Air conditioner for my 11 foot truck camper?

For a "portable" aircon (a unit that is meant to stand in a room with hoses lead to a window), your biggest problem is space in a small truck camper. We used one on the boat when the built in unit went out but the boat had a much bigger space to put it...it was still in the way.

Yes, it needs to vent but that could be accomplished thru the screens, just a question of how much work you want to put into making it look decent....at the low end, you could duct tape it in place with a piece of cardboard for next to nothing. If you want it to look better, you could make a plywood cover that holds in place with clips over the open screen window.

If you do go with a "portable", look for one with twin hoses. the single hose models, use already cooled interior air to cool the condensor and then dump it outside, along with all the cooled air. This drastically reduces the effective cooling power (regardless of the btu listed). The twin hose style pulls in outside air to cool the condesor and then sends it out the other hose making it far more effective.

If you are talking about a window unit, mostly an issue of getting one that fits the hole in the wall.

This topic is bound to get a lot of comments. There are a lot of opinions on this subject and the good news is, the technology is changing pretty fast thanks in part to the Van Life world. I currently have a huge AC on my roof, it stands 17" tall, looks hideous and sucks power. I've been wanting to get rid of it for years now and I have researched what options are available.

My criteria was to eliminate the roof AC altogether and put it under the dinette seating. This would free up the real estate for more solar (have 200w, would like to expand to about 600w). I also wanted to go with something that was 12v to avoid having to run an inverter. A variable speed compressor to help with efficiency and the desire to run off a battery bank for 2 to 4 hours at a time.

What I have found is, there currently is no single solution available. You can get roof mounted AC units that are 12v, low profile and pretty efficient but my wanting to eliminate the AC from the roof entirely rules out those. There are a couple of options for under dinette applications from the van world but the size, vent orientation and drain requirements don't show any clear winners. The one thing I do have my eye on right now that I think is a potential winner is this:

https://velitcamping.com/products/velit-2000u-under-bench-air-conditioner-12v-24v

This will require some modification to work but I think it is a close enough starting point to work with. This will be replacing the furnace entirely (which will be replaced with a small diesel heater in it's place). This project is still a long way out to coming to fruition but if I can pull it off, I'm hoping to take 100+ lbs of weight off my roof and overall reduce the camper weight by ~150lbs with the elimination of the roof AC and furnace.

Hi Francis - Welcome to the forum.

I moved your thread from General RVing to the Truck Camper forum for better exposure.

Put a hole through the wall for a dryer vent type outlet.
Clicky