Portable air conditioners?

[Matt1221]

Are portable air conditioners the best way to beat the heat when your ac can't keep up during extreme texas heat?

[theczar]

If you don’t mind losing the view, reflectix covering your windows helps a lot

[Jebby14]

used one in my old prowler. worked ok but that trailer was well insulated and it was a large unit. shortest vent possible. went straight up and out the roof vent. emptied the bucket about onece every 3 days. thing ran non stop as it took a LONG time to cool things down. it got the job done but I sure do prefer my current roof top

[Tvov]

ScottG wrote:
.... told her to turn it on in the morning before it got too hot.
....

This! Best thing is to turn on the A/C first thing in the morning if you know it is going to be a hot day.

That way, you at least have a cool camper in the evening while using more energy.

If you wait to turn on the A/C until you "have to", you will have a warm, uncomfortable camper in the evening and STILL be using more energy!



Our small camper is easy to cool, we've never had an issue.

[austinjenna]

I used one and it worked quite well. We only ave 30 amp so a 2nd ac was out of the question. I fashioned a board that fit into the slide window and had the exhaust go there and also ran a dedicated heavy duty extension through the slide from the ac right to the pedestal. As far as condensation there was not much after running this thing pretty much 24/7 for a week.

[time2roll]

On the portables the condensate cools the condenser, evaporates and is expelled out the warm air vent.
Similar to a compressor fridge including the moisture from the defrost cycle.

[mooky_stinks]

poppa wrote:
you have to have a condesate drain as well

No you don't. My portable can go days and days and barely produce a few ozs of water. With the roof top A/C running as the primary source, the humidity is so low I only need to drain the holding tank when packing up to come home.

[poppa]

you have to have a condesate drain as well

[time2roll]

jdc1 wrote:

bgum wrote:
Window AC most bang for buck. Every little bit helps.

Ditto
Those portables are a POS.

I have used a portable at home and it worked fine. My issue with the RV is that there is basically no extra space and good chance the vents will not work well with the RV windows.

Get a second a/c installed in the ceiling.

[Grit_dog]

Holy snikeees, that's a nice camper! Just looked it up.

I'd say, don't worry about a solution to a problem you don't have, yet.

There's no reason that AC shouldn't be able to keep up unless you somehow "know" otherwise.
If your expectation is to lock it up in the sun, AC off, come back at 5 pm and expect the AC to cool it down in the next 10 minutes, you need to change your expectation. If you expect to leave both bedroom doors open, kids leave the camper door open most of the day and forgot about the window cracked open, and it stays cool inside, change your expectation.
If you want it to be a walk in beer cooler when it's 100out, not gonna happen either likely.
But with just a bit of care and common sense, there's no reason it won't work acceptably.

[jdc1]

bgum wrote:
Window AC most bang for buck. Every little bit helps.

Ditto
Those portables are a POS.

[wanderingaimles]

First question, do you have a 50 amp service? If so, add a second rooftop unit.
If not, then you have a couple of options, either add a second unit with separate wiring leaving it to a 20 amp cord which you would plug in separately from another source, or do the same with the portable unit.
You will have to add that second cord because the 30 amp main service simply wont be able to handle the load of a second AC unit and everything else in the trailer on it's own.

[valhalla360]

We used one on our boat. It certainly works (unlike some posters imply) but I would suggest the dual hose units as for the same BTU rating, they do cool more because they don't draw in any outside air.

[sch911]

By far the biggest bang for the buck is to find shade, park there...

[time2roll]

Matt1221 wrote:
A bigger a/c is not plausible as it is already a 15k btu. I'm just trying to think ahead here. Shade is also not really doable in the part of Texas we will be in.

Get a second a/c installed.