Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Portable air conditioning, portable tv, & fix it spot from torn wallpaper

As promised, today's post will be about RV resolutions. Living in an RV can present it's own personal challenges, but then, so can living in a house. As stated earlier, I'm living in a friend's driveway & we had to come up with a better resolution for the use of air conditioning in my RV. The roof unit drew too much power, so it would trip the circuit breaker. So the resolution was to try a portable unit, which presented it's own challenges, none that could not be resolved though! It draws less power & helped get me through the triple digit days here in Texas. It has been a record breaking year for those triple digits! It was not possible for us to add a 30amp power source for the RV, which would have been ideal. So at least there was a way around this. The RV is plugged into a regular voltage socket in the house & the portable a/c is plugged into a different socket along with a gfci breaker for safety.
Here are some photos of the a/c & where it was stationed inside of my RV.
I was able to set the a/c between my front seats with the use of a two step stool that can hold up to 300 pounds. Of course, the a/c is not that heavy! The fan you see above the sofa area is hanging from a pole (actually dog grooming arm) located under my memory foam mattress pad. It greatly helps with the circulation of air.

So now you have a view of the portable a/c. And yes, that is a dog crate in the corner of the photo, my dogs must travel in crates. My personal choice in their safety. With the new a/c, it has a vent hose, which I vented out of the drivers side cab window. I went searching for a product to use to cut out the hose hole & to fit into the window frame. Found a styrofoam type of poster board that has a slick type of paper covering on both sides. Perfect! It even fits inside of the window frame! So I made a template, cut the board & it fit perfectly. Used an exacto knife to cut the hole. To get the hole sized, it was easy as I just held the end of the exhaust tube & traced. Then I screwed the track that came with the unit to the board. I also got water proof contact paper to place over the board for weather protection, but haven't put that on it yet.


Outside view of cutout window insert.
Inside view of cut out. Notice the track that is screwed onto the board. Window is rolled up to the bottom of it for better support. But after thought, I could have angled the track a little so the window could come up just a tad more. Doesn't really matter that much though.


So those are pics of the view of the portable a/c unit & installation. After turning it on for a few hours, I also noticed that it created a lot of heat around the vent hose! So I had to go back to the hardware store, get insulation to place over the hose. Got some that had a sticky back, but it did not really stick well to the plastic, so I had to duct tape that down. Then I put my curtain over all that. The curtain helps hide the ugly insulation of the hose & also helped contain the heat into that area instead of inside the entire rig. Then another problem! The a/c also drains like mad! It's also a dehumdifier, so I guess that's maybe why? So I had to also go buy a drain hose to attach to the drain plug area & got a container that fits well into the passenger side of the door's step in area. That container has to be dumped several times a day when the a/c is in use. But this a/c will also come in handy this winter when I have to use heat to prevent condensation problems. Last year, I had severe condensation problems.

Drain container which has since been replaced with a bigger one that works much better. Haven't taken a pic of the other one though.


OK, so enough about the portable a/c. Of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask or comment on if you wish.

Next, I wish to share with you, my little portable tv. I have a nice flat screen tv in the RV too, but I use this one as it has it's own battery source for boon docking. I like to have the tv on for a little while when I go to bed at night. When not using my generator, I can't use the big tv in the RV.

The little TV was a Christmas gift from last year. I love it! It also comes with a small antenna & will not operate without the antenna. But I bought a bigger antenna for it that it still operates on. Can pick up more channels with the bigger antenna.


And now for a fix it idea! When I had my new fridge installed a few months ago, the installers bumped into my little hanging welcome sign. When they did that, the hook it was on (one of those not-so-wonderful pull tab hooks that you place against the wall & pull the tab to take the hook down when you no longer need it), pulled off, taking the wallpaper with it AND some of the wood under as well! Ouch, now I have a lovely hole to cover up. So I got an oval plaque from WalMart, stained it, got some glue & glued it over the destruction. Then reused the hook onto the plaque so I could re-hang my little saluki welcome sign. The hook works well for that, but I'd not recommend placing it over wall paper!

Ouch, the torn wallpaper, exposing the wood it also tore off.
Plaque that I stained & glued down.
Welcome sign back up. Looks rather good even if I say so myself!


OK, that's enough for today's posting. I hope today's tips & resolutions can be of help to others.  And as always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them at your travel locations, respect your neighbor. 







14 comments:

  1. Cyn, we have one of those portable AC/heater guys. the draining was driving me nutz!

    We cut a hole as you did with your window for the vent hose and stuck the small drain hose out the window as well.

    Is that possible with your rig? I couldn't keep up with the drain bucket ... it would overflow or I'd spill it emptying it... wet carpet all the time around that thing.

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  2. Thanks Caroyln, good to hear that you found a resolution for the drain hose. I wasn't sure that it would drain upwards as the a/c is lower than the window itself. So it works ok that way? If so, I can do that! the carpeting doesn't get wet, but there have been a few times where it did overflow & pretty much drained out the bottom of the door. However, that gave me concerns of potential rust.

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  3. hmmm well? no... we had it level with the drain hole out the window. We sat the unit on a table so it would be level with the window...

    Is that possible with your rig? Just anywhere the hose could be level and drain outside ... our hose is level then it droops down outside the window.

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  4. Thanks, no, can't set it any higher. I figured it would probably have to be pretty much level with the window. No biggie, I'll continue to use the container at the door then. Nice day so far today, I've not turned it on yet :-)

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  5. Hi - just found your blog from the WomenGoSolo forum link you supplied.

    I wanted to tell you something that was suggested to me in my first campsite - get vent covers installed. Then if it rains while your vents are open, or if you forget to lower them before leaving, you will be okay. I keep mine open almost all the time, for fresh air. It was worth the expense.

    I'm looking forward to following your adventures!

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  6. Thanks Me & My dog, I've thought about them, but mostly wanted to use those over the center & bathroom area of the RV. Since I sleep in the overhead bed, I like opening the vent & looking out at the stars & such. That night was just a stupid mistake! I covered the vent with an interior cover & forgot to close the vent first!

    I enjoy following your adventures :-) btw, it was your welcome on your page that inspired me to finally get my blog started.

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  7. Hi, so glad you found some helpful tips for your a/c problem. Thanks for commenting on my blog. I hope to learn much from you who have been at this rv'ing a while.
    Sunny

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  8. Its very nice and help blog am many thanks to you for sharing this blog.

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  9. Everything's portable nowadays, even ACs and heaters, but draining them sucks! Although, it's very convenient to have a portable AC and heater with you all time, most especially when traveling to far places where you can't anticipate weather.Mignon Her

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