Installing AC

[drcurran]

After looking at the AC unit installed through one of the back doors on the 6 X 12 (very nice job by the way) I was wondering. With the type of AC unit used in most house windows, how much of the unit must be outside of the area you are cooling. The one through the back door looks like only the very back of the unit is outboard, or is that because part of the unit is inside the trailer, but outside the living area. Instillation is on my short list. Thanks for the help.

Dan

[edcasey]

The only portion of the air conditioner you want in the living space is the part that would be indoors in a household application. The body of the air conditioner that contains the air vents for the condenser fan must be outdoors. Otherwise you would be drawing in cold air from the living space through the vents and blowing it outdoors through the condenser. Also, you would create a vacuum in the living space that would pull warm, humid air though window seals, door seals, vent seals or any opening into the living space. Like you said, in my kinda strange application the body of the air conditioner is in a compartment that is vented to the outdoors.
Ed

[toyota_mdt_tech]

Get an RV unit, mount it in the roof, they use a std 14X14 opening. I put a Coleman Polar Cub in mine. Welded supports into the roof bows to disperse the load over 3 trusses

Cargomate Conversion

[digimark]

I'm working on the same problem. But I can't mount a unit on the roof -- although my on-order 6'x10' has a framed in roof vent and power roughed in, I had it chopped a foot specifically so it would fit in my 81" clearance garage. A roof-mount A/C unit would defeat the point.

For myself, I'm looking at either wall mounting the smallest window unit I can find, or using a small freestanding unit and finding a way to duct it to the outside. For a window unit, I've seen someone here on the board mount it on a slide-out platform so that it is hidden behind a door when traveling/stored. That's appealing, but I need to study how they did it in greater detail before I'd be that confident about going that way.

Our local BJ's Warehouse has a Haier ultra-compact 5200BTU unit for $99. It's only 17"x13"x13" - pretty small. 36 lbs though. Any reason why a window mount unit wouldn't work mounted through the wall instead?