Should you shade your RV?

[mooserider]

I've been reading the posts, and thinking about "why did the morons at [unnamed RV manufacturer] use such dark paint colors?" The roof is white, but the air conditioner housings are black (!) and the sides are a swirly pattern in half-dark colors. So, I'm wondering how many RV campers put a shade structure over their RV, and, if so, how they do it. Having camped in my RV in cooler areas in the summer, it still gets seriously (unsafely?) warm in there during the day.

I'm starting to think about designing a structure that could go over most of my beast (leaving the solar panels exposed for the obvious reason). Is this reasonable? Advice welcomed.

[Elliot]

Absolutely build shade over your RV if you can. I cover the whole roof and the whole south wall, and the interior is always pleasant. Mind you... you MUST have an air gap between the vehicle and the shade, so the breeze can carry the heat away. Otherwise it does not do much good.

I'm lucky in that my RV is a converted school bus, and I put bolts anywhere I want, no worries. Trickier with a fancy factory-built RV, I suppose.

[mooserider]

Hmmm.... what is your structure built from? Between the sunglare and the low color contrast (everything is pale desert colors), it's hard to make out the materials. And how far down to the ground does the side shade go?

[Captain Goddammit]

Counterpoint: hell no, building shade over an RV is way more trouble than it's worth.
I've tried it. It all depend on whether you use your air conditioning or not.
You need shade if you don't. I use my A/C and I find that bothering with extra shade isn't worth the trouble.

[mudpuppy000]

Yeah, unless you can bolt something on it sounds like a nighmare. I remember someone trying to shade a box truck a while back. Not sure how that turned out but I think there were pool noodles beach balls, and tarps involved.

[Elliot]

...
I'm lucky in that my RV is a converted school bus, and I put bolts anywhere I want, no worries. Trickier with a fancy factory-built RV, I suppose.

The "trickier with an RV" part was an understatement, I "suppose".

Millicent The Bus has eight hard-points built into the roof, fastened to the steel body-framing inside. To these I attach a sturdy framework of assorted tubing I came into cheap. There is some old industrial handrail, some chain-link fence tubing, and some fairly large EMT (conduit). Every year I do it a bit differently, in search of Perfection.

On the south side (driver side of bus), the tarps go either down almost to the ground, or straight out far enough to give us usable shaded space below. Either way the south wall is shaded, in addition to the roof. Where the tarps go straight out to create usable space, they are supported by construction scaffolding, which is lagged to the ground.

Last year I added reflective bubble material in the windshield (which faces west), and that helped noticeably on the late afternoon heat.

Sure, A/C is nice. But if you have the freedom to create some hard-point, full shading is perfectly doable.

These pictures are from various years.

[FIGJAM]

Added note: Milly doesn't have AC and stays pretty comfortable all day!!!

[pink]

Reflective bubble wrap on the windows works wonders! On my camper van, I cover all my windows but one small one so I have a wee bit of natural light. Well, also the one over the cab is a bitch to reach even with a ladder. The van stays cool til noon, and still isn't unpleasant in the afternoon. Plus it cuts down on the dust sneaking in

[dragonpilot]

How's the reflective bubble wrap compare to non-bubble reflective aluminum window coverings..the type typically sold for RVs? I've got the latter for my small trailer. The 5 windows aren't that big, but I try to reduce interior heat as much as I can.

[Ratty]

I realize it wasn't very hot last year but I could nap in my van during the day with 2 doors open. A couple of years ago I bought a roll of that reflec bubble wrap at home despot. I read bunches on here before I figured it out. From inside your trailer, if your window frames are warm/hot to the touch when in direct sunlight then you need to cover the frames also. A roll of that bubble stuff was $20-$25. It will last me forever unless it blows away. One roll was plenty for all the windows on my 2012 van. And those are big windows. I attached the sunshade to the outside of my windows with stucco tape. I covered the frames if possible. (Stucco tape won't hurt your paint job and is repositionable up to 30 days. I ran a test moving it around my van for a month.) This turned out to be a great alternative to the very expensive gaffers tape. Wipe the dust off of your trailer first wherever you are sticking the tape.

Sidenote. Use only 100% cotton bedding. You can't lay down on a polyester sleeping bag. You'll sweat. Cotton sheets, blankets, bedspread, chair covers, make a world of difference.

