terminals, landed Tan on Rh and White on W (for furnace connection).

landed Red/Wh on Rc and Grn on "not used" terminal (just for future availability).

Being not certain how the stat manages the G (fan control logic (previous use of G in this new stat)) did not want the risk of the (now grounded) Green wire to end up switched to Rh or Rc which would wipe out a fuse; or worse. (Yeah, I know; tape and tuck. But wanted availability; and the there is the neat freak thing.)

Orange to O, Blue to B, and Yellow to Y (these were previously for Reversal valving and Cool activation.)(All now unused and "open" at the alcove end up above.)

Now stat (battery powered) handles furnace and 12Vdc is available at the Rc and Green wire terminals if ever needed/wanted.

As a side note, I think the original Dometic stat could still be used by powering the +7.5V terminal with the +12Vdc by putting a 1K resistor in series to drop the voltage to the 7Volt level needed.
Would need to tinker with this to confirm.
If pictures are wanted/needed let me know..
Cheers
Toad
 
Last edited:
Road Toad said:
I'm pretty sure the Fan control was only applicable to the AC fan, not furnace. To the best of my knowledge the furnace fan is a constant single speed.

But I did a little more exploring for easiest way to rewire to Tstat.
What seems best is to jumper the two furnace wires back to the tsta via existing leftover wires in the umbilical cord. Two wire nuts is all it takes.

DETAIL:

Reflecting on your comments, I decided to take another look at Tstat wiring options to see if it might be possible after all.

Took a better look at the wire interfaces to the Cool Cat unit interface in the alcove.

All 7 Tstat wires (now unused), the 2 Green furnace control wires and a Red and Black pair carrying 12Vdc (bonus) were all in the single umbilical cord plug at the roof end.

So, chopped the plug end off of the discarded Cool Cat unit and jumpered some wires together (wire nuts) and plugged it back into the cable where it was originally.

Jumpered one of the Green furnace wires to White the other Green furnace wire to Tan (one of the 7 unused wires traveling to the Stat location above the bed. In the new scheme Org, Blu, Yel, and Tan are unused. Use which ever you want. I chose Tan. The others have a color coded terminal location and though still unused, are more astheticaly logical).

Went to the Stat location and shorted the White and Tan together, furnace worked fine. (This is all that is needed to do furnace)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Wanting 12Vdc at stat for future tinkering; Jumpered the 12Vdc Red to stat Red/Wh and Black 12Vdc to Green.

The white and tan are all that is needed to employ the 2 wire Battery operated Heat only Tstats (such as a Honeywell TH1100DV1000).

But I saw the Honeywell RTH111B stat at Lowes for $22. Cheaper than a heat only at Amazon; and available immediately in store and it had an 8 wire terminal so we could land all the wires (even though unused) into the termainal (neat freak thing).

Removed jumper from Rh, Rc terminals, landed Tan on Rh and White on W (for furnace connection).

landed Red/Wh on Rc and Grn on "not used" terminal (just for future availability).

Being not certain how the stat manages the G (fan control logic (previous use of G in this new stat)) did not want the risk of the (now grounded) Green wire to end up switched to Rh or Rc which would wipe out a fuse; or worse. (Yeah, I know; tape and tuck. But wanted availability; and the there is the neat freak thing.)

Orange to O, Blue to B, and Yellow to Y (these were previously for Reversal valving and Cool activation.)(All now unused and "open" at the alcove end up above.)

Now stat (battery powered) handles furnace and 12Vdc is available at the Rc and Green wire terminals if ever needed/wanted.

As a side note, I think the original Dometic stat could still be used by powering the +7.5V terminal with the +12Vdc by putting a 1K resistor in series to drop the voltage to the 7Volt level needed.
Would need to tinker with this to confirm.
If pictures are wanted/needed let me know..
Cheers
Toad
Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply, this is great information!

We are moving house, so I'm waiting to rewire my vehicle (AC works fine for the summer, will look again at improving thermostat wiring soon, but for now battery thermostat is fine for furnace, I guess)

But I had one more question - my uncle has been following this thread with me, and just decided to do a cool cat, easy fit, simple swap, decided not to change over to a house AC, and deal with this thermostat control issue.

He's not internet savvy (stubborn and would rather have me ask, haha) and when we put in the new cool cat we noticed that the back rear sides had a ton of the black plastic cut away. Is this necessary?

It fits fine without doing this, but is it something for ventilation? Makes no sense, because I wouldn't think that the intake was back there, maybe it's for evaporation?

See the pictures, I'm wondering if we should cut away the plastic the same as the previous install or just leave it, for weather proofing etc?

Thanks again, this has been SO SO helpful,
Dave

(I'll post links to the pictures mentioned below)
 
Last edited:
GroupB said:
The high noise level of the Dometic Cool Cat unit in my 2008 Roadtrek 210 provided the motivation to replace it with a quiet window air conditioner. Also, the temperature of the air delivered by the Cool Cat was unreliable, sometimes blowing hot air when in cooling mode.

