Running Air Conditioner without electricity?

[Ian and Sue]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

One can now purchase 12v operated swamp coolers that will do a fairly nice job at night using cold water or ice.

Interesting....usually the only reason I need air con here is to cut the humidity not add to it!

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

One can now purchase 12v operated swamp coolers that will do a fairly nice job at night using cold water or ice.

Originally Posted by Ian and Sue

Interesting....usually the only reason I need air con here is to cut the humidity not add to it!

Good point: evaporative or "swamp" coolers work by adding moisture which evaporates, absorbing heat in the process. They only need energy for the fan, so they don't use much power. They work well in hot and dry conditions, but poorly in hot and humid conditions. They make your space swampy; they're not suitable for use in a swamp.

[rbryan4]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

Good point: evaporative or "swamp" coolers work by adding moisture which evaporates, absorbing heat in the process. They only need energy for the fan, so they don't use much power. They work well in hot and dry conditions, but poorly in hot and humid conditions. They make your space swampy; they're not suitable for use in a swamp.

And on a completely irrelevant note, (although its interesting to me) I grew up in northern Utah, where almost all the homes, including ours, had a swamp cooler. Almost nobody we knew had air conditioning in their home. The air was so dry there that a swamp cooler worked very well, and they were inexpensive to operate. Go back there nowadays and everyone has central air, and a swamp cooler is actually illegal. Don't ask me why.

[azjack]

Our son has one of the 12V units and loves it, of course he is in Phoenix. He sets it on the pax seat if the car or truck does not have air.
25 years ago our contractor said if he installed one and the A/C too we would not use the swamp, we only took the A/C and had the house prepped for the swamp. After 25 years we just have the A/C and no swamp cooler. We have replaced the A/C once in that time as I don't want it to fail while we are gone.
AZjack

[cpaharley2008]

My first camper did not have a/c and I purchased and still have a setup called "Cooler-Air" with a 12v fan blowing air into a cooler filled with ice. It enabled us to sleep at night when it was muggy and hot. they now make USB mini units that I'm going to experiment with. A cup of ice should last 4 hours, enough to allow one to fall asleep. I grew up without a/c and do not like the idea of barricading oneself inside to escape hot weather with air conditioning, particularly while "camping outdoors". That's my story and I'm sticking to it.........

[padlin]

Originally Posted by mjbalbas

Hello,
I am thinking of purchasing a generator to run AC, however I am not sure what size or how many WATS it should be. Please share your knowledge and let me know what generator will work best.

Ditto what Ian says, 2200 and up. Do pay attention to the weight and run time of the fuel tank. I'd go for an Inverter generator, throttles the speed to match the load instead of just running full bore. Better on gas and somewhat quieter.



I don't know about other folks but my generator is also used at home in emergencies.

[TTMartin]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

One can now purchase 12v operated swamp coolers that will do a fairly nice job at night using cold water or ice.

Unless you're in an arid desert, that will ruin your trailer with mold issues. Getting moisture out of a trailer is a big enough issue, without intentionally adding more with a mini swamp cooler.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by rbryan4

Go back there nowadays and everyone has central air, and a swamp cooler is actually illegal. Don't ask me why.

It may be that they are banned because they tend to grow mould.

Hmm... after posting this, I realized that TTMartin identified the same issue.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

My first camper did not have a/c and I purchased and still have a setup called "Cooler-Air" with a 12v fan blowing air into a cooler filled with ice. It enabled us to sleep at night when it was muggy and hot. they now make USB mini units that I'm going to experiment with. A cup of ice should last 4 hours, enough to allow one to fall asleep.

A small RV air conditioner tends to run about 9,000 BTU/hour of cooling capacity, which is 10 megajoules per hour. At 336 kJ/kg to melt ice, that much cooling would take three kilograms (7 pounds) of ice per hour (if I got the numbers right)... which is why any significant amount of cooling is never done with ice. Of course the ice setup is also an evaporative ("swamp") cooler, as well as using the cooling effect of melting ice.

[dfandrews]

Try just melting 63 lbs. of ice to water @ 32°F.:
63 lbs. of ice x 143 Btu/lb.(heat of fusion) = 9009 Btu.

