Air Conditioner and Pets

[knrt]

Wasn't exactly sure where to put this question. This is meant for anyone who travels with pets.

It was a hot August day and my husband and I went out for several hours. When we got back the trailer was boiling hot inside and took several hours to cool off. The power had gone out and when it came back on it flipped the AC circuit breaker. This has happened more than once.

Here's the deal - if our dog had been in there - well - we wouldn't have a dog anymore. What do you all do to prevent this? Or are we the only ones it has happened to?

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Yep, huge concern to all of us traveling with pets.

Some people do a key exchange with a neighbor (gotta trust the people on this one) and you keep eyes on each others pets. Works well when you are longtiming in one park, not on the road running from place to place. And you cannot both be out and about at the same time. One of ya needs to be IN the park, watching the kids.

Other people take pets with them every time there is cause for concern, if it is hot, take em with you, this is by far the safest method.

There was some chatter a year or so ago from some pet groups about a new crate that had a thermometer set to go off at certain cold or hot temps, think it was hooked up to a cell phone or something, but it would call you and warn you. Now, that is great, but what if you are a long way from the RV that day?? Or your truck breaks down, or you get arrested racing back to the campground?

Yep, this is a constant concern for pet owners.

Bet some other MOC members have great answers on this one.

[Okie Guy]

I worry about this a lot when we are at the lake. Mr Pee Wee stays in the trailer while we are on the boat. We try to come back in and check on him every hour or two. When we take a land trip we make it a point to make sure we have the fan on the floor next to the couch and no trips over 4 hours.

[bncinwv]

We at least make sure that the Fantastic Fan is set at a higher temperature than the AC thermostat. At least that blows hot air out of the ceiling area since hot air rises. The temperature on the floor where the pets are is then kept as cool as possible. This is not a solution to the problem, just somewhat of a fallback. The other alternative is to have a generator with an auto switch that activates when the power goes off. The only confusing part to me is why the breaker kicked when the power came back on?? Ozz or the other electrical gurus may know if that is an indication of something wrong???, I don't remember ours kicking after power failures.
Bingo

[HughM]

Had a similar problem when we picked up our 2003 used Mountaineer. While looking at the Mountaineer with the saleman we turned on the A/C and 20 amp breaker tripped. They stated that they fixed it and we went camping. After setting the RV down we came back 3 hrs later to the RV and the breaker had tripped and it was very hot. 5 lb BigIn was in bad shape. 6 trips back to the dealer and each time they thought they had it fixed and each time it tripped.
End result they had to replace the top part of the A/C with a new unit. It was grounding out somewhere in the top.
Since then we have had no problems.
It took a long time to trust the A/C and BigIn went everywhere with us.
We won't ever let him again in hot weather.

[Icehouse]

When we lived in South Georgia and travelled a lot in Florida, we had similar concerns. As stated before, we set the fantastic vent at a higher temp than the A/C. We seldom had electric issues so it was not real serious for us. Along the same lines, my instructions for the comfort control center indicates an optional Automatic Generator Start (AGS) that will start the generator when shore power is not available and preset temps in a zone are reached. I am trying to find more information on this as I would be very interested in this protection.
Bernie

[trukdoc]

Our solution was actually to get around the power problem of not being able to run both AC units even though it was ordered with them. Therre was a switch to use one or the other. So I separated out the bedroom AC from the trailer. Run a separate power line through the closet through floor come out by left propane tank added a plug. Now when I have the KIDS I plug in 30 amp as usual and then run a heavy duty extension to the almost always available 15 amp receptacle. So far has saved our kids twice.

[kdeiss]

We are fortunate at our campground to have someone who "watches" our dog for us when we aren't there for a while.BUT - couldn't you just open the windows and leave the ceiling fan on?The inside temp would be the same as outside? I know that in the summer some places that would be very hot but it seems in the winter it could solve your problem. Now I do understand that some dogs may bark alot if you do this so that would be an issue.