|
I don’t have a write up, but I did an additional couple of things that, imho, were each equally as effective as doing the airflow work. Admittedly, I followed some YouTube videos to create my own airflow solution. But nonetheless, we went from having our AC’s straining to keep our rig in the mid-high 80’s during a July 100+ set of days in full sun—to being able to getting it to 75-ish during the day. While that doesn’t sound like a big improvement, it’s the difference from experiencing sweating while sitting inside versus having a nice cool slap-in-the-face every time you open the door from the outside.
The two other things were insulating the shroud of our condensers, and camera-scoping and sealing our AC vents.
The insulation effort was a result of over buying the amount of insulation for the dog house. I found there was room to put both the 1/4” tar paper along with the 3/4” foam insulation around the condenser steel parts. The plastic cowling can just tightly slide over it. This gives both a sound as well as an efficiency improvement.
The biggest bang-for-my buck was buying the cheap $19.99 frog camera (or whatever it was called) in the as-seen-on-tv section in Menards and using that camera scope to take a peek inside each AC vent.
Admittedly, your mileage will vary. But for me—every section of styrofoam tubing in the AC ducts had big breaks between them. Also, the last vents in the run just emptied out into the ceiling space.
I bought a bunch of latex spray foam cans, a box of hand towels, and some straws. Jamming the straws together and then putting them on the end of the straw on the can of spray foam allowed me to effectively shoot that stuff three feet down the duct. I stuck my arm down there, and smushed the spray foam down in those 1/2” gaps and smoothed it out around the entire seam. For the end runs, I simply sprayed a wall-pile right behind the last vent.
It was messy, I felt stupid and childish, and also embarrassed for obsessive behavior in doing something no one else that I know of did. All in the quest to make the few times we’re using this RV more comfortable during the day. But I sh_t you not—it was easily in the “Top 5” mods that I’ve done to this rig. My wife giggled when she felt how cold I could get this thing.
TL;DR summary of best improvements for us in the realm of AC cooling:
3–putting insulation around the condensers
2–doing the AC airflow mod (the YouTube version)
1–scoping and sealing the AC ductwork.
These three things let us park in an asphalt parking lot in the middle of a full-sun July 100+ day, and keep our rig at a nice 75 degrees inside.
__________________
|
Thor Forums
