Table of Contents
What is it?
The RV Silencer by Whacko Products does just what it sounds like. The product is designed to lower the sound levels of your RV AC to make your time inside your RV more enjoyable. They make 3 variations of this product. One for the Coleman-Mach, the Dometic Brisk Air, and the GE models.
How does the RV Silencer work?
Our TT has the Dometic Brisk Air so I can’t speak on the design of the other two but I know ours is loud in my opinion. The current design on the Dometic has the cold air dump with closable louvers on one side and the air intake on the other. Both of these add to the noise level of the unit during operation. The turbulence of the air hitting the cold dump as well as the air that leaks around the louvers when closed is one problem. The other is the intake side is basically a hole with a filter which goes straight up into the AC unit to the fan so you get a lot of noise there.
The RV Silencer eliminates the cold air dump and ducts the intake to the opposite side of the unit baffling some of the noise and quieting the beast some. I know this will cause heartache with some that make use of the cold air dump but we rarely use it and I would rather have a quieter time while inside the RV. My parents have a Jayco with the Coleman-Mach and their unit is significantly quieter than the Dometic so I would like to hear from folks if they installed the Silencer on one and what was the results?
You also benefit from a larger, thicker filter. The unit is washable with the only negative being that you have to remove four screws and the shroud to access it.
RV Silencer by Wacko Products Install
Install of the RV Silencer is a breeze on the Dometic. You simply remove the old shroud then apply foil tape over the cold air dump cutout. After this is done you install the new base plate then the cover assembly. It took me about thirty minutes to install (proved by the time on my test data below) and I did it with the slides in so it did make it a little more challenging. It is also a good idea to check inside the AC unit prior to install to make sure the factory tapes are still installed properly. Ours was good but I have seen others that had the foil tape pop off and air was going to places other than the ducts or getting sucked right back into the return side.
Wacko has their own install videos so I thought it would be a waste making another. They can be found by clicking here.
Results
I ran two tests using the Niosh Sound Meter on my iPhone. The phone was placed on our center island directly under the AC unit. I ran the test for about 30 seconds each time. I do have to note that the compressor was not running during our test. We had a cold snap just before our first trip and it was 40 degrees when I installed so I couldn’t have gotten the compressor to fire.
We saw about a 6 dB decrease in sound level with the install of the RV Silencer. While this may not seem like much, you have to do a little research on how sound levels work. A gain of 10 dB would be perceived as doubling of sound to the human ear so a 6 dB drop is definitely noticeable.
On our first trip I noticed a big difference. One way I know it worked is when the AC is running I usually have to set the DVD player to 32 to hear it well. After the install I ran it at 24. Anna always goes to sleep before I do so now I feel better knowing that I can have the volume down as well as worry about how much sound comes out of the RV because I usually don’t go in till about 11 pm to enjoy a few cookies in the recliner while I watch a movie.
Please comment below if you have installed the unit and what do you think of it.
Check out our review after using our Keystone Premier 30 RIPR Travel Trailer for five years.