Right Place, Right Time

(L to R) GE Appliances’ Louisville, Kentucky-based RV team includes Kristi Saathoff, executive director, commercial AC; Kenton Merlino, design engineer, RV AC; Cody Ratchford, senior design engineer, RV AC; Joseph Domhoff, senior design engineer, RV AC; Tia Benton, principal design engineer, RV AC; and Dusty Henderson, director, engineering Recreational Living.

GE Appliances brought seven decades of air conditioning experience to the RV industry when the company entered the RV market in 2020. As supply chains tightened, the company supplied unmet demand and introduced heating functions into rooftop ACs.

By Jessica Meinhofer | Photos by Stillson Studio

Serendipity is a beneficial occurrence or event that happens by chance. The term could describe GE Appliances’ entrance into the RV air-conditioner market in 2020.

GE Appliances developed air conditioners for the hospitality industry in the 1960s. In 2016, the Haier co. bought GE’s appliance division. Two years later, GE Appliances began its RV-specific air conditioning program development.

Leadership looked to grow GE Appliances and saw similarities between the company’s package terminal air conditioners (PTAC) used in hotels and the air conditioners running on RVs. By early 2020, Keystone RV’s Bullet was the first RV to roll out GE Appliance ACs.

By fall, market forces changed, and RV manufacturers were searching to find air conditioners. Into the void stepped the newest supplier, GE Appliances, a company with a global components/ parts reach to outfit OEMs.

“We are a major company that can pull on all of those different resources to make sure that we are delivering for our customers in a really prompt way,” said Wendy Treinen, GE Appliances brand and product communications director. “The global supply chain that we can pull on—especially in times like these, where supply chains constraints are holding lots of people up—provides products that meet the needs of this unique consumer with brands that they trust and expertise that we have had for more than 100 years.”

(L to R) Will Troyer, Midwest Sales and Services vice president of operations; Kevin Herrity, vice president of sales at Midwest Sales and Services; Jeff Heiliger, GE Appliances principle field quality; Mike Boyer, GE Appliances director of product management; Jim Rich, GE Appliances principle sales manager, Recreational Living, and Henderson review GE Appliances’ high-efficiency 13,500 BTU RV air conditioner.

Building a Market GE Appliances’ RV-specific AC development began with field surveys of GE Appliances employees who were RV owners. Dusty Henderson, then a GE Appliances engineer and now the company’s director of engineering for Recreational Living, said the team began by looking at competitors’ air conditioners.

Engineers disassembled commonly used RV air conditioners to identify components, chips and system functions. Engineers then calculated the costs to make the air conditioners.

Based on the results, the team tapped its knowledge of GE’s hotel ACs to improve its modernized RV air conditioner offerings to the industry. GE Appliance engineers made the air conditioners more efficient and consumer-friendly without straying too far from competitors’ sizes or costs, according to the company.

At the same time, Henderson said, the team surveyed RV OEMs and its RV manufacturing employees who were also RVers about pain points they experienced with RV ACs and heaters in the market.

The first trip Henderson made was to Keystone RV in 2018. He said his engineering team arrived with technical questions. The team was determined to gather information on what was needed to build better air conditioners.

After collecting initial feedback, GE Appliances expanded its RV air conditioning team. Five engineers joined Henderson from the company’s commercial air conditioner engineering team, along with a product manager and field quality engineer.

The team began building a new AC platform from the ground up. They worked closely with RV manufacturers and moved to a base in Elkhart, Indiana.

More than 40 GE Appliances employees support the RV air conditioning team’s efforts, dedicating 50% of their time to the team. The AC team is part of the GE Appliances’ Recreational Living Core team.

Testing, Testing To adapt GE Appliances’ knowledge of PTAC air conditioners for the RV market, Henderson said designers had to rethink product testing.

“What works in a through-the-wall unit does not work on a rooftop AC traveling down the interstate,” he said.

RV air conditioners had to be lightweight and fit in OEM standard roof cutouts. GE Appliances then upgraded its existing laboratories to accommodate testing for the Recreational Living Core initiative.

“GE Appliances is made up of microenterprises,” said Jennifer Solomon, senior marketing manager for the Recreational Living Core team. “So, by pulling in key engineers and individuals from those different microenterprises, it gives us the awesome opportunity to leverage their robust knowledge within their specific product line and then translate that into what it means for RV.”

