Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 11, 2025 ...

Birds in A/C unit

May 16, 2021, 07:12:11 am

I was up on the roof of our Foretravel the other day and I noticed a lot of bird droppings, which was quite annoying since I had recently cleaned the roof. Then yesterday I was in the upstairs of our house, happened to look out the window and saw two starlings hopping around on the roof by the front A/C unit. So I decided to watch the dirty birds to try to figure out what was so interesting to them. After about 30 seconds, one of them disappeared inside the A/C unit!

So, later I went up on the roof, took the cover off of the A/C unit and sure enough, found momma and poppa starlings' new domicile. That took about an hour and a half to clean up along with all the mud dobber nests from previous years.

First of all, shame on Domestic for leaving the ventilation holes so big. Second of all, have any of you installed any kind of screen to keep the critters out and let the air in?

I put duct tape on the vents for now, but will have to come up with a better solution before we fire up those units this summer. I see they make screen repair tape which would be the easy solution, I am just not sure if that would impede air flow too much or if there is a better solution?

Thanks
Kevin

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Re: Birds in A/C unit

Reply #1 – May 16, 2021, 08:11:24 am

Window screen would probably restrict the airflow too much.  Maybe a mesh of some type?  But that wouldn't keep out the wasps.

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Re: Birds in A/C unit

Reply #2 – May 16, 2021, 09:15:41 am

Just to give you an idea of the size mesh to use, photos below of our Atwood units (metal screen on the intake, and small slits on the sides).

Of course, nothing will keep the wasps out - they are relentless.  All you can do is check often for new nests.

Bird related encounter:  I started our coach several weeks ago.  After it was running I was doing my walk around check.  Found a big bird nest on the ground below the exhaust pipe outlet.  Some stupid bird felt the inside of my exhaust pipe would be a desirable place to raise her babies.  She must really like the smell of diesel soot.  Crazy.  I looked around in my shop - I have a collection of old coffee cans that I use to hold nuts and bolts.  The plastic lid off a medium size coffee can is a perfect fit on the end of the 5" pipe!  Problem solved.

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