What is the top of the range air conditioning unit and what size to use

Land cruiser · Veteran Member

What is the top of the range air conditioning unit and what size to use

Eaglemax · Guru

Welcome again Land Cruiser. Hope you get all friendly replies. Just my view but cruising up north in the winter didnt require an air conditioner UNLESS you went further than say Mackay and prior to mid June. Last year we got to Darwin mid May phew!! So humid, hot....a/c mandatory. This year July saw us at Bundaberg- lovely. I'm sure others have some ideas.

mr glassies · Guru

Hi we run a split inverter 2.5 kelvenator but you need to put the Wall unit up high .

Dibs

macka17 · Guru

Hi.
IF you installing from new. in a M\Home or van.
I'd suggest installing a Household split unit. They've been using for yrs.
Much more efficient than the 30 yr old Caravan units. even the "Ibis" etc.

LG are one of the better recommended units. Reliability and efficiency wise.

You want air cond. it spells "INVERTER and GENERATOR"
and worth every cent and decibel.

Where did the bias come from??.
We used 'em 50 yrs ago in vans and M\H's. and will do 50 yrs in future.
Be practical mate.

Hot. Sticky. Sweaty. or nice and cool with genny over there on end of cable.

We used to get the genny vans together, in a virtual circle.
Genny's in middle. Kept the bulk of noise off the whingers
who sat there all sweaty and sticky. and quite welcome to it.

Priorities first in my eyes. Play some music in earplugs. ALL gone.

Footprints · Senior Member

You could consider the are Denso roof mounted. Awarded the Australasian Engineering Excellence in design. They can also be retro fitted to replace other brands. I have one and am very happy with it. Cheers Allen.

macka17 · Guru

The day they finally Manufacture a "quiet". mobile-Caravan. Air cond.
is the day people will willingly buy them.

They ARE the noisiest items I've ever heard in any van. Apart from a blender or vacuum.

Bloody atrocious. How they think they can get away with such OUTDATED rubbish is beyond me.
A $650 split home unit does a 100 times better job. while being quiet.

THEY haven't improved more than a couple of %ages in last 35 yrs.
They NO different.
I've used them since they came out.
Rubbish then. Not much difference now.

What is so hard manufacturers?. PLEASE enlighten us if you can. DARE...

Eaglemax · Guru

Re: "They ARE the noisiest items I've ever heard in any van" You havent heard my wife snore...

Roving-Dutchy · Guru

A small a/c unit can never be as quiet as a domestic split. The problem is the size of the condenser and evaporator both are small and must have the same quantity of air passing over the fins as a larger uni, so the fans need to be spinning at a much higher speed, so higher fan speed also means more noise, also the compressor and both fans are in the one unit and closer to
to the occupants of the van.
Cheers
David

PeterInSa · Guru

Air Conditioner
We have used the Air command series of roof top air conditioners on our Caravans (past and present) and on a Mercedes Benz Campervan, earlier models than the unit below, consider they are noisy.

www.caravansplus.com.au/aircommand-ibis-3-air-conditioner-27kw-cool-24kw-heat-222mm-high-48kg-p-14507.html

Re (A small a/c unit can never be as quiet as a domestic split. ) Agree, but have never heard of a Caravan/MH manufacturer installing in the initial build.

Generator
We use the Honda 20I this is not a 3000w model but runs our air con and is liftable. Suggest your geni should have a remote start/stop and be permanently mounted in a bin (with air access)

Re Levelling of Mh's, have seen this topic on the CMCA Motorhome Forum
Rather than jacks I think most use the common Plastic ramps.

Have you considered:

Diesel Heater
To me in some parts of Oz, makes life more pleasant in the early mornings in September (re your 50/50) and of course will help with a future resale of your mh.

Roof top Sat Dish

Roof Top Broom Stick Aerial for Mobile Phone/Data, Like a number of RV'ers in Oz we have said aerial on top of our Winegard TV aerial for remote calls/data.

Peter

-- Edited by PeterInSa on Tuesday 31st of October 2017 05:40:19 PM

macka17 · Guru

Pete.

I've heard a lot of vanners (spoken to) on the rounds. with self. or Sparkie installed Split units over the Caravan ones.
A lot actually took the Dometic type out to do so.
Plus.
You can buy 2 or 3 splits for one van one.

Philw · Senior Member

We just have the factory fitted air on the Jayco Conquest. Its a little noisy but it doesnt get used often. If its hot we book into a caravan park for power. Most of our travels we choose the climate we are heading to. Ie tropics in winter etc. However on a trip to victoria one summer we had extreme heat so cara pk for two nights until it cooled down. Used the reverse cycle and it was fine. We dont carry a generator. Diesel heater for the cold when we free camp, which is most of the time, and we use an inverter to bring the 12 volt system up to 240 volts for the microwave, coffee grinder, the fruit juice machine and for charging and using the tablet and lap top computer. We only have a 120 watt solar panel and 2 x 120 amp batteries but with that we have free camped for 4 weeks . The beauty of the motorhome is that you have a built in genny when you start the engine. So a drive into town after 2 weeks for groceries topped up the batteries. One day we ran the engine for an hour as it had rained for two days. But considering the costandspace issue with a genny, and the noice, we simply havent needed it. Plus for the few days we have had really hot weather a cara pk for $30 a night for two nights is still a lot cheaper than buying a genny. But thats us and everyone has different needs. Good luck. Cheers phil

banjo · Senior Member

What is the top of the range air conditioning unit and what size to use

Simple answer, there currently isn't one ! We have had 5 vans, four caravans and the last an aussie 5th wheeler, the previous 4 vans we tried every roof top AC out there and all are noisy expensive, old technology rubbish.

The 5th wheeler we had a Fujitsu Inverter split professionally installed from new and never looked back in 6 years full time on the road, the split never missed a beat, kept the 30' fiver cool as, or warm in winter, super quiet (I could actually sleep with it on) would never touch a roof top ever again.

We are currently van-less but am looking at a van to motorhome conversion soon, with a new inverter split again as are heater/cooler. Simple fact they work, they are reliable, quiet, and a 1/3rd the price of the garbage they push for rv'ers in general.

Delta18 · Guru

Definitely look at a domestic split system we fitted a Fujitsu 2.5kw to our Silverline from new last year. The rooftop clunker was deleted from the purchase order.

The benefit of the deletion is it freed up even more space on the roof allowing us to fit 1000w of solar which, via a 3000w inverter & 400ah lithium battery runs the a/c and ALL other 240v electric appliances we take with us.

No need for a generator to run anything in the van.

Cheers Neil