Fuel for Thought

The Hole Project

What can you say about someone who buys a brand new 2025 Freightliner Cascadia and within a month of purchase, they take an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel and deliberately cut a big hole in the sleeper roof? Some would call him crazy, some have said insane and still others have said he was brave.
Whatever you might call him, he is me and I am glad that I have done it (now that it is over). I did not take on this task lightly. You may have heard of the old saying ‘measure twice and cut once’, well, let me tell you, I probably measured a dozen times or more. I knew going into this that exact measurements were going to be crucial to completing the project. Every measurement was rechecked numerous times to ensure that not only were the measurements correct, but also the angles. No one wants to start with the intent of a square cutout that ends up being a trapezoid or a parallelogram as this would greatly affect the rest of the project’s success.
As it turned out, it was a fairly easy endeavor. Perhaps due to all the planning and measuring, but it was still a little nerve wracking when I made the first cut (this was the point of no return). Once the square opening was cut out of the sleeper roof the rest was pretty easy, well, maybe not easy, getting a 100 lb. RV style rooftop heat pump to the top of the truck by myself was a task unto itself, but once I had it on the sleeper roof, the rest of the install was extremely easy.
Oh I forgot to mention that my new Cascadia is a mid roof XT, so I had plenty of flat surface to work with, however, I also had to remove the top fairing which covers the cab and sleeper roof to be able to mount the heat pump. Removing a top fairing is also not exactly an easy task alone, but with the help of some pipe insulation to protect the top of the cab and sleeper from the fairing being slid on in, it actually worked out quite well. The challenge really came when it was time to re-install the fairing. Lining up the bolts properly was a bit of a chore, but it was doable with help of a few punches to align the bolt holes.
Now that it has been installed and road tested, I feel I made the right choice for climate control in my new truck. The unit works great on heat and cool, is much quieter than a Carrier Comfort Pro HVAC system and it does not take up valuable storage space under the bunk.
In order to actually power the rooftop unit, you need to run a 120 volt line across the headliner and down the wall to wherever you are going to get power from. Once the large hole was cut in the roof and headliner, it was fairly easy to feed a 10/3 AWG wire between the roof and headliner to the back wall and down into the side box where I installed the breaker box and transfer switch (more about the wiring another time). It fit perfectly between the ceiling lights, with about an inch on each side.
Call me brave, call me insane or call me crazy, but now that I have completed the project, if you see me out on the road, you will call me comfortable.

Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint, and begin to build.
- Robert Collier

See you down the road,
Greg