First, the air conditioners ran through GE Appliances’ sound-testing labs. The labs position the ACs’ indoor

(L to R) Attila Krizsan, senior director, Recreational Living; and Jennifer Solomon, senior marketing manager, Recreational Living; break before a weekly meeting in Louisville.

(L to R) Henderson and Solomon demonstrate GE Appliances’ Kitchen Hub. The hub combines a 27-inch smart touch screen with a ventilation hood.

(L to R) Paul Haney, director, Industrial Design; and Michael Watanabe, Industrial Designer, discuss appliance design options.

side in a reverberation room. The air conditioner’s outdoor side is open to an anechoic room. The room, which was created to prevent echoes, simulates a wide-open field.

For roof-mounted air conditioners, GE Appliances built fixtures to secure the air conditioners on end so they could be placed through the wall, just like PTACs. The company evaluated rooftop designs and benchmarked them against the competitions’.

After measuring GE’s air conditioners’ sound levels against competitors’ ACs, engineers next evaluated the ACs’ cooling performances.

GE Appliances’ performance chambers are designed for throughthe-wall products. The chambers include two conditioned rooms, one indoor and one outdoor.

As with sound testing, engineers design a special fixture to mount the air conditioners atop a fixture. The fixture contained an insulated air plenum that collected air leaving the air conditioners’ indoor side. The cool air exiting the ACs flowed through a duct to code testers measuring the air conditioners’ cooling capacity. Tests measured cooling capability at various ambient conditions from 50 degrees to 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

Typically, GE Appliances’ next test on its PTACs would be a shipping evaluation to determine the air conditioners’ durability inside a box. Because the RV air conditioners would be running on the roof of a moving vehicle, engineers developed new structural stress tests.

The team configured the RV ACs with the proper installed configuration

We did calculations on bird strikes at 60 mph. How much energy is that? We dropped a 16-pound shot put from a certain height to simulate that.”

– Dusty Henderson

Troyer shows customers GE Appliances’ RV air conditioner display at Midwest Sales and Services’ Elkhart, Indiana, showroom.

DeCarlo Thomas, fork operator at Midwest Sales and Services, picks air conditioners to load and ship to RV OEMs.

and then subjected them to shake tests to simulate riding down the road.

“We did calculations on bird strikes at 60 mph,” Henderson said. “How much energy is that? We dropped a 16-pound shot put from a certain height to simulate that.”

In addition, the team conducted tests for rain and other situations simulating environments on a mobile vehicle.

Finally, the air conditioners were put through field testing. Henderson said the team used a two-fold approach. First, the ACs were evaluated using a 33-foot RV at GE Appliances’ Appliance Park headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. The team also outfitted employees’ RVs with the air conditioners to provide real-world testing results.

The Recreational Living Core team used the on-site RV for installation, engineering and marketing. The RV plugged into shore power at the facility and had the AC, heat pump or furnace always running.

The team monitored temperatures inside and outside the RV to develop appropriate cooling, heating and defrosting cycles. When the temperatures dropped below freezing overnight, engineers tracked whether the heat-pump defrost cycle worked correctly and the furnace kicked on as expected when temperatures dropped below 25 degrees.

With one rooftop heat-pump unit, the on-site RV’s interior was nearly 30 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. For example, on a day when the exterior temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit, the interior ranged between 60 and 65 degrees.

GE Appliances’ RVers also gave the team valuable real-world data and feedback, Henderson said. Employees used their RVs for weekend excursions and vacations, putting the air conditioners, heat pumps and furnaces through typical daily uses.

Working Together Once the team had developed products ready for OEMs, GE Appliances needed to create relationships with manufacturers. Solomon said the company’s trusted brand reputation in other markets helped open doors initially.

“Being such a trusted brand from a consumer standpoint gives us a great opportunity to take that trust that consumers have developed with us over time in their homes and now take that to their home on the road,” she said.

With the AC team in Elkhart, Henderson said, engineers educated OEMs about the rooftop models’ e ciency and software upgrades.

“Having our team at Elkhart, including a eld quality engineer who goes around and does audits, helped,” he said. “If something comes up or there is a question on the assembly line, he is our rst line of defense. Our product manager is also there and supports the customer in anything they need. He has meetings with di erent OEMs, so he is getting more information about our next generation.”

