Campervan Air Conditioners: Staying Cool for Vanlife

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👉 Article: Campervan Air Conditioners: Staying Cool for Vanlife

👉 Podcast Episode: Are there any portable air conditioners that don’t need to be vented?

Hey, thanks for tuning in to the camper van podcast. Once again, I'm glad you're listening. Another question about air conditioning. Can you use a portable air conditioner in a camper van?

So can you use a portable air conditioner and camper van? You, you absolutely can. There are advantages and disadvantages.

The biggest advantage is that there's no installation. You simply go buy a  110 or 240 volt portable air conditioner, the freestanding kind that you see in people's homes and offices and shops, et cetera.

And you stand it up in the van, you plug it in, you run the vent hose that comes with your freestanding, portable air conditioner out through a window or a hole cut in the side of the van. And now you're cooling down at 5,000 BTU's or 7,500 or 10,000 BTUs, depending on how powerful your portable AC unit is.

Another advantage of using a portable air conditioner in a camper van or RV is they're reasonably priced.

There are also several disadvantages. The number one disadvantage is the power consumption. They're not built to be as efficient as the RV , camper and campervan specific AC units that are available such as the ones that Mount to your roof, or the Marine style that mount in cabinets and are vented through the hull or side of your van.

What I mean by that is, the fans and the motors in the RV and Camper van specific air conditioning systems are balanced, lighter weight, they tend to be better insulated and they're designed to withstand the vibration of a motor vehicle such as an RV or Campervan.

RV air conditioners are built to be more quiet and run more efficiently because the manufacturers know that you have less power at your disposal because oftentimes if you're running off battery and solar,

Also, you need the thing to be quiet because it's right above your head in the camper or RV when you're sleeping. So there's another disadvantage of DC powered portable air conditioners. they're going to be louder.

Another disadvantage aside from the power consumption and the noise is that they take up more space. They stand in the middle of the room and, and I don't know about you, but I don't have room for one of those.

That's why so often air conditioning systems are mounted to the roof of campervans because they need to be up and out of the way.

That also solves the venting issue because it's not even in the van. It's outside of the van. So the venting takes care of itself with a camper van air conditioner.

Another issue with regard to portable air conditioners is that they are not durable since they're made for homes, they aren't made to be joggled around In the rolling earthquake that is the back of your camper van.

So aside from the fact that they take up a ton of space, the thing's going to fall apart over time or quickly.

Now, granted, you could set it up on the mattress every time you're driving and make sure that it doesn't get moved around too much. But now you've got the tank that has to be emptied before you do that…

But, you know what, here's something that I understand very clearly:

And that is that not all of us have the cash right now in the moment to go have the best possible camper van air conditioner installed in the roof of our van to solve our cooling problem.

So, you know what, if you need to go grab one of these things off the shelf at Costco or Walmart, or home Depot and stick it in your van and go plug in somewhere. That's great.

And it will keep you alive and cool and allow you to sleep at night, if you can stand the noise. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea.

I'm just here to tell you what the pros and cons are. Moving on…

Would I use one and when would I use it?

In order for me personally to use a portable air conditioner in a camper van I'd have to have lots of room, first of all.

Second of all, I'd have to have a 110 hookup all the time, every night, to plug the DC portable air conditioner in.

Now you can solve that with a portable generator, but that's more noise and more expense.

By the time you buy a portable air conditioner and a portable generator, well, now you can just about a roof top AC unit installed and buy a few hundred amp hours batteries.

There are two categories of portable air conditioner: Free standing and ”window shaker”, or window mounted.

Free standing are the easiest; just stand it up and run a vent hose out and plug it in and away you go. You're cooling down with a coolant and compressor unit and it's beautiful. Everything's getting cool

But another kind of portable air conditioner is the window shaker or window mounted.

These mount in windows or a hole cut in the wall. yes, I've seen them mounted in vans as well.

I would not do that, for a number of reasons, some of which I've already mentioned: Power consumption. not durable, not power efficient. Uh, so, so if you're trying to use batteries, forget it, those things will eat your battery power very quickly.

You have to cut a massive hole in the side of the van in order for it to and work properly.

Maybe your van already has a great big window that you can prop a window mounted portable air conditioner up in or build a wood-frame to hold one in place.

If you, if you spend a lot of time parked with DC 110/240 and you don't have to cut a massive hole in the side of your van, you can make one work, I suppose.

The way it's designed, the outside perimeter of a window shaker, that, that kind of portable air conditioning unit, it needs to be sealed against itself or around the wall.

And by sealed, I don't mean with caulk, I just mean that you need to have less than a half an inch of gap around the unit.

And they all come with little wings that you can expand. So that it will fit in an up-sliding window and they come with various accessories to make them fit house windows, this window shaker style.

You can't just set a portable air conditioner in the open doorway of the van.

If you don't seal off the vent, it won't work. So you can have a couple of windows cracked, but otherwise the doors have to be closed. so that the only air entering the van is the air that's been processed by the air conditioner and therefore cooled down.

And what that air conditioner is doing is it's actually pulling warm air out of the van and converting it into cool air.

It's also pushing warm air created by the fan motor and compressor outside, and that's why the unit needs to sealed off.

So if you just set the thing in the open doorway, nothing will happen. You might get a cool breeze for a couple of feet in front of the air conditioner, but otherwise your van won't cool down. Whereas if it were in a window and that was sealed, as I said, loosely sealed around it, then. your van would get cool

Even a full-size sprinter with a 5,000 BTU window shaker is going to get cool. Trust me, because that space is very small. That portable window mounted or free standing AC unit is made to cool, at least twice that much space.

