Portable room AC in camper?

[Lloyd (aka Santa) Coltman]

Amen on the comments re: Small window units. They're a fraction of the cost of roof mounts, and use substantially less power. A neighbor bought my niece's ancient 'Stickie', and wanted to buy a spare roof-top I had. My advice: Don't get yourself involved in trying to install a high-priced RV unit, unless you're positive the structure will support it, and what about power? The old 'Stickie' had a cupboard at the foot of the bed, with a window above, and a power outlet close. Set A/C on cupboard, shim as required to extend condenser section for venting and drain, plug in! Kewl!

[Altemplet]

My Casita did not come with AC and I had to redo all the interior anyway. I saw other units with the AC on the floor by the door and that’s where I put mine. The intake for the condenser comes in on the side and the exhaust exists out the front with a baffle in between. The 6000 BTU unit will cool the camper down to 69° when it’s 90 outside in the shade !

[iamjiwjr]

My Parkliner came with a 5000 btu window unit. It'll freeze you out.

[Lloyd (aka Santa) Coltman]

That's a pretty neat install, Al. I'll bet it drops the temperature quickly, too (in my opinion, most RV units are way over-sized. 'Instant-cool' is not necessary, just wasteful)
Assuming your power distribution is also under dinette, makes it easy to power up. I also assume you arranged a 'Condensate catch pan' with drain out bottom, through floor?

[Altemplet]

Yes, the AC unit had a metal catch pan and I fastened a brass fitting to drain out the condensation water. There is a small hole in the floor that the fitting goes right through. If we are on a concrete slab I put a small catch pan down there to catch the condensation as we live in the south and it drips a lot.

[Vicki Hale]

My thanks to everyone posting such great ideas! Especially the pics showing different install methods. This is such a help.
I now have more than one path to research to figure out what will work for me. Thank you all so much!
Vicki

[Lloyd (aka Santa) Coltman]

Originally Posted by Altemplet

Yes, the AC unit had a metal catch pan and I fastened a brass fitting to drain out the condensation water. There is a small hole in the floor that the fitting goes right through. If we are on a concrete slab I put a small catch pan down there to catch the condensation as we live in the south and it drips a lot.

And the condensate is essentially 'Distilled', good for batteries.
Can also be drinking water for pets, right from the catch pan.
You could even add a connection for hose (garden or otherwise) to drain away from area of door. No mud!

[toothless25]

I have been working on running a 900 watt portable rolling ac unit 5000 btu off of my honda 2000 eu generator, works fine, and I have been susscessfull running it off magnum inverter on two 6 volt lead acid batteries (12v), no generator. how long it will run not sure yet,but working on solar powered AC
Dave L CT-13 U-haul

[Alex Adams]

So with the AC run off the inverter you are probably drawing close to 1000 watts or about 83 amps at 12 volt. Assuming you have 100 amp hours of usable power from your batteries, you could run the AC for a little over 1 hour on pure battery power. Now assuming ideal conditions, 4 100 watt solar panels would produce around 20 amps of power. So if you use 4 panels you could run for about 1.25 hours. If you use 8 panels, you could run a little over 2 hours and if you used 12 panels, you could run close to 5 hours. Mind you this is spitball approximation. You probably would get less or more depending upon a lot of factors.

[redbarron55]

As to AC in a small trailer in the real South, anything else is not really and option I care to think about.
Besides the heat there is the unrelenting humidity, not to mention the bugs.
I am happy with the mini-split as to weight and noise factor.
A window unit could be made to work as well, but anything worth doing is worth overdoing as well...
Also the heat pump means that the heater (for hookups) is taken care of as well.
We use our camper for travel and as a mobile motel room that we don't have to carry luggage up to every night.