15KW Air conditioner shortage

[Hwy Junky]

Why can no one get their hands on a new Dometic Air Conditioner with a heat strip? We have one on order but are waiting now for over 2=months. Is this another Covid excuse?

[153stars]

Yep!!

[Mich F]

They're definitely hard to get, and not necessarily any good when you do eventually get one. My son owns an RV repair shop and has a number of people waiting for air conditioners. He has one customer at his shop right now who needed a new AC to replace one of his ACs that had died. The one that died was a replacement for the original AC. HE got lucky and the AC came in rather quickly because it was under warranty. They hooked it up and it was dead right out of the box. Have to wait for another one now.

[RVThere]

I bought a stand alone AC from Home Depot and rigged the outlet port through my RV window while I waited for a Coleman Mach last summer. Saved my vacation and worked great.

[corvetteSS]

I tried to order a new A/C unit last summer from 3 different places.
2 of them eventually cancelled our order because they could not get the unit after 3 months of waiting. The third place eventually received it after 6 months waiting. Seems like some control parts were not available and took that long for the supply chain to catch up.

[chuckftboy]

If these were built in the U.S. there wouldn't be an issue with supply but everything imported has slowed way down in the past year.

[Mich F]

Originally Posted by chuckftboy

If these were built in the U.S. there wouldn't be an issue with supply but everything imported has slowed way down in the past year.

Some issues and or shortages have nothing to do with outsourced parts.
https://rvbusiness.com/seat-foam-sho...rv-production/

Other articles on this issue have said they had caused changes in the way the RVs were manufactured. They are building the RVs putting them in lots then installing seats and furniture after everything else has been done.

[TXiceman]

To the OP. You might want to get a moderator to correct your post heading. I think you mean 15 kBTUH.

Ken

[BarryG20]

At work I run into extremely long delays for receiving many items. Doesn't seem to matter if they are made in the USA or not. Shortage of raw materials and all the way through production and even shipping. It also seems that the specific state the manufacturing is in makes a difference as some had harder and or longer covid shutdowns/restrictions than others. Which meant orders were being backlogged as they could not do any production or very limited production. So you have a backlog of orders and as restrictions ease you now also have pent up demand on top of that. The supply chain is just behind the curve and trying to catch up.

Heck take a look at lumber as an example. 6 months ago I could walk into Home depot and buy a 2x4 for under $3 now they are $6.87. A sheet of OSB 6 months ago was $15 now you are lucky to find it for $50 a sheet, 1/2 inch plywood $30-40 is now over $70. Sure would not want to be building a house right now or even a shed for that matter.

[richard5933]

The situation is much more complicated than it appears, and the shortages go much wider than people think.

Yesterday I went to a local home improvement store for some PVC electrical boxes and was shocked to see all the empty shelves. The store clerks told me that there is a nationwide shortage of all types of PVC parts, especially electrical.

Between the fires on the west coast, storm damage on the Gulf, Covid-19, the winter shutdown in Texas, and other problems like transportation backups things are really out of whack right now.

My guess is that the Dometic a/c situation is a combination of lots of supply line shortages, just like the chip shortage shutting down car & truck production right now.

[Solo_RV_Guy]

Originally Posted by richard5933

The situation is much more complicated than it appears, and the shortages go much wider than people think.

Yesterday I went to a local home improvement store for some PVC electrical boxes and was shocked to see all the empty shelves. The store clerks told me that there is a nationwide shortage of all types of PVC parts, especially electrical.

Between the fires on the west coast, storm damage on the Gulf, Covid-19, the winter shutdown in Texas, and other problems like transportation backups things are really out of whack right now.

My guess is that the Dometic a/c situation is a combination of lots of supply line shortages, just like the chip shortage shutting down car & truck production right now.

The chip shortage affects a number of industries. From the ECM to the navigation & entertainment, consumer audio products, almost every piece of professional audio equipment, many pro-sumer and professional cameras and video products... it's huge. Building a new semiconductor plant from scratch takes about 18 months, minimum.

Consumer behavior - this is what "we" get for being cheap-booty consumers. We claim we want USA made products but then buy the cheapest plastic crap Walmart sells.. or even cheaper "direct from China via Amazon/eBay". This is our - the consumer - end of Globalization. If we'd put our money where our opinions are we *might* have some domestic production of critical things, but our wallet behavior shows us to mostly be liars or dreamers.

[geordi]

We HAD an option for Made-in-the-USA for RV air conditioners... It was made by Carrier and they were great.

But Carrier as a company didn't want to keep making them for the RV industry b/c of (probably) a lack of enough profit to satisfy them, and used a convenient excuse of a minor factory fire as a reason to shut down production years ago. Then they sold the RV line entirely to a Swiss company.... In mountains covered in snow, there's a real need for air COOLING, eh? Wonder of wonders, that Swiss company has done ZILCH with the purchase. Their manufacturing has traditionally been transportation heaters like the small diesel heaters.

I still prefer the Carrier units, they are great if you can find them. I've had multiple Dometic failures, and Coleman are workhorses but they are terribly inefficient.

[Solo_RV_Guy]

Originally Posted by geordi

We HAD an option for Made-in-the-USA for RV air conditioners... It was made by Carrier and they were great.

But Carrier as a company didn't want to keep making them for the RV industry b/c of (probably) a lack of enough profit to satisfy them, and used a convenient excuse of a minor factory fire as a reason to shut down production years ago. Then they sold the RV line entirely to a Swiss company.... In mountains covered in snow, there's a real need for air COOLING, eh? Wonder of wonders, that Swiss company has done ZILCH with the purchase. Their manufacturing has traditionally been transportation heaters like the small diesel heaters.

I still prefer the Carrier units, they are great if you can find them. I've had multiple Dometic failures, and Coleman are workhorses but they are terribly inefficient.

Coleman is now part of AirXcel. I recently drove past their Wichita, KS factory. It had a full parking lot and a "now hiring" sign.

Sometimes I forget how tiny the market is for the stuff I do, both hobbies and work. While we have a 99.8% Pure RVer audience here, only about 10% of Americans own an RV. When viewed on a global scale, RVs (and pleasure boats using similar "house" tech) are a fraction of a percentage of the HVAC/electrical/plumbing market. In an economy obsessed with "efficiency of capital" it's a wonder anyone makes the stuff we use in our recreation or that it's affordable on several different levels.

Remember when broadband internet was a new thing and dial-up was called "world wide wait"? That's the global supply chain right now. The plate spinning, juggling act that is just in time delivery was disrupted on an unprecedented scale. Getting all that running in sync will take more time than we have patience for.

[THenne1713]

and/or a shipping backlog in the Suez Canal?