Can you cool your trailer with cold water ?

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Well I have asked this question before , can you cool your trailer down by spraying cold water on the roof?

This would be common sense to me, however someone said it did not work too well
That the water evaporated very fast !!

Guess what, I tried it and just as I assumed it works great, it dropped my attic temp probe from 138 down to 92
in a matter of 30 minutes and it is still dropping. I would guess at this point the effect will last at least 1-2 hours,
I say this because my roof has a fair amount of standing water to help keep it cool.
Now this is with the silver roof. This would work much better if you had a white roof & maybe even better if
Your parked in the shade. If your camping maybe water is cheap , give it a try if you hot - why not try cooling your trailer.

This will also help for your solar panels to get cooler - BUT BE CAREFUL THERE !!

Try it out and let us know how it works out for you ??

Jerry

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

The news is even better, the second time around watering the roof the temp dropped down to 82 deg
That's actually better then expected !!

This even surprises me at how well this works

Jerry

[RandyG]

That's interesting. How much water do you use? One would think the camp ground would get muddy and that's what I try to avoid. Also what type of climate are to you in? cause I think the more humidity the less effective it will be.

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Hi Randy

I would say only about 10-15 gallons for a 7 x 18 , don't think it would flood the camp ground with that.

It's the same cooling of the trailer - does not mater to the trailer exterior what the humidity is ?
Just how cold the ground water is

Now on the inside if you have AC and the humidity is high - of course your AC works harder.
This experiment is only to cool the exterior skin of the trailer & to show that measured under the roof skin.
I'll leave it up to you guys to do more extensive experiments on the interior.


Jerry

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

So far the only drawback I see is that the water tends to leave some calcium stains on the metal roof.
I did it 3 times yesterday in the 90 deg heat & it worked great.

while not perfect, this could be a poor mans air conditioning

[Willuz]

I think the campgrounds I stay in are muddy enough already without tossing more water out.

However, I'm thinking about a closed loop system that could be very efficient. Every campground I stay in has a small cold stream running through it which is very common in the smokies. I was looking at my flat waterhose which has separate channels in it and realized it would be perfect for a closed loop heat pipe cooler.

Buy 2 copper heater cores from a local junk yard or off ebay
Use a water hose or tubing to run a loop between the two heater cores
Place a DC water pump and computer fan on the core in the window of the trailer
Fill the system with water and make sure there are no bubbles
Since this is a closed system elevation does not matter but it must be sealed tight with no air bubles
Throw one end in the creek and the other end in a window and you're now pumping cold air for just a couple of amps

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Ok it's time to play hardball , it's hotter then hell AKA in Furnace Creek in Calif
No offense to the nice folks there who love a good 130 deg heat wave in Furnace Creek

So I have decided to do some desperate measures, this morning I taped 1/2 foam
Insulation on top of the trailer roof, except for the 6" rounding over!!
Because not sure how hard it would be to get the tape off ?

Any bets on what my roof temp probe will be today, without the foam it would hit 150 easy


Jerry

[racerrandy]

How about try and space the ridged insulation off of the roof a little bit so air can flow under? I think that might work pretty well too.





Randy

[8ball_99]

Turn your AC on?

[len19070]

I cover the roof with an old blanket to hold the water and not let it puddle under the trailer and use a "Leakey" 5 gallon Bucket on the roof. It makes things last a lot longer.

Happy Trails

Len

[len19070]

I was looking for this when I first mentioned the "Leaky Bucket" method, but I couldn't find it.

Check out Idea #9. This is where I got the idea for this. My Dad used this method back in the 50's.



Happy Trails

Len