Hot temps in 2018 Intent

Katsarratt · 08-12-2023, 02:08 AM

My husband has been living in the motorhome for a short time due to him taking a new job that he can be closer to. The weather in Plano, TX has been in the 100 degree plus for the last three weeks. We turn the a/c thermostat down to 68 and it is not cooling to more than at minimum 80 degrees during the day. The unit has one a/c in it. It is miserable in it and our two dogs pant all day and they are French Bulldogs which get distressed in warmer weather. Is this normal for this unit in 103-106 degrees outside or should it be cooling to the set temperature? Something doesn’t seem right. I talked to a tech and he said it’s usually typical for it being this hot. Help!

be happy · 08-12-2023, 03:28 AM

First off Welcome to the club.

I had a 26' Class A with only 1 AC and it never I mean never got cooled down. One ac just can not do the job, especially when its 100 out side. I did find a couple things that helped with the ac.

First is the windshield, you need to get some type of reflective material to stop as much of the suns heat coming in as possible. My wife went to a fabric store and found some highly reflective and breathable material that did a great job.

You need to also add reflective material of some sort to all the windows, this will help keep the heat out. The window on the front door is a big adder to the heat build up.

The roof vents you can either purchase inserts to fill the space or get some styrafoam to fill the area up, those vent although great will cold air out.

I am sure other folks will come on with more help

On a side note for future posts its going to help if you put your coaches info in the signature block i.e. model, year, that type of things.

Morich · 08-12-2023, 08:13 AM

Basic science type thing and pretty normal! RV "can" be full time with adapting to what we have but they are not really designed for full time use and Texas in the summer is not a happy place to be, so it takes some effort to make it work.
There are lots of small points to help cool things but when the nighttime temp stays so hot, it is a struggle on many Rv. My house is much better desinged and insulated than an RV an it is a bit of a question to cool currently!
Some things that can help have been mentioned but there are others if we look further.
Get the rV into the shade if at all possible. Add some form of shade for the rooftop uni if even temporary as that allows it to "breathe" cooler air.
Make sure the air flow into and out of the roof unit is as good as possible and do all you can to cut airflow through the RV. The dogs are a definite problem as they require so much in/out time that blows lots of the cooling.
Setting the thermostat way low is not a practical thing to do as it has NO effect on how well the unit cools, just acting to make it run longer! Keep in mind that it is a thermostat, not a throttle! Pushing it harder just makes it run longer, not better!
Keeping the dogs is not helping as more hot bodies means more heat in the RV.
Moving out of a city situation can help as the temp next to a lake is going to be cooler than next to an acre of concrete!

Katsarratt · 08-16-2023, 09:16 PM

Thanks for the Welcome! I haven't been part of a forum like this before, so please excuse any bad manners I may have (I didn't really introduce myself nor did I thank anyone for adding me!) I really appreciate knowing that there are others out there more informed than we are about owning an RV as this is our first. So, thanks for adding me, and thanks for your input on my thread! Looking forward to many adventures in our new season of retirement soon. Take care.