Caravan Air Conditioning

[sarafdean]

Hi, we're thinking of buying an air conditioning unit for our new Elddis Odyssey 540 to be delivered in March. We are told by our dealer that we can't have a roof mounted unit, as it is too heavy, so looking at either a Truma Sapphire Compact or Truma Sapphire Comfort unit - this will be installed under the bed. Has anyone had experience of these?
Any comments gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Sara

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Sara,
It is of course a personal choice wheteher to fit AC or not.

From some technical involvment with AC in caravans, I am not convinced it is always the best or most sensible solution for a number of reasons.

All of these sytems produce quite alot of noise, not only for the caravanner but also for your neighbours.

The maximum power that can use is about 3kW and often less if you are using other mains powered appliances. To put this into perspective, By comparison a car has typically about a 6kW compressor driven from the the engine and the volume it has to work on is is typically about 6 cubic meters This gives power per m3 of 1kW per m3

By comparison a 15ft caravan has a typical volume of 18 cubic meters and that gives a power per volume of 0.16kW per m3

That means a caravan unit will be at best about 16% as effective as a car.

In many cases you can create a more comfortable environment simple with an oscillating fan.

 

[JTQ]

My immediate thoughts as always with significant weight options is to first check your "payload" allowance.
Our experience with even our high payload German van is that the payload disappears all too easily leaving me in little doubt many of us must be overloaded.

Only direct experience of caravan A/C is having one join us in France; its near incessant noise 24/7 drove the rest of us mad spoiling the break or in our case to leave prematurely.

 

[Surfer]

Hi, we're thinking of buying an air conditioning unit for our new Elddis Odyssey 540 to be delivered in March. We are told by our dealer that we can't have a roof mounted unit, as it is too heavy, so looking at either a Truma Sapphire Compact or Truma Sapphire Comfort unit - this will be installed under the bed. Has anyone had experience of these?
Any comments gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Sara

The Truma one is very noisy and not worth the money! You are better off buying one of thsioe stand alone air cons.