# Air con for small van



## Walmer (Mar 4, 2006)

Hi there

We have a Symbol ES. Also have a large dog therefore need air-con for South of France and Spain. Has anyone any advice/experience?

thanks

Hilary


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## gromett (May 9, 2005)

I have spent a year looking into this. Trying to balance power consumption, roof space, cooling and price.

The roof mounted ones are great but you really need to be on hookup or have a genny running if you want to get an length of running time out of them.

(maybe stating the obvious here)

It really depends on what van you have you have, but I found the vast majority of the heat came in through the cab windows. Installing Remis blinds made a huge difference for me.

Another trick I found was to leave the windows on the roof of the vehicle open as heat rises it pulls cooler air from outside in. I do this when I am away from the vehicle and it made a big difference.

However given the above the van was still a little bit too warm, but not so much I needed a full air con unit.

I have bought one of the Kool Camping aircon units. Which will do those last few degrees of excess heat in the evenings. Another advantage of this unit is I can use it in the house as well when not on the road.
At only 420Watts its not going to kill your batteries so quickly either.

Cheers
Karl


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## Walmer (Mar 4, 2006)

Thanks Karl

I had thought of the Kool Camping, but our storage space is very limited.

Hilary


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## gromett (May 9, 2005)

I am keeping mine on the fixed bed above the cab. They are not overly big and will comfortably fit at the bottom of a wardrobe.

They come with their own carrying case as well 

I have been running tests on it this morning. Basically the sun is out and quiet nice so I turned the van so it was pointing into the sun and left all the screens and blinds open. The temperature inside went up considerably.
I then put the aircon on and it took about 10 minutes for it to bring it back down to a reasonable level and another 5 or so minutes for it to be really nice.

I will let everyone know how it copes with French temperatures when I next go over.

Cheers
Karl


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## Walmer (Mar 4, 2006)

Thanx Karl. 

Hilary


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