Best AC unit to fit

[Woody777]

Hi all, we have got an Adria Coral 670DC on order arriving July this year. Quick question on which is the best AC unit to get fitted that's not power hungry and trip the ehu all the time but actually does the job and cool down. Thanks Woody

 

[Neil S]

We had a Truma Aventa in our previous van (Rapido) and eventually had to stop using it because 'neighbours' on various campsites kept objecting to the noise (even on night mode). We haven't bothered fitting AC in our new van (Pilote) as it didn't seem worth the constant aggro!

I'd have politely told them to mind their own business , if your paying for electricity it's up to you how you use it.
I'm no fan of smoky barbecues , dogs or noisy children but I tolerate them and say nothing .

 

[plug]

I was about to ask this very thing.

Looking at long trips away and assume leaving air con on all day would cost a fortune in electric charges?

You can set a timer for the Truma aventa just like your timer at home.

 

[MHF]

Best unit is the Truma Aventa comfort or compact in my opinion
They are fairly quiet on sleep mode use very little power and reliable
We can run it on our battery /inverter for about 3 hrs our Honda generator
or ground /campsite power 3amp for as long as needed
We just use it to cool the bedroom area.
The way they are fitted and wired in is critical ours is connected to the inverter which is 3000w
But many Motorhomes may not have the capacity to be able to start and run the unit on
Battery power so have to be mains only.
We have on occasion used ours when driving in very hot weather

Note unless you are going camping in places like Spain in the summer you probably will never use it and end up adding carrying 60kg of weight around as for. Heating the van gas is still
The best for that

 

[Bessy765]

We have a Dometic Freshjet 2200 it came as a free extra when we bought the van new in 2019. I don’t do too well in hot or humid weather. We now have 700 watts of solar 2 x 290 Lithium Pro batteries and a Voltronic 90 amp B2B set at 75 amps (180 amp alternator) & a Victron 12/2000/80-30 inverter charger. We can run the A/C for several hours at a time given that when you need it the sun is out. I think the trick is not to try and turn the van into a fridge. We find it quite noisy inside in operation so have it mounted in the rear bedroom with the vents facing forward during the day then just close the bedroom door for a while before going to bed but don’t run it in bed.

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[funflair]

To run Aircon in a hot van for half an hour will use roughly a kWh (I'm guessing!) of energy. That's not a problem on EHU. But if you're away from plug and you've currently got a single lead acid battery, it wouldn't be able to deliver the power required, and even if it could, it would be pretty flat. Hence you need +300Ah of lithium batteries to comfortably be able to run Aircon off grid. And then you need a means to replace that energy spent. Solar is the most logical solution as, when it's hot, it's usually sunny. But you'll need several hundred watts of panels to cover the energy use. You'll also need a powerful inverter to drive the Aircon (most units expect 230v input). In summary, it's probably £2000 additional cost if you want the option to run the AC off grid.

Being sensible with the level of "cool" as you suggest, ours (freshet 3000) will use a lot less than that, I have left it running for a few hours off battery and taken out around 20% so something like 1300wh, at least half of what it uses comes from solar.