Air Conditioning - Worthwhile Or Unnecessary?

[Sidney]

When in Europe recently we noticed that most European motorhomes had roof-top satellite dishes and some had air conditioning.

Do you use or would you consider roof-top air conditioning or one of units that hang on the window?

 

[knokinonabit]

I worked in the Middle East for a number of years and it was a God (Allah ?) send.
I would definately consider it if I was heading to somewhere where it was very hot, such as Greece, during the summer months.

 

[Don Quixote]

We have it and to be honest it's great as we live in Spain, however you need to be hooked up for the mains, which is a pain sometimes when you want to go "wild"

Some months into owning our MH we met couple who had a 12volt fan fitted in the roof lights in living area and bedroom and boy oh boy did that work well. When we got home we had one fitted to the bedroom area and now have the best of both worlds.

 

[knokinonabit]

We have it and to be honest it's great as we live in Spain, however you need to be hooked up for the mains, which is a pain sometimes when you want to go "wild"

Some months into owning our MH we met couple who had a 12volt fan fitted in the roof lights in living area and bedroom and boy oh boy did that work well. When we got home we had one fitted to the bedroom area and now have the best of both worlds.

We have a 12 volt extractor fan above the kitchen area in our MH. Is that the type that you mean ? It can blow air out or suck it in, depending on which direction you set it to, and has variable speeds.

 

[buttons]

Are we voting to cab or habitation A/C

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[JJ]

We have a TravelCool thingy in the Hymer.

It is not necessary but it is worthwhile...

JJ :Cool:

 

[haganap]

It will all depend on where you go?

Example, we had on last van, used it 2 or 3 times in 3 years.

Not got on this van, have never missed it.

Do have cab air con though :thumb:

 

[knokinonabit]

Are we voting to cab or habitation A/C

Hopefully hab, cos I already have it in the cab :Blush:

 

[WAG2CRU]

We wanted something mainly for the dogs in summer but didn't want to carry the weight around all the time, we bought one of the cool my camper units, haven't yet tried it in anger yet but it tests out ok, I will add a 12v fan as well.

 

[sdc77]

We wanted something mainly for the dogs in summer but didn't want to carry the weight around all the time, we bought one of the cool my camper units, haven't yet tried it in anger yet but it tests out ok, I will add a 12v fan as well.

Ahh.. we've been looking at getting one of these.. At £450 it may well be a very cost effective way to go and would be interested to hear what anyone else who has one thinks of them.

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[Bailey58]

I remember Haganap and I discussed this on a long ago thread, we have a Dometic roof mounted aircon fed by mains of course but also runs off a 1600w inverter and wired for use while travelling. Probably installed for a season in Spain but useful in the UK whilst on the move as the van has no cab aircon. Don't think I'd bother if and when we change.

 

[Sidney]

Ahh.. we've been looking at getting one of these.. At £450 it may well be a very cost effective way to go and would be interested to hear what anyone else who has one thinks of them.

There's nothing on Fun. But there's a review here

 

[DuxDeluxe]

I purchased a battery/12v fan in USA. Can't remember the make but it is really quiet and gives a good breeze. It was about half the price in USA. Would like AC but not really worth it at the moment

 

[Gromett]

I had it once and didn't get on with it. The second I went from outside into the aircon room I poured with sweat and felt really uncomfortable.

My Eura Mobil however had a really cool system (no pun intended)

It pulled cool air from under the van, filtered it and then distributed it from a vent that ran all round the top of the van.

It was brilliant. The van wasn't cold, but it felt fresh and didn't require any windows to be open which was a godsend as far as flying insects was concerned. I will be creating a system like this on my next self build...

 

[sdc77]

There's nothing on Fun. But there's a review here

Cheers for that..
It does sound quite attractive...
1.5a is pretty cool too :Cool:

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[rainbow chasers]

We had one in our motorhome - absolutely perfect for chilling down a hot van when you have been out for a wander.

 

[Don Quixote]

We have a 12 volt extractor fan above the kitchen area in our MH. Is that the type that you mean ? It can blow air out or suck it in, depending on which direction you set it to, and has variable speeds.

Sorry for late reply, parked up now so can catch up. It is called fiamma turo-vent. Also forgot to say the air-con is noisy when cooling at full speed.

Fitted this:

 

[knokinonabit]

Sorry for late reply, parked up now so can catch up. It is called fiamma turo-vent. Also forgot to say the air-con is noisy when cooling at full speed.

Fitted this:

Glad you parked up before you replied

Different make but same type of thing as ours.

Thanks :thumb:

 

[eddie]

As we have dogs which we take abroad I consider it essential

We have dash air con and ducted roof air conditioning. Also three of our four roof vents are power vents with variable speed control so we can have them on at night with no issues.

