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π 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...