So it'll work just fine, but it's not efficient, It's not durable. It won't last and I would never permanently mount one and I would never cut a hole for one.

I would save my pennies and buy a rooftop mounted unit and go that route. I'd get an RV/camper van designed air conditioning unit.

Thanks for listening to the Campervan Podcast.

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👉 Article: Campervan Air Conditioners: Staying Cool for Vanlife

Air conditioners are not magic.

Well, it's that time of year again. No, I don't mean Christmas. I mean, when our camper van air conditioner articles and questions and traffic goes crazy, many more people are much hotter than they normally would be.

So, yeah, I thought I'd answer a couple of common questions. And specifically this one, are there any portable air conditioners that don't need to be vented?

The answer to that question is no. What do I mean by that? Why am I so cursory? Why am I cutting to the chase like that? The answer is no. Well, because when a compressor style air conditioner goes through its compression process and all the other stuff that it does to make warm air cold, it generates heat and that heated air has to go somewhere doesn't it?

The idea that you can plop an air conditioner in the middle of a van or a room without having a vent going outside… What that would mean is that the hot air would just be going back into the room, canceling out the cold air that's being generated at the cost of a lot of power usage.

Therefore, I completely disagree with these small portable compressor units, and I won't name any names other than to say that we don't promote them on Vansage.com.

We're not interested in reviewing them or talking about them. We could make a lot of money from that if we did, because so many people are so excited about a little portable air conditioning unit that you just set on the picnic table and magically it cools down the entire park.

I'm being a little bit glib about that, but. Is that how the marketing is for some of these portable, unvented units where it shows an air conditioner sitting on a table outside.

That's madness. There's no way that can have any impact on you personally, maybe if it's pointed right at your face. And that's what I've heard actually, is that the very low BTU compressor style air conditioners really do need to be within a few inches of one single person for them to work at all.

But I would argue that again, the heat that's generated from producing that small amount of cold air is making the entire van warmer at the same time. Your air conditioner needs to be vented outside so that the hot air doesn't get recirculated back in the room.

Again, they take up so much energy. They require so much power to do their job, that it pays to do air conditioning properly. It really does to an air conditioner that's built for your particular camper van or RV, and make sure that it's set up right with proper venting or it's just mounted on the roof.

Now, there are some really cool Marine style air conditioning units that are mounted inside. Up against the hall of the boat or the outside wall of the van or the floor of the van. And they go in a cabinet and they are vented directly out.

And then you can point the cool air wherever you want, including through what would normally be your heating ducts.

They're expensive for a 5,000 BTU plus unit to really do its job and cool down a very hot van. And oftentimes they are also 240V.

They are kind of pricey, but at some point we plan to review some of those. And kind of create more access because they're a great solution for camper vans. If you have the skill and know how to install them and to maintain them, and you want really high quality air conditioning that isn't sticking out of the roof of your van.

Now, all that to say there are some wonderful roof. AC units and I will of course link to in show notes to our camper van air conditioning article, where we have reviewed and listed some of the best that are available for your van. I don't want to belabor this as far as this simple question; ”Are there any portable air conditioners that don't need to be vented?”

I hear some people arguing, what about a swamp cooler, otherwise known as evaporative coolers.

Okay. Well, first of all, they are only for individuals nad they don't lower the temperature in the space, even a small camper van.

What they do is mist your bare skin or very thin clothing or sheet so that you are cooler by virtue of the presence of higher humidity. Well, if you're pumping a bunch of humidity into your vehicle or distributing moisture in the form of mist, even a very, very fine mist, which the best type of evaporative coolers.

Do you need to vent that out of the vehicle? You need to have windows open and ceiling vents and whatnot so that you don't have an extremely high level of, of humidity in your vehicle.

That's going to cause mold and mildew and condensation and all that stuff in the future. Again, every air conditioning unit needs some kind of ventilation, whether it is the compressor type with a coolant inside that's processing air, removing heat and, generating cool air or an evaporative cooler that's distributing a mist.

And one of the finest evaporative coolers available is called Mighty Kool. The availability of it is spotty because they are a small company doing one-off manufacturer of the Mighty Kool 12 volt, K2.

It's interesting because the manufacturer over it his notes on Amazon, they're so careful to make sure that you understand that it's not an AC.

The title  on Amazon is ”Mighty Kool. 12 volt. K2 is not AC”. And he goes on to say, ”do not order, unless you promise to read our emails so you receive the correct performance option for your pet.” it says.

And so they're promoting it to keep your dog cool. And also there's a photograph in their description of the mighty cool directed towards a child in a tent or an RV or Campervan.

And that's what it's for, pointing at an individual to cool them down when it's very hot, so they can sleep. It will not drop the temperature in your van and neither will any other evaporative cooler.

Maybe if you are going through 20 pounds of ice every two hours and doing that thing where you push air through a cooler… Those kinds of air conditioning units, you might manage to drop the temperature a little bit, but for the most part, a few bags of ice is no match for the heat inside of a campervan or RV.

The only thing that really works well is a compressor style unit and those need to be vented to work properly so that the hot air that is generated by compression, isn't being redistributed into the vehicle and raising the temp.

So, to answer the question, Are there any portable air conditioners that don't need to be vented?, the answer is no.