 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / RVs / March 2008Solar Bunk Covers?
There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out of what appears to me to be those aluminized "space blankets," which ostensibly reflect hard sunshine off your bunk end roofs and help lower the inside temperature in your camper when you're compelled to set up camp in non-shady situations... Sounds like a great idea (in theory) to me. Has anyone here ever used anything like these? How well (or not, as the case may be) do they work? I'll be spending a bit more than week this coming July camping at a location where the closest tree will be a considerable distance away, in an area of northwestern Ohio famous for its at-times-rather brutal summer heat, and would like to try anything I can to help shed some of the load from my camper's A/C unit. -Dave  Signaturerigger-at-TDS-dot-net IATSE#274 DoD#2117 ACGwB#5 NGI#666 BMoZ#[classified] > There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out of > what appears to me to be those aluminized "space blankets, This has been discussed off-and-on over the years. You may wish to search the Google archive of this group. I recall they were of some value and effectiveness but that was placed between the bunkend and the mattress to insulate against cold penetration. Securing them atop a bunk end, unless during an absolutely dead calm day (no wind or breeze) would be very difficult. > shed some of the load from my camper's A/C unit. Air conditioning on a popup camper, eh? You're cheating. <big grin> Turn down the thermostat and use a little fan to help circulate air in/out of the bunkend. Even if your electric hookup is metered, you'll never achieve payback of the cost of the space blanket purchase. Have fun! Signature:) JR I've used the blanket type, you know, they look like a plastic tarp that have one side aluminized. Both on the outside in the summer and on the inside in the winter. They worked great! I used binder clips to attach them on the outside. Just putting them up lowered the inside temp by over 20 degrees. In the winter the furnace ran half as often and it was much warmer inside. --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 080129-0, 01/29/2008 Tested on: 1/29/2008 8:56:01 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast.com SignaturePosted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com >> shed some of the load from my camper's A/C unit. > > Air conditioning on a popup camper, eh? You're cheating. <big grin> Damn straight I'm cheating! If I wasn't, I'd still be sleeping in a tent on a CampRest pad. And none of us want that to happen. > Turn down the thermostat and use a little fan to help circulate air in/out of > the bunkend. We already use an oscillating fan to circulate the conditioned air around inside. What I wonder is how effective the blanket silvering is in reflecting sunlight that would otherwise heat up the innards of the popup like an oven. -Dave Signaturerigger-at-TDS-dot-net IATSE#274 DoD#2117 ACGwB#5 NGI#666 BMoZ#[classified] >>> shed some of the load from my camper's A/C unit. >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > -Dave Well reflection is a factor on roofing material, why not camping material? What's shakin' in the corner of my state this July? john > What's shakin' in the corner of my state this July? I spend a week or so working on the national target-shooting championships at Camp Perry near Port Clinton, and this year we're dragging the popup down there instead of living in base housing. -Dave Signaturerigger-at-TDS-dot-net IATSE#274 DoD#2117 ACGwB#5 NGI#666 BMoZ#[classified] > There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out of > what appears to me to be those aluminized "space blankets," which ostensibly [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > -Dave Yes, they work great down here in Texas. You can use the Cabelas/REI space blankets. But you may need up to 4 of them depending on your bunk sizes. And you need a package of some sorta clips to hold them on. Unless you can get them on sale the total cost comes pretty close to the Gizmos and the Gizmos are made for your specific PU model. "rigger" ... > There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out > of [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > -Dave What I do in this situation is use one of those bog old honker tarps that I bought in Walmart for reasonably cheap to cover everything, including the canopy and a lot of real estate in addition. This gives us plenty of shade for tables, kitchens and stuff. I bring along a bunch of extendable tent poles to prop up the corners and strategic sides of the tarp. It is essentially draped over the whole thing, and staked down in plenty of places. Works really well for us. We often camp with soe other folks where we circle the wagons, so to speak, making a U and draping these big tarps over all of it which makes a bit of a cave environment. The breeze coming through keeps it as cool as it can be. Tomes > We often camp with soe other folks where we circle the wagons, so to > speak, making a U and draping these big tarps over all of it which makes > a bit of a cave environment. The breeze coming through keeps it as cool > as it can be. We've done that. Makes a very large covered area thats especially nice when it rains. Here in AZ mountains theres more of a need to keep warm except in June when it can get into the 80's with no rain. >There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out of >what appears to me to be those aluminized "space blankets," which ostensibly [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > >-Dave I use the space blanket things from K-Mart (camping section). They are about 3 bucks each and one covers the outside of the bunk end very nicely, I clip it on with clothes pins. They do lower the inside heat by about 15-20 degrees. Passersby stop and ask about them. I just tell 'em its an experimental antenna for TV. It keeps 'em wondering. If its another pop-up person I tell then the truth. Try these before you shell out bigger bucks. I think Wal-mart has then also. Haywood We made ours out of the $3 wal-mart blankets. Taped the edges with packing tape and taped one and a half to fit the bunk ends on or pup. Huge difference in temp. We made one for each end for about $10. Much cheaper than the pop-up gizmos. m > There's a company in Texas, PopUp Gizmos, that makes bunk end covers out of > what appears to me to be those aluminized "space blankets," which ostensibly [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > rigger-at-TDS-dot-net > IATSE#274 DoD#2117 ACGwB#5 NGI#666 BMoZ#[classified] It works like a charm, all popups need them if you camp in a hot sunny camping spot, they have been known to drop the temp as much as 20 degrees so yes you want them or something like them. Happy Camping
|
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.