[MikeGyver]

We use aluminum foil and it works just fine, its a little bit of a pain to put up because the bigger sheets rip easy but cheap is a fair trade

[Jackass]

Yes, yes you should...

[Captain Goddammit]

Your shade looks pretty awesome, but I must take issue with the thermal strategy of the black fur on the bike seat...

[pink]

I think the bubble wrap is actually cheaper because you can use it over and over and over. The bubbles have a better insulating effect too. I put mine on with blue painters tape. Pull the tape off the wrap afterwards roll it up and stash till the next event.

[Ratty]

I think the bubble wrap is actually cheaper because you can use it over and over and over.

Yup. I agree with all of it.

[Jackass]

Ditto, I've used 20ft of this stuff since 2010. I use it mostly on the east facing side, it's still like new. It's more expensive up front, but it holds up well...

burning man 2014 043.JPG

[mooserider]

Thanks all for the advice, but it has become a moot point (for me, anyway).

Last weekend, I had the solar panels installed on the RV. Someone miscalculated the panel's mechanical sizes (I'm pretty sure I gave the correct free roof space figures to the installer), such that three panels fit on the open roof near the back end, but the fourth one had to be put halfway up front. As such, so much of the roof needs to be exposed to sunlight to produce full power that any covering would be a waste of effort (either blocking the panels, or being too spotty in coverage to really gain anything).

At least, the panels work. I went from half charged batteries to full charge in less than a day without the engine or generator.

[trilobyte]

I think others have said some great stuff, and congrats on the solar rig!

You're camping inside a metal box in the desert. Even with a modern vehicle that boasts cutting edge insulation, it's likely going to get warm inside by day. You can reduce that by either running aircon, or by keeping it shaded.

Good news, those solar panels are pretty much shade for the roof of your RV! Take a peek at some of the other advice in Shelter & Camping or Keeping Cool, stuff like reflective covers for your windows will help a lot, and you could look at doing some kind of angled tarps (or get fancy and do aluminet) on the sides... anchor to the rood line at the top of the vehicle, then off to the side at a 45 degree angle. Good luck, and congrats again on those panels - I think they'll help you out quite a bit more than simply providing energy.

[Elliot]

I'm posting this just to brag.
But this shot really shows how Millicent is shaded both on top and down the south-facing wall, which keeps her quite nice inside. You can see Millicent's eyes just barely peeking out -- compare with photo in Sig line.
The picture is a snippet of a city-wide shot by Duncan Rawlinson. Pretty darned good detail for hanging out the door of an airplane!

[Sinergy]

Last year we used Double Foil Bubble Insulation Reflective Wrap on all of our windows inside our RV. We spray glued the reflective wrap to cardboard and cut the cardboard to exact window size. I am curious if the method of gluing the reflective wrap to cardboard holds the heat in the cardboard therefore making the RV actually warmer? Thoughts would be appreciated ♥

[Molotov]

I cut sheets of 3/4" foam board which fit nicely between the mini-blinds and the windows of my little egg trailer. One more piece fits between the exterior door and the screen door to block the window. I didn't spring for any foil faced foam board-didn't want to turn my windows into solar ovens and maybe crack the glass. The blue foam board keeps a lot of heat out, and quite a bit of light (sometimes I roll late into the night) and it infuses the interior with a pleasing blue glow from daylight or ambient light at night. Does a fair job attenuating sound, too.

[Canoe]

Thanks all for the advice, but it has become a moot point (for me, anyway). Last weekend, I had the solar panels installed on the RV...

Great for the roof, but you're a solar oven with the widows (although with the A/C off, this can be good for baking cookies! or for heat for those rare cool days). Cover the windows - and the frames - with the reflective-bubble-wrap for a hugely significant improvement. Even the skylights. And even the glass of North facing windows (radiant heat from hot air and hot ground and reflected from nearby structures with radiant barriers on the outside...). This material is a radiant barrier with insulation: it reflects radiated heat (sun, hot ground, hot air) away, while insulating against conductive heat gain from the hot air.

• If covering on the outside, go beyond the frames so they're covered too.
• If covering the inside, the same, by at least four inches (the heat from the uncovered outside frame conducting along the inside wall to beyond the interior cover is astounding), and fully seal to the walls with painter's/freezer tape. If you've got dark frames, cover them (and a couple of inches onto the glass) with something on the outside: painter's tape with foil tape on top is golden. DO NOT put foil tape direction onto any surface of your RV!!!

