Running AC in West Texas heat

[John from Central Florida]

All my camping in West Texas has been boondocking. I now have the opportunity to camp at an RV Park with full hookups, next March.

Having access to electricity, I’m thinking of using my air conditioner. Do you have any suggestions on how to use it?

While it’s fairly cool at nights, it’s pretty gruesome during the day.

I guess what I’m asking is will it work in desert conditions? Will I burn it out by overwork? Should I turn it on in the morning and let it work all day?

Thanks!

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by John from Central Florida

All my camping in West Texas has been boondocking. I now have the opportunity to camp at an RV Park with full hookups, next March.

Having access to electricity, I’m thinking of using my air conditioner. Do you have any suggestions on how to use it?

While it’s fairly cool at nights, it’s pretty gruesome during the day.

I guess what I’m asking is will it work in desert conditions? Will I burn it out by overwork? Should I turn it on in the morning and let it work all day?

Thanks!

Turn it on as soon as you hook up and leave it on.

No, it won't burn out from overwork in TX (or FL) unless it is defective.

[Camper_bob]

^+1

Run it.

Sometimes ours will run all day long and cycle off some time in the night. Never had a problem.

The outlaws run theirs non-stop and have for many years and it still works just fine.

[Woodworker]

Better to let it run then to cut it off and make it play catch up. Works harder to cool than to keep cool

[Vaquero]

Just like they said.

[John from Central Florida]

Great, folks! THANKS!

[vcbice]

We used BOTH of ours when the temps got over 90F. At 105F they could barely keep up when in direct sunlight all day.

And, yes, ours ran almost 24/7 during Jun, Jul and Aug.

[Jday7757]

I live in West Texas and we stay in many RV parks in TX during the hot summers. I agree with what most people said on here—turn on the a/c and leave it on. In fact we have a 50amp hookup at our house and I leave the air conditioners turned on all the time, letting the thermostat control them. Granted when parked at our house for extended periods, we raise the thermostat about 10 degrees above what we wold use if staying in the RV. I do want to stress one point though about using the a/c in extremely hot temperatures and that is you should not expect it/them to cool the inside temperature down more than 20-25 degrees. In other words, if you are in 110 degree temps, then don’t expect the a/c to cool the inside much below 90 degrees.

[wags999]

I would also suggest using bubble wrap on the windows and heavier blackout curtains. Stop the heat from getting in, in the first place means less to cool. Windows are the #1 heat gain areas, control them you make your RV easier to cool. I agree set it and forget it, keep it cool is easier than getting it cool.

[sasiki]

Go to Home Depot and buy 4' wide roll of reflectix foil/bubble insulation. Cut it to fit inside all your windows and enjoy much cooler temperatures. It doesn't look super attractive from the outside but it's not too bad considering the benefits.

Whoops they loaded upside down, but it looks the same right side up ha.

[oldmanAZ]

A good investment would be a non-contact thermometer ('laser IR thermometer'). There are number of inexpensive brands (less than $20) and I've used them for a variety of things from fridge temps, heat gain in the trailer, trailer bearing temps, to cooking oil temp!

I found that the thin roof/ceiling on our slide was significantly warmer than the other ceiling areas. We had a slide topper installed and that stopped that heat source cold!

With that thermometer, you are likely to find that tinted glass gets very warm with direct sunlight and that heat radiates into the trailer. We have 2 skylights; one in the shower and one in the kitchen area. They, too, admit a lot of heat. I've cut the inexpensive, reflective auto windshield sun shades and put them in our large rear window that faced south and used painters tape to hold them against the glass and skylights.

We have Maxx air vent covers so when closed, our 2 ceiling fans were not a source of heat. Without vent covers, ceiling vents might radiate heat into the RV.

Stopping the sunlight before it hits the trailer is the biggest help. I made a 'clothes line' to hold Disney beach towels to shade our slide windows that faced west and that helped significantly. I plan to hang shade cloths to cover our large rear window and our slide windows for next season. When we were in FL winter/spring this year, a number of seasonal campers had those over the south-facing side of their RVs.

You've probably already read on this site about being sure the baffle in the main A/C section is positioned correctly (mine was OK) and the ceiling vent mod to help air flow through those vents (it helped one of mine A LOT).

I suggest, too, that you have a fan or two to help move air and feel cooler. As a last minute decision, we left our 'breeze box' fans at home and regretted it. We now have an additional 'tower' fan. It has worked well because of its smaller 'footprint' and its oscillation feature.


A bit 'TMI' I guess.... time for another cup of coffee.

[dzwiss]

Another thing I noticed to even out the temperature when using the air conditioner is to direct a fan toward the thermostat. In our unit the thermostat is under the kitchen cabinets which hold the heat. The rear of the trailer was very cool, but the thermostat read much higher causing the air conditioner to run continuously and not cycle.