Small Window AC vs Roof Top Air

[Dagwood_55]

When ordering a new Popup TC (Bundutec), you get a choice of either a rear mounted, small window unit or a roof AC. Whats the pros and cons of each?? Or which make more sense in a popup?? The window unit is about half price of the roof AC.

Thanks,

[burningman]

In my experience roof airs rarely fail. I still have a 1987 Vacationeer with its original roof air that works great. I’ve had others that old or older that still worked great.
The roof is the best place for an AC. That’s why they’re almost always up there.
Heat rises.
If you go anywhere that gets really hot, you’ll wish you had the roof unit.
As far as replacement goes, roof air for the win again. They’re all designed to fit a standard 14”x14” hatch. Window units are all different sizes. Good luck matching it if you have to replace it.
Everyone is talking about what’s cheapest. But roof air is what’s best.

[DWeikert]

Window unit. 5500 BTU is plenty for our little campers. They're lighter, replacements are cheap and they're much easier to run with a small generator.

[Big_Katuna]

Another vote for the thru wall. Can’t beat simple.

Roof air could cost $700 to replace.

[ajriding]

If there is a factory option for mounting a window unit then that is huge. Get the window unit.
Window units are $99 anywhere in the country, more if you want to spend more.
Less weight on the roof, better mpg, much easier to replace yourself if needed (MUCH EASIER).

You can get either in a 5,200btu version or as big as u want, but the roof AC will cost 5 times or 8 times, or even 12 times as much if buying alone. I found a 5200btu roof unit for $500 refurbished and that was a grand deal.
Either comes in larger BTUs also, so no issues there.
The small, as stated, do work on the small generators of 2000 watt size if that's your thing

I had one camper for one year with a rear mounted window unit. It was floor level, pulling cold air off the floor and blowing it near the floor, but it did work great and kept it cool. It was a household window unit, not made for RV though. It was designed to collect the condensation in a pan then flick that water back on the coils to help cool it. This is not good for an RV that is not always level. Water could spill inside. Also the unit had vents on top, so rain water or leaves could get into it and possibly leak into the camper as mine did when the camper was slanted downhill in the rain.
I ended up punching holes in the water pan so no water collected.
The camper frame at the AC had some rot, but dried out and never got bad enough to replace before I sold it.
Hopefully the factory option takes all this into consideration (though mine was factory and did not).

They can both be noisy, but liveable, but the unit on the roof will be heard everywhere inside. The window unit, being lower, might be blocked by something so the sound would be blocked also, for some...

On my other RVs I thought and thought how to make a window unit work, but never came up with a good solution that was not a huge project to execute

[Lwiddis]

It’s a matter of how warm it gets outside, the humidity, the insulation of the RV, the average number of people in the RV and will the proposed unit provide sufficient cooling (BTUs). Arkansas in the summer? Get the one with more BTUs.

[jimh406]

I don’t know what I’d get, but I know the small window ACs are easy to start with small generators. I imagine it would be easy to take out a window AC for Winter which I feel would be a plus. Also, I assume you could have a fantastic fan if you didn’t have the AC on top which would be a plus.