If on the inside, a one or two inch hole in the middle (NOT on a South window) will let tons of light in (and you can cut a smaller piece to cover it when you want that dark); same treatment for the bathroom skylight, or it will be an oven that leaks heat into the rest of the RV.

If you cover on the inside, and with painter's tape, in an emergency you can quickly remove the cover and use the window/door/windscreen as usual - without having to go outside, use a ladder, look for a tool, etc.. Much easier to get at skylights this way too.

...We spray glued the reflective wrap to cardboard and cut the cardboard to exact window size. I am curious if the method of gluing the reflective wrap to cardboard holds the heat in the cardboard therefore making the RV actually warmer? Thoughts would be appreciated ♥

This is a pain to read, but if you want to understand...
Cardboard may be handy for getting things to fit, but will meaningfully contribute to heating the interior:

• The double-sided reflective bubble wrap is the gold for covering windows and skylights. With the reflective cover (90 to 94% reflective) and insulation, it works great at keeping heat outside. Only it doesn't. It still lets heat in, just a whole lot more slowly than without it, which is what does the job. It's absorption of energy is 6 to 10% of what it's hit with, and then the insulation kicks in to resist transferring that inside, along with its contact with hot air (outside air, or inside air heated through the window).
  Now to the why you don't want cardboard in the mix; or, why there's a shiny surface on both sides. Where it's 90 to 94% reflective and 6 to 10% absorbing, it's also 6 to 10% emittive - it resists radiating its heat, further slowing down the transfer of heat into the interior (as that heat transfer is reduced to conductive rates of surface to air). But the reflective and emittive properties only work when those shiny surfaces have an air gap. Where it touches, no radiant barrier (no reflectance barrier; no emittive barrier) as it can quickly conduct its heat to what it touches (in this case your cardboard).
  So if you're mounting it on the outside, no difference where it touches the walls, but over the glass the cardboard will be heated and radiate heat through the glass. If mounted on the inside, then any heating getting through (through glass, through frame) will promptly conduct to the cardboard, get some minor insulation benefit, then radiate heat into the interior. You could add some shiny aluminum foil to cover the cardboard, but the shiny on the bubble-wrap does a much better job. And, the bubble-wrap does a very good job of minimizing the crinkling of its shiny surface, so it resists degrading from 94% reflectance down to 90% reflectance.
• You also want to fully seal it to the walls, to prevent convection. Painter's/Freezer tape inside, Gaffer's tape outside.
  This "Stucco tape" is new to me. I have no idea on it.

So, are you covering the windows on the outside or the inside?
What is the cardboard doing for you? (is there another way we can do that)

[Sinergy]

Canoe- Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. We did the above method with the cardboard last year thinking that having a nice snug fit would be good. We did find that the inside of the RV was rather hot inside all day. I had a suspicion that we did it wrong and were not getting the full benefits of the aluminum bubble wrap. This year we will just cut the wrap to size and use painters tape to secure.
♥♥♥♥ Thanks again ♥♥♥♥♥

[Ratty]

The bubble barrier is an excellent idea. I did my vans windows on the outside and secured it with stucco tape. It leaves no residue. Sticks better than painters tape and is just a little bit more money. NOT real expensive like the gaffers tape. I open a couple of doors and can nap at mid-day. What a relief.

[Roundabout]

I used the stucco tape (it's red) too. I taped Mylar (a/k/a "space blanket") over all the windows on the outside paint of my rented 4 door pickup truck. The tape stuck great and came off without a trace. The simple, very cheap Mylar worked great too. The inside of the truck was always comfortable. Two "blankets" of Mylar, which together would fit into my pants pocket with room to spare, was all it took to completely cover all the windows. From outside, all you could see was shiny, but from inside you could see through the Mylar and see everything outside.

[happydragon]

I went low tech, wish I had pics, but I suck. I have a 25 ft travel trailer, I used a half dozen milk cartons to carry my crap to the playa, then emptied them and put them on the trailer roof, draped a large tarp across the top using the milk cartons as spacers and auger stakes (and my tow vehicle frame on one side) as tie down points for the tarp. Easy as pie and worked great even in high winds. I used ratchet straps between the milk crates and from the crates to the trailer frame to hold them in place.

