Last season I had an issue. I have a Cruisair system not sure of the size. It is different than what you have explained. I have only 2 dials not 3 on my panel. Here is what happened. We were going to go for a weekend to meet some friends and spend the weekend. I went down the night before and cleaned and set everything up for our early departure. When I left I thought it would be nice for my wife to be able to come into a nice cool cabin to put everything away. When we got to the boat in the morning it was definately cold in the cabin. We left on our 50 mile journey to meet up with our friends and get our transient slip. When we got to the slip and plugged in the A/C would not cool. I found out that we must have had a really low tide the night before because the strainer was full of Mudd. I cleaned the strainer and turned it back on and it took a bit but water started to flow normally. The problem is that it never really cooled again. Before the mudd it took a long time for the cabin to cool. When I say a long time I mean 3-6 hrs. This is a small 1998 26 foot Regal 258 commodore that I picked up for a good deal at the beginning of the season last year. I feel that it may need freon but not sure what kind. R22, R134a etc. ??? I am thinking about having the Cruiseair guy come out but he is very expensive if in the end I am looking at a bad compressor. If anyone has any ideas I am all ears. I would like to be able to get this thing working since we have had a new baby over the winter and I will need to be able to keep him cool for extended days this summer. Suggestions??

Thank you,

Ray

Will do I am going to be down at the boat tomorrow night so I can check it then. The boat is not in the water yet but when I pulled it, it was shooting a good stream of water out of it. 2.5 – 3 feet from the boat which is pretty good since it was basically straight from the through hull to the water with very little arch in it. I think every thing is good with the water pump. I do know that the compressor was coming on because it was vibrating and getting warm. Not hot but warm. I will check the back of the controll panel hopefully that is the issue. I was thinking it needed freon because it took so long to cool down the cabin. On a really hot day it could take 5-6 hrs. So I would think that is a sign of low freon if not let me know. Once a month I would clean the filter, I was told it was over kill but that is what I do at home so I figure why not on the boat. It is so easy to do that it is dry by the time I am ready to go I just popped it in and got underway. Well I appreiciate your reply and I will post back with what I have found. Nice to know a bit more about the unit as well.

If I need to have someone look at it is this something that I could have the marina do or do you reccomend having the Cruisair guy come out. The Cruiseair guy charges 170 to come out for the first hour and 120 for the subsequent hours. He said usually he can be done in less than one hour and let you know if it can be fixed or if it needs to be replaced.

-Ray

 I am in the DC area. I am assuming this unit (1998 Regal Commodore) is an R22 would that be correct. I agree with you on the rate but everyone here always tells you it is like that because you live in the DC area. I have acronyms for DC but I will not voice them here.  My marina seems to be pretty good but I am not sure if they can handle this.

Once again I appreiciate the reply.

-Ray