Aircon unit - is it worth the cost for life off grid?

CompassDrifters

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Hi there.

We are about to go full time with our 2 dogs and 2 kids hoping to travel extensively throughout Europe and beyond. Very aware of how the summer months are getting hotter than ever which makes us think a roof mounted aircon unit may be a good investment especially for the pooches! We plan on using sites a couple of times a week at most so will be unlikely to have hook up every single day.
We will be adding a solar off grid system so is there a way of powering a aircon unit uding solar or is this never going to work?
Also which aircon units are the best regards efficiency, quietness & reliability?
Thanks.
Becky.
 
Most roof top units will pull around 4/5 amps.... Unless it's an absolute beast...

So roughly about the same as a compressor fridge..

Difficulty is the roof top aircon units will be pulling that pretty much ALL the time it's running, unlike the fridge that kicks in for 5 minutes or so due to the size of the area its trying to cool....

Doable through the day IF you have enough solar....

BUT running it overnight I suspect you'll struggle on batteries I'm afraid.
 
How big a unit have you got , because it needs to be US RV type size to fit enough solar , and have the load capacity for the batteries etc . 99% of the time a couple of maxxaairs in roof will enable sleeping comfort. I base this on my experience with a US RV with 1kw of solar , and two air con units 1 US , and the other Euro style one that I fitted in bedroom area to replace the second US one . The US one would only run on some euro EHU , or unit gennie The Euro Dometic one worked on any ehu and inverter. HTSH
 
No way Jose.
Most mptorhomes have 3 way fridges
Why ?
1c Yes they can work off electric when the engine is running (12v) but I believe this is the least efficient/coolest method of operation.
A fridge is well insulated and of small capacity. Indeed 12v has a poor cooling rate of a warm fridge.
2 Gas not directly relevant except that gas capacity is good.
I know that we use about 1 litre of gas a day for running the fridge for at least 18 hours .
Find out how many kwh is delivered by 1 litre of gas.
3 yes fridges work well off ehu.
A motorhome is mich much bigger than a fridge and is not well insulated AND as has been posted aircon will be working for say 80 % of the time
compared with maybe 15% for a fridge.

Finally I know of campsite where they ask that even though you have paid for ehu you SHOULD NOT USE IT.

FINALLY 2
You may be able to run aircon ok fpr 1 night off maybe 3 lithium batteries.
But can you recharge them sufficiently from solar the next day.

House with aircon often have a dedicated circuit as with a cooker or immersion heater because of the power consumption.
OK I have not done the sums as I dont think I need to.
We are on southern France now and it has been Hot Hot Hot So I inderstand the wish for aircon but.....
 
jagmanx said:
House with aircon often have a dedicated circuit as with a cooker or immersion heater because of the power consumption.
OK I have not done the sums as I dont think I need to.
We are on southern France now and it has been Hot Hot Hot So I inderstand the wish for aircon but.....
Click to expand...
Possibly 20 years or so ago....

These days with modern inverter units.... Most will run from a 13a plug...
I've got 10kw (cooling power 34,000btu in old money)
Systems running quite happily on 13a plugs
Inverter compressors also mean no start up current/inrush that you used to get requiring C rated breakers etc...
Modern units are actually pretty efficient at cooling and even more so heating due to the mechanical gains.
 
PS We have 12 solar panel on our house roof
In the summer months we average 11kwh per day.
I suggest that you may harvest about 1/5 th of that.on a motorhome roof ?
 
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