new air conditioner for brunnhilde - part 8

I was tired of being held hostage by the Oregon rainy weather. There is almost no end in sight for a true dry day. This morning seeing there is a break from shower and rain, I decided to go for it - raising the Mach 8 Cub air conditioner onto the roof, and fasten it down.


Only a lunatic would contemplate carrying out something so risky knowing any failure will leave Brunnhilde to potentially serious water damage. Today's work has to be perfect without any room for failure.

I started testing the watertightness between the aluminum plate and the high top fiberglass roof yesterday. This morning I turn Brunnhilde around 180 degree because of the slope of the driveway so I can perform more test simulating driving monsoon. Any leakage will necessitate remedial work before the air conditioner can be mounted.

The test was a success so it is green light to proceed with raising the air conditioner.

my neighbor Tony came over and two of us standing on the scaffold we have no problem raising the air conditioner onto Brunnhilde's roof

once it is on the roof the rest is relatively easy - i positioned the AC accurately through reaching out from the open skylight

during the course of the installation there were intermittent showers; as the humidity was very high the skylight keep closing but removal of the fuse solved that good

i added these two bolts with big washers to hold the front (normal rear due to the reversed installation) from wind lift

all the opening and holes alignment were perfect while they were all tight fit as I kept the hole diameters only slightly larger than that of the fasteners

it started to rain as I snapped this photo after putting the cover on

the aluminum plate design made possible the reuse of all 6 existing bolt holes to mount the AC securely

After tightened the 4 mounting bolts that compressed the water sealing foam frame I proceeded to perform simulated driving monsoon. I sprayed the air condition with a strong jet of water in all directions aiming hard in the gaps between the bottom of the AC and the aluminum plate. Any leak discovered would be bad news.

I used a garden hose to simulate driving monsoon to check for leak; the banana plant contribute to the realistic backdrop of a monsoon locale - think Vietnam or Thailand

There were periods of downpour in the afternoon. All is well and so far no leak found. The installation is far from finish. There is still the air plenum to make, a lot of electrical wiring of replacing the high current low voltage wiring with 120Vac ones, modification of the Kerstner control panel with its thermostat and fan switches.