Summer is prime time for RV camping. The weather is great, the kids are out of school, and exciting new adventures await you around the next bend. What more could an RVer ask for? How about a nice, cool RV to beat the heat?
It can be challenging to keep your RV cool when the mercury is rising, but following these simple tips is a good start.
Test Your Air Conditioner
The first thing I like to do is make sure the RV air conditioning unit is operating properly. An air conditioner that is working efficiently will condition the air 16 to 22 degrees lower than the ambient temperature. This simply means that if it’s 90 degrees in the RV, a properly operating air conditioner will cool the interior space to somewhere between 68 and 74 degrees.
If you want to test the performance of your A/C, but you’re not sure where to start, watch the video below.
Clean Your A/C Filters
Now that we know the RV’s air conditioner is operating efficiently, we can move on to some other ways to keep the RV cool in the summer heat.
The first step to staying cool is inspecting and cleaning the air conditioner filters. Clean filters will improve the efficiency of the unit considerably. There are a few options for cleaning the filters. You can wash them in warm, soapy water, then rinse thoroughly and let them dry, or you can clean them using a vacuum cleaner attachment. It’s always a good idea to keep a new set of filters in the RV in the event the old filters have seen better days and need to be replaced.
Camp In The Shade
It may seem obvious that staying out of the sun will keep your RV cooler than parking it in direct sunlight, but this can sometimes require some planning ahead. When it’s hot outside and we make campground reservations, or when we check in at the campground office, we ask for a shady campsite. The shade helps keep the RV cool and helps the RV refrigerator and air conditioner operate more efficiently.
After we set up camp and get settled in, we use our patio and window awnings to provide additional shade and assist in keeping the RV cool. Closing window blinds or shades also helps keep the cooler air in and the heat out.
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Keep Your RV Refrigerator Cool
Your RV refrigerator is directly affected by outside temperatures and, as we mentioned above, parking in the shade will help the refrigerator work more efficiently. Another thing that helps is a thermostatically controlled refrigerator vent fan. These fans dissipate heat from behind the refrigerator, moving it up and out of the vent. If you are mechanically inclined, refrigerator vent fans are fairly easy to install, or you can have your local RV dealer install one for you. Either way, it’s worth it. A properly installed vent fan can improve the refrigerator’s performance by up to 40 percent.
Make Sure You Have Sufficient Ventilation
Another element in keeping the RV cool is proper ventilation, which helps prevent excess heat from building up in your RV. You can install vent covers over the RV roof vents to allow for better ventilation. These are inexpensive, easy to install, and they let the fresh air in (even when it’s raining) while the heat escapes. I use vent covers on each end of our RV to help promote cross-ventilation.
Fans are another way to increase ventilation in the RV. There are roof-mounted, high-powered 12-volt ventilation fans with intake and exhaust functions, or you can bring some portable fans with you.
Some Bonus Tips
A few other tips are to start and run the air conditioner early in the morning when it is cooler outside, try to avoid opening the entry door as much as possible, and to cook outside rather than inside whenever possible.
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If you follow these tips and still can’t stay cool at the campground, head over to the pool and take a nice refreshing dip!
