Randy: Hey guys, Randy with Pete's RV TV today, another quick-tip segment for you.
Today I'm going to talk about air conditioners and the proper way to use them.
I've been taking a lot of calls around the country and we're in the middle of our warm
season in Vermont, the little warm season that we get up here in the northeast.
But people are having trouble with their air conditioners freezing up.
People are saying they're not cooling properly for them.
And sometimes that's the case, but usually it's operator error about 99 percent of the
time.
When I went to RVIA school back a million years ago when I first started in the industry
and got certified to do this kind of stuff, one of the first things they taught me about
air conditioners is they don't make cool.
They remove heat and they remove moisture, as well.
cool just happens to be a byproduct.
So, when we allow our coach to heat up inside, we go to the pool all day, we're out shopping
or doing, visiting the sights around the area and we've got the air conditioner off, we
go back to our camper at 5 o'clock at night.
It's 100 degrees inside the camper.
We turn that air conditioner on.
That air conditioner actually has to pull the heat out of the carpet, out of the bedding,
out of the couches, out of everything inside before we start to feel cool.
So what I want you to do is I want you to do is turn that air conditioner on in the
morning.
it's a little bit cooler at night, so when it's a little bit cooler at night, of course,
the coach stays a little bit cooler.
So when you get up in the morning set that thermostat at about 65 degrees, 67 degrees.
Let's maintain that cool from the night before.
Now, if we never let our coach heat up, the air conditioner is going to have to work a
lot less hard to maintain that cool and we're actually saving energy.
The other thing that we want to do with our air conditioner, too, is while we maintain
it while we're using it is we want to make sure that the filters are clean.
So we can remove that very easily on this guy here and we just want to take this guy
out and make sure it's vacuumed.
If it starts to turn brown that usually means there's a lot of dust.
Another thing that makes an air conditioner work very effectively for us, or makes them
work better, is more air flow.
So with a clean filter we can get more air through this air conditioner, especially on
those [00:02:00] hot, humid days.
The other thing we'll want to do is we want to set our fan on high.
I usually use the auto setting on mine, if you let the air conditioner run all day.
Again, the more air that we're moving, the more heat we can take out of the coach and
expend outside and put the cold air back inside the coach.
So fan definitely on high.
We also want to make sure our doors and windows and vents are closed.
I went to a camper on a campground the other day.
A lady says, "My air conditioner is not cooling very well.
Can you take a look at it?"
I went inside.
I put my hand up to the air conditioner, it was cooling just fine.
What she had was both of her doors were open.
She had some vents open, a couple windows open.
So what that air conditioner was doing was pulling the heat from the outside and just
getting rid of that and returning it so it could never bring the temperature of the coach
down because it was just kind of maintaining.
What these guys will do is they'll actually do about a 20-degree air differential, air
temperature differential.
So, it sucks in here, blows out here or out through our vents, and it's going to be about
a 20-degree differential.
Now, if it's just pulling air from a door, it's never going to really bring the temperature
of the coach down, so make sure all windows and doors and vents are closed.
and again, that high air flow moving through the air conditioner is going to get that heat
escape faster and help us with freeze up a little bit, too.
The moisture will actually pass over the evaporator coil a lot quicker and not have a tendency
to grab on there.
Another thing, we just got to our campgrounds, it’s 5 o'clock at night, we've been traveling
all day, inside the camper it's very hot because it's a hot day out, so you got to turn your
air conditioner on to cool this guy down.
Instead of forcing it through the vents, if you've got a ducted air conditioner, open
up the quick-cool option.
This way we're going to get a lot of airflow and we're going to cool the coach down a little
bit quicker.
Once we bring the temperature down, we can go ahead and close this and we can go through
the ducts.
The ducts are going to restrict the airflow a little bit, but once we bring the coach
down the air conditioner is running efficiently, then we can go ahead and put it through the
vents in the ceiling.
So if you try out my quick tips here, run it on high, set it in the morning, let it
run all day to keep that cool inside so we don't have to remove all that heat from building
up in the sun all day.
Also, if you can close your shades and things [00:04:00] like that, keep the UVs down, that's
going to help out a lot as well.
But all these should help you make your air conditioner work a lot more effectively for
you.
Save a phone call to me and just have a better camping experience, keep you guys cool.
Now, out there having fun, you get hot, you want to come into a cool area, at least I
do, and it makes it a lot more fun when you're drinking a soda or whatever while you're watching
TV, as well.
So thanks again for watching Pete's RV with Randy today.
keep an eye out for our quick tips.
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Have a great one.