GE Appliances then secured distribution to RV industry customers. e company has multiple Herrity describes the features and benefi ts of GE Appliances’ 13,500 BTU RV air conditioner.

warehouses and distribution points around the country. Due to its proximity to Elkhart, Chicago became the air conditioners’ central distribution hub for the RV segment.

GE Appliances next partnered with Midwest Sales and Services (MWSS) to foster the relationships with the OEMs to get initial feedback, including getting air conditioners initially on the Keystone RV Bullet. Once GE Appliances got the green light to launch its RV AC program, MWSS was part of the process. Solomon said MWSS was a natural partner and was eager to expand its product line at the same time GE Appliances was growing.

MWSS provided RV industry connections GE Appliances lacked, Solomon said, and already sold GE Appliances’ residential and compact refrigerators to the RV market.

The rooftop ACs are designed and evaluated in Louisville. Depending on the product, customer needs, and demand, the rooftop ACs are manufactured leveraging the company’s global footprint. The company then warehouses the manufactured RV ACs in Chicago, and MWSS distributes them to Elkhart. However, GE Appliances continues to be heavily involved in the entire process, maintaining a product manager and field quality engineer on-site in Elkhart. If on-site personnel require additional troubleshooting or support, Louisville staff travel to Elkhart to help.

Current Model Lineup GE Appliances initially rolled out air conditioners in 13,500 BTU and 15,000 BTU models. Standard-efficiency models are available in both sizes. However, the company also offers high-efficiency 13,500 BTU models.

We are a major company that can pull on all of those different resources to make sure that we are delivering for our customers in a really prompt way.”

– Wendy Treinen

Standard-efficiency rooftop ACs function with 20-amps. However, GE Appliances’ high-efficiency 13,500 BTU models run on 15-amps. Henderson said the change enables RVers with 50-amp RVs to run three high-efficiency air conditioners simultaneously without overloading the circuit. The advance, he said, means RVers camping during hot summers use less energy to keep their vehicles cooler.

GE Appliances’ air conditioners include electronic controls with self-diagnostics. Error codes flash and notify consumers when the air conditioners’ sensors are unplugged or damaged, low voltage is detected or other errors occur.

In September 2021, GE Appliances introduced its RV Air Conditioner–High-Efficiency Heat Pump model.

Engineers intentionally allowed frost to build on the heat exchanger, then ran the defrost cycle to confirm its performance during testing. Competitors’ heat pumps typically stopped performing around 40 or 45 degrees, Henderson said. GE Appliances engineers determined the appropriate defrost cycles to ensure ice buildup cleared, even when temperatures were below freezing.

A typical defrost cycle runs three to five minutes; however, in extreme conditions such as high winds or freezing rain, the process can last up to 10 minutes. The heat pump mode conserves propane by 19% to 38% at 35 degrees, Henderson said.

Once the heat pumps pass testing, GE Appliances incorporates them in 13,500 and 15,000 BTU models as well as the high-efficiency 13,500 BTU models. The company’s Auto Changeover feature enables RVers to choose between three heating modes: furnace only, heat pump only and heat pump with a furnace. Setting the unit to the heat pump and furnace setting will start the furnace when the heat pump is not running, such as when temperatures fall below 25 degrees, or the heat pump is undergoing a defrost cycle.

This year, Henderson said, the team is working to meet OEM requests to design low-profile rooftop air conditioners. The supplier expects new low-profile air conditioners to be available this fall.

Home Base in Louisville, Kentucky

GE Appliances’ 750-acre headquarters, referred

to as Appliance Park, was built in the 1950s and is so large it has its own ZIP code . The facility was once the company’s only manufacturing site, but today GE Appliances has manufacturing operations across the U .S ., Mexico and Asia .

The Appliance Park site employs 7,300 people .

In addition to supporting current employees, Wendy Treinen, GE Appliances brand and product communications director, said GE Appliances strives to help the local community with workforce development and programs . GE Appliances’ Industry 4 .0 Develop Program brings individuals to work in the company’s 10 stateside smart factories, rotating through industrial controls, robotics, testing and data visualization .

“Those communities are our workforce, and we cannot function if we cannot make products to sell,” Treinen said .