We also have a device that sends us and SMS txt message to our phones should the mains fail. This is so if we go out for the afternoon and leave the dogs in the van, we not concerned that the mains may fail and that the air condition fail with the dogs in the van

Personally I hate being too hot, when I want to cool down, but I love great weather

Eddie

 

[scotjimland]

In my opinion, cab air con is a must .. wouldn't buy a car or van without it as retro fitting is very costly.

when camping in Southern Europe in Summer, Hab air-con is also highly desirable .. especially at night.. but they are noisy, so we used to put it on in our bedroom an hour or so before going to bed to chill it down nicely.. then switch it off.

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[Minxy]

We have cab air-con in the van and wouldn't be without it however we don't have any habitation air con. I can see the benefit of it for getting a good night's sleep without being too hot, but other than that I'm not sure it's worth it - surely during the day if you are in your van nice and cool and you then go out into the heat you'll fry as you won't have become accustomed to it?

I have considered the 'turbo-vent' type especially since we don't have an extractor in our van - are these any good for cooling as well as extraction of smells?

 

[Don Quixote]

We have cab air-con in the van and wouldn't be without it however we don't have any habitation air con. I can see the benefit of it for getting a good night's sleep without being too hot, but other than that I'm not sure it's worth it - surely during the day if you are in your van nice and cool and you then go out into the heat you'll fry as you won't have become accustomed to it?

I have considered the 'turbo-vent' type especially since we don't have an extractor in our van - are these any good for cooling as well as extraction of smells?

Well we have the turbo-vent fan above our bed and on the lowest fan spin setting, which is very quiet blowing the air in cools or MH enough for a good nights sleep. We have the air con, but I find the "drone" of the motor wakes me up.

Like the MH owner above we have 2 x cats with us on our adventures and can leave the fan blowing full power all day and they are happy bunnies. Battery drain is about 3amps at full fan spin.

 

[Minxy]

Rather than replace the whole roof vent with a new one, has anyone got any experience of one of these fan only kits?

http://www.agentfiamma.co.uk/fiamma-turbo-kit-fan.html

 

[Reallyretired]

I have cab aircon, which is really useful as we tend to be moving during the hottest part of the day.
We have a turbovent fitted over the bed which is brilliant for keeping cool when sleeping. It has a thermostat which turns it off when its cool enough, and it's very quiet on low speed.
I have never thought habitation aircon would be useful, as it is quite noisy and in any case needs a hookup or a generator (even noisier) to run it, and the time I want to be cool is when I go to bed. During the day, a spot of shade and enough cold beer is all I need.

 

[jackierals]

As we have dogs which we take abroad I consider it essential

We have dash air con and ducted roof air conditioning. Also three of our four roof vents are power vents with variable speed control so we can have them on at night with no issues.

We also have a device that sends us and SMS txt message to our phones should the mains fail. This is so if we go out for the afternoon and leave the dogs in the van, we not concerned that the mains may fail and that the air condition fail with the dogs in the van

Personally I hate being too hot, when I want to cool down, but I love great weather

Eddie

Eddie we are having aircon put in next month as we will be travelling Europe with our dog, what is the device that you mention?

Jackie

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[eddie]

Basically we install a mains failure device and link it to a GSM module so that if the mains fails we get an alert. We have been out for the day so often in the past (before we had dogs) and got back to find that some idiot had tripped our van plugging their van in.

We're quite happy to give the boys a really good run and swim in the morning (so their knackered by the time were finished) and find that they're quite happy cool and contented to have a snooze in the van while we pop put for a couple of hours to do or see things that aren't "dog" friendly.

We have even installed A/C systems where the owners have wanted a thermostat installed to be able to "set" the temperature and receive a SMS txt if the temperature is exceeded.

Were happy knowing that if we are say, shopping and we get a txt from the van advising us that the mains has tripped, we need to go straight back instead of say stopping for that coffee and cake en route

Eddie

 

[MicknPat]

The OP asks, " Air Conditioning - Worthwhile Or Unnecessary?" I'd say it depends on where you intend to travel and at what time of the year.

Also most if not ALL air conditioning devices are noisy, no great problem during the day but at night could drive your neighbours mad

 

[joner8888]

After months of freezing cold every day, i`ll be glad to be as hot as possible :thumb:

 

[eddie]

The OP asks, " Air Conditioning - Worthwhile Or Unnecessary?" I'd say it depends on where you intend to travel and at what time of the year.

Also most if not ALL air conditioning devices are noisy, no great problem during the day but at night could drive your neighbours mad

I find that once the A/C has been on all day the van is nice a cool anyway so sleeping isn't a problem. It isn't being hot during the night I find, more being able to fall asleep when it is hot and sticky.

Also some A/C systems have a "fresh air" mode. At night when the air is cool, often cooler than the air inside the motorhome the A/C unit (some) will extract the warm air from inside and pump it outside, replacing with the cool air from outside. This isn't noisy as it is just the fan running at low speed, and the compressor isn't operating.

American RV systems are much noisier than the modern European systems, but because they're more powerful they work better (from a cooling perspective! (BTW your typing in bold lol)

Eddie

 

[mickymouse]

As I live in Spain find it is a must have, van is fitted with cab air con and the hab air con can be run through the invertor when the engine is running, used it a lot in Italy and Croatia last year

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