Caravan Airconditioning "the truth about their performance"

The Truth,

Noisy, Inefficient, expensive. But when it's hot, none of that matters. I even got used to the noise when working night shift and sleeping during the day when the temp was 47 degrees.

Hi Jeff,
We live permanently in our 25ft Jayco with two slideouts in northern SA.The van is parked in a shady area. I have an Ibis in roof aircon and this is what happens. I always run it on Auto as the book says and in the winter i.e. frosty nights it can be 0 deg C ouside and the temp will come up inside to about 10 deg c then freeze. Once it does an auto defrost it will then go up to about 19 or 20 but can't get it up to the set temp of 24 until there is sun on the roof.
In the summer, 40 deg I can only get the van to cool down to about 30 until the sun goes down and the ambient temp drops also.
Had a similar van in Kununurra for 3 years and didn't have quite the same extreme temps up there and the aircon worked fine.
To me, the Ibis is OK except in extreme temps, hot or cold.
They are noisy and I know that others that I've spoken to who permanently live in their vans that for best results a split system is probably the way to go. Especially when buying the van new.
That's the HONEST truth as per your request.
Cheers,
Warren

Hi Jeff, we traveled around Australia for 15 months and had a 3.6 kw Panasonic household type split system air con mounted on the rear bumper of our 20 ft van, it was really quiet and very good at cooling as well as heating. Never had any probs at all with it. Used it heaps. Traveled mostly on the black top. Other people we spoke to were amazed at how quiet it was,one guy who was next to us at a van park was apologizing for the noise his his air con was making, his was a Heron split system that was located in the side of his van under a cupboard and yes it was very noisy, not that we would complain to him about it. So my opinion is go for the household type split system. You will just have to find somewhere inside for the head unit. We put ours in one of the overhead cupboards. Just removed the doors. I have seen an Aussie Wide van with a split system fitted by the factory, seemed to be well done. The owner was pleased with it. I have no affiliation with Aussie Wide or Panasonic. Hope this helps.
Gary

split systems are great in a van just make sure it has a min 4 speed fan which helps keep the fan noise down

We have a Coleman airconditioner on the roof of our Kedron. We have it sitting in full sun in Karratha and during this past week when the outside temperature has been sitting around the 40 to 42C mark I have had the airconditioner running as a check that all is Ok before we head off for our summer vacation. Turning the aircon on around lunchtime when the thermometer is showing around 38 to 39 inside the van it can be bought down to a nice and "icy" 21C within an hour of running. I am happy I don't need to regas before departure.

Noise wise, yes you can hear it running but It doesn't bother us probably because we are used to having a constant airconditioner noise in the house. You cannot even hear it running when you are outside of the van.

Cheers
Sue