Arctic Air Air Conditioning

I am in the process of purchasing a 1984 PT Trawler Europa Sedan. It supposedly has a 16,000BTU reverse cycle a/c / heat system.
The cooling sysytem is fine, but neither the surveyor or myself can get any heat from this unit. The previous owner has died, so we can't ask for any hep there.

It has a Advanced Thermodynamics A/C thermostat, but says nothing about heat. Picture below:



We are wondering if it truly is a reverse cycle unit.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Can't tell for sure, but the lack of a selector switch (heat, cool) makes me think it's just AC. Every control board I've seen has a selector of some kind to activate the heat or cool mode. When you switch it, the reversing valve makes a pretty obvious noise as it kicks from one mode to the other.

My Cruise Air units are all reverse cycle there is no separate "heat" switch. You just turn the thermostat to a higher temperature.
It is not hard to look at an AC unit and see the reversing valve. If it is a split unit it will be on the compressor part of the unit. It will be a "T" shaped set of tubes, one larger with a wire running to it, and three or four smaller tubes that change the direction of the freon. It is not unusual for them to stick in one position or another if the unit doesn't get used often enough. When I bought my boat I had to replace them on all three units.

I've an older Hydronics system on my boat. While we have the Heat/Cool selector switch, we've learned you need to let the compressors run for awhile in heat mode before turning on the individual zone units. Also, each zone should run at the lowest fan setting to get the best heating performance. Surprisingly enough, running at low fan settings heats the livings spaces relatively quickly.

It's not an Arctic Air unit, but you might try running the heat this way and see if it kicks in.

For folks retrofitting , or lucky enough to get a newbuild , the bigger boat system of a chilled water setup might be a finer companion to live with.

Carrier does the "best" Dometic does fine at lower cost.

I think Doug has an Arctic Air system. Maybe he will post up.