Nothing derails a summer camping trip like an RV that’s too hot to spend any time in. You’ll sleep worse, you could get dehydrated from being outside too much, and eventually you might start pondering the possibility of getting a hotel room for a few moments of relief. Or, you could learn these quick tricks for beating the heat and make the most out of your camping trip!
Keep Heat Out
RVs get hot for two reasons: heat from the sun and heat you produce inside. If you want to keep heat out, your main enemy is going to be direct sunlight. Sunlight contains infrared energy which heats up your trailer on contact. So while you can’t change the atmospheric temperature around you, you can change how much direct sunlight your trailer, and specifically your trailer windows, receives.
Where you park your trailer can make a surprising amount of difference in this regard. Try to find a location with as much shade as possible. In most campgrounds, this will mean finding a spot with plenty of tree coverage. The only caveat here is that you’ll want to make sure the branches aren’t so low that they’ll damage the roof of your trailer (rubber roofs are especially susceptible to branch damage).
In addition to where you park, you can limit sunlight that gets into your RV with window coverings. Simple curtains or blinds should work, and the more opaque they are, the better they’ll block light. If you’re camping in hot weather a lot, you might consider investing in purpose-built black out curtains for your RV.
Reduce the Heat Your Create
Inside your RV, you might be creating significant amounts of heat and not even know it. The biggest offenders are found in the kitchen and the bathroom. Taking a hot shower will pump lots of heat and humidity directly into the air. Since humidity determines how much heat we feel, this is bad news for anyone wanting to keep a comfortably cool RV. By limiting your hot showers or showering outside, you’ll keep things much cooler.
The kitchen is another common source of heat. An oven is basically indistinguishable from a furnace in the summer, so cut it out of your cooking plans entirely. The stovetop can create quite a bit of heat, too, especially pots of boiling water. Try moving outdoors for your cooking and meal times. Use the grill for more of your cooking tasks, or simply eat more cool or raw food.
Another common source of extra heat is lighting. Incandescent bulbs produce a significant amount of heat—much more than you might expect. Try replacing your lights with low-heat, energy efficient LED bulbs.
Ventilate & Cool Down
At the end of the day, you’ll want to air out your trailer as much as possible to get the temperature down before bedtime. Open up all the windows (or at least all the ones with screens if you don’t want to let in the bugs) and start up any fans you have available. It’s important to only do this when the temperature outside is dropping, though, otherwise you’ll just end up bringing in more hot air.
If you’re looking to upgrade your RV or find a new one that’s better equipped for staying cool in the summer, consider visiting Camper Liquidators. With locations in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and New England, we have a wide selection of RVs to choose from. Stay cool on your summer camping trips and make the most out of your adventures with a new RV from Camper Liquidators.
