Hot weather in the Ollie

[Cameron]

I had a chance to try out the Ollie during our recent publicized heat wave last week. The first day I was boondocking the high was 118. Wow. 

While driving in the heat, I was very happy to see that all my tires did great, both on my truck and on the Ollie. Believe it or not, I haven't had any air loss in the tires since last summer when I picked it up. It sits most of the time but I have taken it out on a few trips. I've got about 3500 miles on it so far. Attached is a pic of my dash readout of the GMC TPMC system from my truck's dash.

I wish I had a generator to run the AC for longer periods b/c it was sooooo hot. I've got the Lithium Pro which allows me to run the AC off the batteries, but I do it just for short periods, like 30 to 45 minutes. I'm careful b/c I don't want to run the batteries all the way down while boondocking without a generator. I've never camped with a generator but I'm thinking that at times like this it would be very nice.

The solar panels, including my 100w portable panel plugged into the external Zamp port, did put juice back into the batteries but no so much that it was like plugging into shore power. They raised my SOC about 15% each day, but then I used that up in the evenings.

I experimented with trying to cool down the interior during the middle part of the day. No shade. The first day I ran the AC to bring the interior temp down, then shut everything up and left for five hours. When I returned the interior was like an oven! 105 degrees. The next day I kept the bathroom window and the rear window opened a crack and put the fan on at 30 percent blowing out to draw air through the trailer, then left for 5 hours. When I got back it was again very hot inside, but maybe a few degrees cooler than the previous day. So much for that experiment.

The Norcold fridge performed well. I had it up to 8 and the first day it was maybe too full, but it kept things cold enough. Not very cold, but cold enough not to spoil. The ice was still solid when I returned. I did rig up a little battery powered fan to blow hot air away from the exterior top fridge vent, which I think helped a bit.

At night I kept the ceiling fan on blowing in (30 percent) and another battery powered fan to blow across the bed and I slept well. 

So, after testing out the Ollie in 100+ temps, I've decided that I need fridge fans (probably the Fridge Defend as discussed elsewhere on the forums) and also a generator to keep the AC on for longer periods. Also I didn't need to turn on the hot water heater because the fresh water tank warmed up to a cool but comfortable temp for showering.

[Corvus]

Thanks for the report Cameron. Every thing you said fits with our experience making a few jaunts into the hot desert for astronomy related events. We stayed inside our Casita camper running the generator most of the day then came out at night to do astronomy. But it was definitely not 118 F.

[Mike and Carol]

We’ve camped in 100+ degree weather but prefer not too.  Usually, it’s a night on our escape trip out of Texas to cooler places.  I try to stay at a campground with electricity on those nights so we can run our AC at the highest noise level, I mean highest cooling level.  We did spend three nights at Palo Duro Canyon state park up by Amarillo, each day was over 100.  We went to the musical and even though it was dark, it was still mid 90’s.  The AC kept the trailer cool and kept us awake.  Mike