[Canoe]

... having a nice snug fit would be good. ...This year we will just cut the wrap to size and use painters tape to secure.

We're on the same page, but I'm not sure we're on the same paragraph yet.

A huge amount of heat comes through the frames. A scary amount if they're black/dark and in the sun. As in, touching such a frame inside the RV within hours of sunrise may result in a burn. So check the upper part of my post to see about having covers that are larger than the glass, so they either cover the frame on the outside (blocking the heat at "source"), or cover well beyond the frame on the inside, to try to insulate and minimize emittance (with a much better result with the additional tape on frames outside). In both cases, you're sealing entirely around the cover with an appropriate tape.
(With black aluminum frames in the sun, covering on the inside: significantly less heat once I went with a double layer of FSBW (foil sided bubble wrap). Green painter's tape on the outside frames improved this further, particularly with wider tape that shielded all of the frame visible through the glass too), and with foil tape on top it was finally what I'd call good.)

... I taped Mylar (a/k/a "space blanket") over all the windows on the outside paint ...
From outside, all you could see was shiny, but from inside you could see through the Mylar and see everything outside.

Two things:

• aluminized Mylar (a.k.a. "space- blanket, emergency-, etc.) is great at heat reflectance, but not so great at a reduced interior emittance, and no insulation, AND - and it's a very big and - it crinkles much easier. The more it crinkles, the less the heat reflectance; 94% heat reflectance can quickly degrade to 70%, and lower. So bad the foil can start separating and flaking or peeling off, greatly degrading heat barrier performance while becoming MOOP. This can happen quite fast in the wind.
  Aluminized Mylar is definitely worth doing, but the aluminized bubble-wrap is much better as it: maintains more reflectance (minimized crinkling), insulates, much better (lower) emittance.

• Partially see-through:
  - see inside-to-outside in bright sunlight
  - can be see-through from outside-to-inside at night when a light is on inside (what, you didn't realize you were providing performance art?).

... I have a 25 ft travel trailer, ... draped a large tarp across the top using the milk cartons as spacers and auger stakes ...

If you can pull it off...

If you can manage a shade structure for your shelter (RV, trailer, car, van, tent, etc.), then you've stopped the worst heat source – the sun – before it even reaches your shelter, leaving you with less heat to deal with.

And where it covers down to (or near) the ground, like Elliot's Millicent, it's also blocking radiant heat coming from a sun-baked playa surface. Penalty: his greatly reduces your chance of being able to leave cookies on your counter in your shelter to bake while you're away.

[pink]

I cut my bubble wrap to be larger than my windows and tape to the outside. IMHO outside works better than inside for all of the reasons mentioned above. If I could I'd just wrap the whole van!

[Roundabout]

... I taped Mylar (a/k/a "space blanket") over all the windows on the outside paint ...
From outside, all you could see was shiny, but from inside you could see through the Mylar and see everything outside.

Two things:

• aluminized Mylar (a.k.a. "space- blanket, emergency-, etc.) is great at heat reflectance, but not so great at a reduced interior emittance, and no insulation, AND - and it's a very big and - it crinkles much easier. The more it crinkles, the less the heat reflectance; 94% heat reflectance can quickly degrade to 70%, and lower. So bad the foil can start separating and flaking or peeling off, greatly degrading heat barrier performance while becoming MOOP. This can happen quite fast in the wind.
  Aluminized Mylar is definitely worth doing, but the aluminized bubble-wrap is much better as it: maintains more reflectance (minimized crinkling), insulates, much better (lower) emittance.

I agree. The simple Mylar in the pic below worked flawless and made a huge difference inside my truck, but for my Springbar tent, I used the aluminized bubble-wrap to cover the roof. Wow, that was an amazing difference!
f

[mooserider]

Given the above comments, it looks like I'm going to be getting lots of foil bubble-wrap and encase the entire sides of my RV in it ([censored] dark paint job!). Not sure how to shade the black air conditioner housing; maybe I should just paint that white.

A related question: Are RV awnings any use? Or do they just tear off in the wind? I'm talking about the rollout ones attached to the RV. In fact, I'm concerned about the ones that cover up the slide-outs; would those just get torn off, as in I should just keep the slides in?