RetiringSomeDay,
The roof AC on my 2005 Cruise America 28R is a 13.5k BTU Coleman (9330A713). I fulltime in western OR and WA. Summers here are nothing when compared to FL, but we do get the occasional 95F heat wave (lasting less than a week). On those days
my roof AC can have difficulty keeping up. Here are solutions that I have done:
Block sunlight in roof vents and skylights: The roof of the 28R is not thick enough to use a
vent cushion. The vent isn't recessed enough and the cushion falls out.
Inside vent covers (
product link) are the next best thing. I have vent covers on the cabover vent and rear bedroom vent. I don't have a need for roof vent covers. The inside vent covers serve 2 purposes - blocking the sun and (here in the winter) blocking cold air from coming down from roof vent. If I want to sleep/nap during the day I can darken the rear bedroom by inserting the vent cover.
I replaced my bathroom with a Fantastic Fan that has a smoked brown cover. It gets no vent cover. Other RVers have come up with DYI solutions to cover that shower skylight. I can't be bothered. My shower heats up a bit in the summer, but not enough to overcome the AC.
Coach door reflective window cover: (
product link). The fogged window in the coach door is a heat radiator. It gets hot in the inside when the sun bakes it. Many RVers have the window permanently blocked with a reflective window cover.
Reflectix foil (
product link 1 ,
product link 2): I slid foil between the curtains and the windows on the
rear window, and driver-side bedroom window and the dinette window. It's not taped in place. The curtain holds in in. I have no use for the rear window and don't care for looking out my dinette window into my neighbor's patio or inside when they open the door. These 3 windows stay covered with foil. Some day I'll add foil to the driver-side cabover window.
The last thing that I do is I attempt to get RV sites where the rear of the MH points South and the driver-side points West. Doing this puts my patio space in the afternoon shade and all of the shielded windows against the mid-day and afternoon sun. On the extremely hot days I'll start the AC when the outside temp reaches about 75 F (25.5 C). By doing these steps and by starting the AC early enough it can easily maintain the coach at about 72 F all day.
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Now here in the PNW winter I have the coach-side (passenger-side) facing SSW. I want it to be broadside with the curtains open to the winter sun. Right this moment it is 54 F outside, 74 F inside and the electric space heater (kicks on at 70F) and the propane furnace (kicks on at 63F) are not running.