[rbryan4]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

It may be that they are banned because they tend to grow mould.

Hmm... after posting this, I realized that TTMartin identified the same issue.

Not to say we didn't have mold in them back then, but I never noticed any. We did have alot of mineral buildup because the water in northern Utah is notoriously hard. Had to replace some of the drip lines and sometimes the mesh material on the sidewalls every couple of years.

[cpaharley2008]

I do not think mold is prevalent with sporadic use of a container of ice with a fan flowing over it. It works to cool down and enables sleep. No more moisture than what is in the air at 90% humidity which is common now for the next 90 days. Hookups is good with a/c, but without hookups I'm using the old fashioned way and it works. I use the ice for beer and cooling....dual purpose. If the cooler is modern the ice can last all weekend.

[Jim Bennett]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

Our night time lows have been in the 40’s & 50’s - daytime highs in the 70’s
Summer is here !!!

Perfect temperature for me.

Just as we need to head way south in the winter to use our trailer, if I lived in the deep south I would be heading north to camp in the hot summer. While there is beautiful country down south, those temps are just a no go for this Canucklehead.

Sure glad I don't need a genset, though there are still some that run them up here, even when temps are cool. Kinda bothersome as I am not used to have them around when camping, but if it is legal I cannot stop them. Fortunately most provincial campgrounds now have two 2 hr time slots a day where they are allowed to use them.

[emers382]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

Fortunately most provincial campgrounds now have two 2 hr time slots a day where they are allowed to use them.

Not at the prov. park where I took the grandkids near home this past week, one overnight when it only went down to 23C, was 32 in the day. We were on the lake without power. Just down from us was a big motorhome which I was surprised to see in that part of the campground which is totally grass and trees without marked parking areas for campers. They ran the gen set on their unit the whole time there. Fortunately it was just a low rumble and a distance from us. I walked through their site after they left, there was a big black circle of burnt out grass. There was also ruts in the grass from their tires. Not nice!

[padlin]

Some of those onboard generators the big rigs have are pretty obnoxious. It's like parking next to a semi at WM for the night.

[Vermilye]

Originally Posted by padlin

Some of those onboard generators the big rigs have are pretty obnoxious. It's like parking next to a semi at WM for the night.

As are some of the smaller generators in Class Bs. We parked next to one at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta & it sounded like a lawn mower - they ran it 8:00AM til 10:00PM. No idea why they didn't run out of gas...

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Vermilye

As are some of the smaller generators in Class Bs. We parked next to one at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta & it sounded like a lawn mower - they ran it 8:00AM til 10:00PM. No idea why they didn't run out of gas...

A built-in generator in a motorhome is usually connected to the same fuel tank as the motorhome's engine, so there is fuel for many hours of operation.

[Defenestrator]

Even with a big battery bank, AC is pretty limited. I've got 500Ah of Lithium and can probably run about 3 hours a day of AC. Enough to take the edge off before sleep or something, but not enough to leave it on overnight. 360W of solar refilled about an hour's worth of AC per day.

A mini-split would do somewhat better. The roof ACs aren't particularly efficient.

[cpaharley2008]

A mini-split would do somewhat better. The roof ACs aren't particularly efficient.

I agree, residential split systems are so much better all around for quiet and efficiency. What is now available in rv's is best bang for the buck, not for the consumer but for the manufacturer.

[CharlesPou]

I have 2 Honda gens I link together, one's 2000, other newer 2200, with extended run tanks. works fairly well but have issues with alum caps used with extended run tanks. hard to find cap that properly matches the Honda threads to pull a good seal. I use plastic grocery bags to make a work around gasket that works well most of the time. as I understand it, I'm getting 30 amps just like at the campground. I like having 2 since they are approx 50#'s each and easy enough to move around.

from time to time one gen will go off, and the remaining one will still run the a/c, but it really struggles, compared to having both. inside the trailer with the a/c running, I can't hear the generators. even with a/c on auto, so the fan turns off and back on again when the compressor starts up, the gen's don't bother me when the fan is off.

I have never used them for actual camping, just for hanging out where I store the trailer. when camping I go north and higher elevation in summer, south in winter. on the way out of TX, I use campgrounds that have elect, so I can stay cool at night. Cheers