A common question from those camping in hot weather is
"can a teardrop be air-conditioned?", to which we reply a
resounding "Yes!". Rest assured there have been many talented, clever, and sweaty minds working on
this problem. There have been numerous designs of swamp coolers, ice
coolers, and other gizmos that use 12V battery power, but most of these
increase humidity, which is fine in the dry western deserts, but will
evoke screams of agony from folks in the humid east. I've come to the
conclusion that 120V power is necessary for real air-conditioning that
actually de-humidifies the air, which means you have to either have power
hook-up at the campground, or a generator with a capacity of at least 5
Amps, or 500 Watts (see photo and caption at the bottom of the page).
There have also been attempts to use RV air-conditioners ($600) or
modify window units to make them split-systems, with the coils outside and
the fan/condenser inside. This requires Freon work, which is out of
the realm of the average builder. Considering all this, I believe
the best way is with a small window unit (5,000 BTU or less),
commonly available at Home Depot for around $79 and weighing 40 lbs.
I solicited people for their way to mount this air-conditioner in their
teardrop, and following is some of the best replies I received. One
thing I found is that even at 5000 BTUs, the unit is vastly oversized for
a teardrop, which presents a couple problems. The cooling cycle has
to run in order to dehumidify the air, and so if the condenser cycle kicks
on for just a few minutes, it will not run long enough to
dehumidify. Also, if there is not an adequate flow of warm air over
the evaporator coils, they will ice up.
A normal installation of an air conditioner calls for it to
re-circulate the air inside the room, as it is more efficient to cool air
that has already been cooled. But to avoid the problems mentioned
above, you should set it up so the unit brings in warm air from outside
and then blows it into the teardrop. This will make the unit run
longer and give the best dehumidification. For window units just
mounted in the wall or doorway, sometimes this is just a matter of moving the damper
lever to "fresh
air" instead of "re-circulate". Some smaller
units may not have this option built-in, and so you will have to devise
some way to get warm outside air to the intake (or leave all your windows
open). But for those units modified with ducting, you can just put the
duct on the cold air output and let the unit take in outside air normally. You will also have to
install vents to let the air out of the teardrop, so that the cabin is
not pressurized, which will reduce the airflow and potentially ice up the
evaporator coils.
So which is my favorite? Operationally, the
remote-ducted unit is best set up for a teardrop. Since you only use
the A/C part of the year, you are not taking up space full-time with the
A/C unit. This would also be the quietest installation. However, I
realize some folks will not want to go to the trouble of setting up the
A/C every time, so I can see where the in-wall units would be best for
them. For units mounted inside the teardrop, you also must make
provision for the condensate water to drain out of the unit, or you will
flood your teardrop!
So click on the photos below to see some examples of
how people have installed their A/C, and start dreaming of cool bliss.
