Cooling/heating the front bedroom of a 5th wheel

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Tom

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
Posts
51,803
From a campfire discussion this evening ......

All the 5th wheels in this campground appear to have only one A/C unti, located near the rear. How does the bedroom (typically in the front of a fiver) get cooled or heated?
 
I know in my familys' TT has central forced air air conditioning. What I mean it the air is forced through a series of ducts in the roof to the different vents in the roof throughout. I'd imagine the same could happen in a 5th wheel, just the ducting would have to be extended to the top of the 5th wheel - which might be harder then I think.

I'd say the same thing for the heat...it is possibly ducted into the floor higher up, or it could be at the base of the top of the 5th wheel because hot air rises...

That's what I would *think*...
 
Jeff

You may be right. However, our motorhome has front and rear A/c units with a duct joining them and, if we only turn one on in hot weather, the other end of the coach barely cools down. In a short trailer or coach I can see a single A/C unit and duct possibly being sufficient.
 
Jeff

I think it's dependent on a combination of length of the duct, insulation and total air flow. If one of our A/C units put out enough air to cool the entire coach (through the duct), I suspect the noise of the fan would be unbearable. BTW the coach is 38 feet long.
 
Tom:
I'd say you'd be right. I thought about the insulation factor...but it didn't dawn on me as being a big factor but, I'm sure it is after I think about it more.
And about the fan noise, you are right 100% on that one I think. The fan for the a/c in my familys' 27foot TT is pretty loud. There are two fan speeds on ours, the low one is good, but the high one cools lthings down faster (it is also loudest)
 
Jeff

I'm not a thermal/heating/cooling engineer, so I can't do the calculations without a little research. Just speaking from experience.
 
Not to plug Wally World, but I recently bought a vertical blower from them and couldn't be happier. It's a squirrel cage design, not a fan. Stands about 3' tall and blows air along the vertical axis. They have several makes/models; some with ionizers. Mine has an infrared remote control (no iionizer), so there's no need to get up to change the settings; oscillates (if you want it to) and has different settings that automatically vary 'wind' velocity to simulate a summer breeze, ocean breeze, etc. With the front a/c on and the blower placed between the kitchen/living room area and the bath/bedroom, it does a really nice job of keeping the BR cool without the noise of having the rear a/c running. The blower itself is almost silent; unlike a fan. The one I chose was the "ALOHA breeze", around $40. Check them out - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much you get for your dollar. The only negative I've found was the oscillating feature (which I don't use) makes it a bit wobbly, so I screwed it firmly to the base with a couple of self-tapping screws. Oh, it's also light weight and uses 55 watts power on the high setting. I've never not found it necessary to go beyond the medium speed; usually set it on low.
 
Thanks for sharing that Karl. We sometimes forget about relatively simple/cheap solutions.
 
Tom, my neighbor has a 36' Mobil Suites 5th wheel which has two ACs, one located over the bedroom.  They are both ducted ( I'm not sure if they are ducted together) but one unit alone won't cool the trailer, which has four slides. My otner neighbor has a 28' Carriage 5th wheel with one slide and one AC. He has no problem keeping cool but does use a fan to distribuite the cool air.

 
Robert

Sounds like the fan is key to air distribution with a single A/C unit.
 
We have one ac, located in the center of the rig. It has vents on the unit itself, as well as along the ceiling. Which can be opened or closed. Also has a fan only option on the thermostat. 15K AC for a 35' x3 5'er. Usually the bedroom is too cool.

Barb
 
Just as with motor homes, fifth wheels may have one or two a/cs and the a/c may be ducted or direct vent.  All depends on size, price range and intended use.  Rigs sold for use primarly in the north will have one (or maybe even zero) a/c units but those intended for southern climates will have two, at least as an option.  The fivers on either side of me here in Maine (but they are Florida-based fulltimers) each have two a/c units. They are 34 and 35 footers.

Our last fifth wheel, a 29 footer, had one a/c and ducting to the bedroom. We found the ducting to be marginal  and, like Karl, found that an auxiliary fan helped immensely.
 
Tom said:
From a campfire discussion this evening ......

All the 5th wheels in this campground appear to have only one A/C unti, located near the rear. How does the bedroom (typically in the front of a fiver) get cooled or heated?

Ducted, just like in a stick house. Mine works just fine both for heating and cooling.
 
RV Roamer said:
Rigs sold for use primarly in the north will have one (or maybe even zero) a/c units but those intended for southern climates will have two, at least as an option.

Didn't check the plates before we left, but I'll bet you're right. We were in WA when the "only 1 A/C unit" observation was made. The guy who made the observation said it was over 115 when he left Las Vegas and the two A/C units on his coach couldn't keep up.
 
Our Montana 3400 has one a/c with ducting to various locations in the unit. In the recent very hot spell here in Ontario, we ran the a/c with all the ducts closed except in the bedroom. We were cool as a cucumber. The heat appears to work well also ... a duct into the bedroom produced pleanty of heat during our "test run" of the furnace.

 
How hot was the hot spell Bill? Do you know if the Montana has better insulation than most other brands?
 
Hi, Tom ...

Daytime temps were well into the 90s with humidex readings above 100. We actually ran the a/c (15,000 BTU) for only a short time during the evening to cool the bedroom down, closed the windows and vents except for the bedroom windows, and turned on the Fantastic Fan. Created a terrific flow of cool evening/night air through the bedroom. We were very impressed ... and comfortable. As for insulation, the unit has the "Arctic Insulation Package" that (according to the literature we received) provides an insulation value of R-21 on the floor, R-14 in the roof/ceiling and R-9 in the sidewalls. I have no idea how that compares with other 5th wheels on the market.

Bill
 
Bill, it sounds like the insulation might be a factor in helping to keep your rig cool. We're typically running both A/Cs most of the day and sometimes into the night. If we go out for the day, I turn the thermostat up and usually have to turn it down again when we get back to a "hot" coach.
 

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
131,670
Posts
1,382,734
Members
137,455
Latest member
MtnRV
Back
Top Bottom