The Cool Cat is advertised by Roadtrek as a 12000 BTU unit, however the tag found on the CC shows a rating of 11350 BTU.

Space is the main constraint for a replacement unit, so I looked for one that was no bigger than any of the 3 overall dimensions of the CC. I wanted the max cooling I could find for the volume available. Couldn’t find anything bigger than 8000 BTU to fit in the available space.

At first I settled on a Frigidaire fgrq0833u1


But later, after 3 damaged units delivered to my house, found a unit with the same guts but branded as a Danby DAC080BHUWBD (this model has been superseded), and about $100 cheaper. Took 2 tries to get an acceptable one with minimal shipping damage. Ran the unit for a while on the bench before attempting the install.

My plan was to modify the existing opening to what ever was needed for the new unit, but when attempting to remove the CC, I found it was installed in a black plastic plenum that was riveted to the body of the vehicle. I did not want to remove any more of the body panel than what was done at the factory, so I installed it into the existing plenum.

Needed to shim and seal between the AC and the 4 plenum walls. Then the tough part of fabricating the air deflectors between the back of the AC and the perforated body panel, the purpose of which is to keep the cooling intake air separate from the hot exhaust air.

Net result is an improvement in cooling (the old unit was malfunctioning) and an unmeasured reduction in noise but I estimate a 75% reduction.
Click to expand...
Howdy: I have a 04C190P with the Dometic Cool Cat and Dometic analog thermostat; the thermostat was replaced last year by an employee/son-in-law of June Rv Sales, which specializes in Roadtrek buying and selling so I trust his work, but the cool cat doesn’t work more often than it does. I’m tired of it’s recalcitrance and I was wondering how your A/C replacement is holding up. If you could give me a heads up, I would appreciate it!
GroupB said:
The high noise level of the Dometic Cool Cat unit in my 2008 Roadtrek 210 provided the motivation to replace it with a quiet window air conditioner. Also, the temperature of the air delivered by the Cool Cat was unreliable, sometimes blowing hot air when in cooling mode.

The Cool Cat is advertised by Roadtrek as a 12000 BTU unit, however the tag found on the CC shows a rating of 11350 BTU.

Space is the main constraint for a replacement unit, so I looked for one that was no bigger than any of the 3 overall dimensions of the CC. I wanted the max cooling I could find for the volume available. Couldn’t find anything bigger than 8000 BTU to fit in the available space.

At first I settled on a Frigidaire fgrq0833u1


But later, after 3 damaged units delivered to my house, found a unit with the same guts but branded as a Danby DAC080BHUWBD (this model has been superseded), and about $100 cheaper. Took 2 tries to get an acceptable one with minimal shipping damage. Ran the unit for a while on the bench before attempting the install.

My plan was to modify the existing opening to what ever was needed for the new unit, but when attempting to remove the CC, I found it was installed in a black plastic plenum that was riveted to the body of the vehicle. I did not want to remove any more of the body panel than what was done at the factory, so I installed it into the existing plenum.

Needed to shim and seal between the AC and the 4 plenum walls. Then the tough part of fabricating the air deflectors between the back of the AC and the perforated body panel, the purpose of which is to keep the cooling intake air separate from the hot exhaust air.

Net result is an improvement in cooling (the old unit was malfunctioning) and an unmeasured reduction in noise but I estimate a 75% reduction.
Click to expand...
Howdy: It’s May 4, 2025, and my 04C190P Dometic Cool Cat has quit operating at all again… how is your a/c swap holding up? Thank you!
 
The replacement AC has been a success. Also never used the heat mode in the Coolcat.

When I did the job I looked for an AC that would fit the physical space and then a balance between max cooling power and low noise. There are more choices as time goes on. One thing I did was run the unit on the bench before installation. Wanted to hear and feel how it performed. The AC is 8000 btu and has been adequate but we don't go to blazing hot climates where I think more cooling would be better.

Had to install a simple heat only thermostat for the furnace.
 
Since Nov 2020 the 12k btu unit I installed hasn't missed a beat. Glad I did the changeout.

Roadtrek 210P AC Changeout

Hi friends, I'm not typically on this forum but I thought I'd share my replacement of the failed Dometic AC/Heat pump unit in our 2010 RT 210P (Chevy Express 3500 chassis)..... I'm aware that you can do a direct swap with another new Dometic unit, but I didn't want to do that. It wasn't a...
www.classbforum.com www.classbforum.com
 
Anyone know about the 2 bars between the fins that look like plastic. It is in the original pic of GroupB
 
They are 2 pieces of all-thread to support and position the 2 white triangular plastic pieces used to separate the incoming from outgoing cooling air for the ac condenser. When the rear grill is installed the black gaskets seen in the picture seal against it.
 

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Thank you for the reply. Can I assume they are metal? Also, can I assume there is a nut on both sides of the wings?
 
Thanks a bunch. I'm at that stage of closing the hatch. Want to make sure I get everything done prior to final shuting and tightening tha hatch.
 
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