Air Conditioning Question, 2 or 3

[Hermes]

Just joined this forum as we have narrowed our 5th wheel search to Heartland, specifically between the Big Horn & Landmark. We plan to purchase as early as Sept. 2017 for fulltime. My question is for those with a Big Horn and who have found themselves in 110 plus temps, how has the Big Horn with the two 15K AC's managed? We live in Phoenix and typically with our current & previous TT during the summers we have travelled to higher elevations to avoid using AC as much as possible. However when we purchase our 5th wheel, we will begin our full time use in Phoenix and one or both of us may continue to work for 1-2 years afterwards, which means those summers will be spent in Phoenix, except when we are able to get out of town. Common sense tells me 3-AC's will do better than 2 in the much hotter temps and reason we are considering the Landmark, but I have also seen many with 2-AC's in the Phoenix area so I have to ask what are your experience and suggestions? thanks.

 

[TxCowboy]

I graduated high school out in the Phoenix / Chandler area so I understand your concern of 2 versus 3 air conditioners. We're fulltiming in our Landmark 365 here on the Texas Gulf Coast (Rockport area) and had the same questions you have.

Go with three ACs.

Both Heartland series you mentioned, Big Horn and Landmark, are prewired for 3 ACs and have a power management system (PMS) to manage your electrical demands. By having three ACs, you can set the temperatures in the RV any way you like them and the PMS will manage the loads for you. (I'm assuming you're connected to a good 50 amp service). Having three ACs means that you can stay cool and comfortable in almost any environment.


A good friend of mine had a third AC installed on his Big Country just a few weeks ago. Two ACs were working hard to keep is Big Country cool in this high Texas heat and in the humidity here at the coast.

Again, go with three ACs. It's much better to have the three ACs than to have only two and wish you had the third one.

HTH

 

[Hermes]

Thank you that sounds like sound advice.

 

[Piperflyer]

If I was ordering a new BH I would definitely order it with three. Two just works to hard to keep the rig cool in the hotter climates.

 

[danemayer]

Something else to consider is that when you arrive at a campground in hot weather, with 2 A/C units, it can still take 3-4 hours to cool the trailer down. 3 units will be much faster.

 

[padre44]

My 2016 BigHorn 3570 does not get cool enough in the southern summer with 2 a/c units. I'd go with 3 if you can.

 

[jbeletti]

If I was spending summers in Phoenix, I'd lean towards 3 ACs and dual pane windows.

If your RV will be under a shelter or well shaded by trees, 2 ACs in a Phoenix summer may work fine.

This all said, I have NOT summered in super-hot climates, so my comments above are assumptions. I do have 3 ACs in my current Landmark and while we don't often use all 3 at once, when we feel we need to, it really makes a difference.

 

[rxbristol]

We have summered for three years in Wichita Falls, TX (often one of the hottest places in the nation) in a Landmark with two A/C's. Shade is king--it doesn't help that our RV is brown, but I wouldn't trade the full body paint for a white color. When the temps were 100 to 110 degrees, the inside would get to 86 degrees. The outside dark brown paint would read 146 degrees as measured with an IFR temp sensor. Once the sun went down, the inside would rapidly start to cool down and get to our set temp of 73 degrees around 10 p.m.

 

[wdk450]

You might also want to consider having the freon residential refrigerator in super hot climates. The ammonia adsorption refrigerators as installed in kitchen slide-outs have great difficulty keeping foods cool enough in very hot outside temperatures.