Running A/C in parked RV all summer
Due to situations beyond my control, I am forced to spend most of the summer at my home in Yuma this year. I don't have [nor do I want] an RV garage and so it is exposed to sun and considerable heat....
Forum Discussion
The interior of an RV in the direct sun can get much hotter than the outside air is ... which is of course really hard on stuff inside the RV.
The best low energy way to protect the RV's interior from excessive heat deterioration is to at least let the interior get NO HOTTER than the outside air temperature. You can do this by just setting your rooftop vent fan's speed on HIGH and setting it's rotation direction to BLOW OUT. Then open either another roof vent in the other end of the roof or open some window slightly in the other end of the interior- so as to pull outside air into and through the interior to exit out the running fan. Running a vent fan like this takes very little electrical energy and some rooftop vent fans even have a thermistat to control how hot it has to get inside to get it to come on.
We do this all the time while our RV is sitting in the back yard in the sun in the summer. We have two rooftop vents - one in each end of the RV. We turn the front multi-speed reversible vent fan to blow out with a medium high thermistat setting so that this fan automatically lets the interior get no hotter than the outside air - via a constant exchange of air throughout the interior. This is better than wearing out an air conditioner (and paying the electricity bill to run it) to keep the interior unnecessarily way cooler than the outside air temperature.
However ... also a big concern is also what the sun's rays are doing to the exterior paint and more importantly ... the window/vent/door sealants. There is no substitute for storing an RV at least in the shade out of the sun - whether that be in Alaska or Arizona.
The best low energy way to protect the RV's interior from excessive heat deterioration is to at least let the interior get NO HOTTER than the outside air temperature. You can do this by just setting your rooftop vent fan's speed on HIGH and setting it's rotation direction to BLOW OUT. Then open either another roof vent in the other end of the roof or open some window slightly in the other end of the interior- so as to pull outside air into and through the interior to exit out the running fan. Running a vent fan like this takes very little electrical energy and some rooftop vent fans even have a thermistat to control how hot it has to get inside to get it to come on.
We do this all the time while our RV is sitting in the back yard in the sun in the summer. We have two rooftop vents - one in each end of the RV. We turn the front multi-speed reversible vent fan to blow out with a medium high thermistat setting so that this fan automatically lets the interior get no hotter than the outside air - via a constant exchange of air throughout the interior. This is better than wearing out an air conditioner (and paying the electricity bill to run it) to keep the interior unnecessarily way cooler than the outside air temperature.
However ... also a big concern is also what the sun's rays are doing to the exterior paint and more importantly ... the window/vent/door sealants. There is no substitute for storing an RV at least in the shade out of the sun - whether that be in Alaska or Arizona.
