Bringing my Casita trailer to the Playa

[Molotov]

Too late for this year, but I'm going to come solo in 2015 in a 17' Casita trailer. Since I will be a BM virgin, I will probably gravitate to one of the orphan camps for the first year, anyway. I am debating bringing a generator or a 12 volt battery bank (4 six volt batteries in the truck bed, properly secured and wired) I don't anticipate running the genset more than a couple of hours a day during peak heat hours. Of course, the battery bank won't run the air conditioner, but it is a silent, fume free way for powering everything else. The battery bank set up has worked well in cooler weather.

So, does it really get hot enough to need air conditioning on the playa if I have the trailer buttoned up against dust? I don't really want to sleep outside. I have already anticipated minimizing water use to avoid filling up the grey and black water tanks, propane won't be an issue, so all I am left with is the power question.

[Savannah]

You won't need air conditioning at night, because it's usually 50-70F at night, or colder. Temperatures are quite manageable in a trailer from about 6pm until the next morning until about 10am. If you try to sleep later than that, or take a mid-day nap, you will want the air conditioning on, because it will be oppressively hot inside.

One strategy that will help you nap without a need for air conditioning: have a travel alarm in some way shape or form (a phone, if you have a way to charge it, or battery operated, etcetera). Taking a "disco nap" from 6pm to 10pm is a good way to supplement sleep.

[Elliot]

Hey Tex, welcome to ePlaya.

What you want is a tent over the camping trailer to keep the sun off it. And you want an air gap of at least a foot between the trailer and the tent so heated air can blow away before the heat migrates into the trailer. A canvas carport might work well for this, provided you tie it down very well. We talk about "Costco carport" around here, but there are many other brands. Be sure to get a good quality one with thick poles. Lots of info about this right here on ePlaya, going back many years.

With shading, my school bus never gets too hot.

[tattoogoddess]

You won't want an air conditioner. You will want a swamp cooler. Not enough humidity for a ac to work right out there. Lookup threads on keeping cool on here.

Don't minimize water if you don't have to, use a evap pond with a towel bar/towel weaper. Easy as pie to make.

[Jackass]

With that much battery power you should be able to run a small circus for the week on batteries alone.

[maryanimal]

Hi TexasRick and welcome! Go to the heating and cooling thread. Figjam has an easy to build swamp cooler or two. It's a good thread for swamp cooler information!

[tattoogoddess]

With that much battery power you should be able to run a small circus for the week on batteries alone.

Have you ever been to bm? It is a circus lol.

[mytripod]

oooh! Those Casitas are cool little trailers.

[Jackass]

Here you go

casa.jpg

[Elliot]

Evaporative ("swamp") coolers work exceptionally well on Playa, because the humidity is so low. As humidity goes up, swamp coolers become less effective and eventually useless at high humidity.

Air Conditioning also works fine on Playa. Air conditioning has the wonderful side-effect of removing moisture from the air (and dripping it onto the ground outside, and under your car), which is exceptionally useful in humid climates but irrelevant on Playa.

Considering cost and generator noise, a small swamp cooler seems the way to go with a small camping trailer on Playa. Again, in combination with big shade.

[theCryptofishist]

Too late for this year, but I'm going to come solo in 2015 in a 17' Casita trailer...

Is 2014 another one of those "Leap Years" that we completely skip?

[Captain Goddammit]

Well it seems I'm outnumbered here but I'm gonna tell you the opposite of what most are saying: DON'T go with a swamp cooler!
Swamp coolers are terrific but they're best suited to tents and domes... not RVs, because they put out too much moisture. In an RV you want A/C.
Yes it definitely gets hot enough to want the A/C on, and in my opinion/experience, nothing beats being able to sleep in cold comfort during the hottest parts of the day, completely sidestepping all the suffering, and being all recharged and ready to play when it's cool and dark out!

If you have a pickup bed at your disposal to carry stuff, consider doing what I do: carry a few barrels of water (I use 33-gallon plastic ones because they're cheap and easier to manage than 55-gallon ones) and use an electric pump to refill your camper tank as needed.
Bring an extra empty barrel and use a five gallon bucket and funnel to dump your grey water into it. As you use up the water in the other barrels, you can use them for more grey water. Then, have all the nice hot showers (or cool ones) you want! On the playa, that's luxury! Screw the water conservation suffering crap! It's Burning Man, you're there to have a good time! Bring all the comfort you can! Why the hell not??

[unjonharley]

Well I'll be damned,,

godamnit said something intelligent.. More comfort+more fun..

[BBadger]

I find that if you have enough shade, and airflow, it's really quite comfortable enough to sleep. The lack of humidity helps that a lot, as the shade feels like shade.

I hate humidity. It's a reason I just love the playa conditions -- well, the "normal" playa conditions. I think that, despite being cooler, I'd actually be even more miserable with the clammy feeling of a swamp cooler, than without it in the shade.

[Elliot]

You guys make a good point. I agree it is possible to get too much moisture from a swamp cooler, and then the clamminess begins to outweigh the cooling. A vital part of using a swamp cooler is to open a window of at least the size of the swamp cooler duct for air circulation which carries some of the moisture back out. A swamp cooler simply will not work properly without thru-circulation.

But I still say that adequate shade and air circulation makes cooling unnecessary. Mind you, I leave the windows open most of the time and just "embrace" the dust. YMMV

[ranger magnum]

You won't want an air conditioner. You will want a swamp cooler. Not enough humidity for a ac to work right out there. Lookup threads on keeping cool on here.

Don't minimize water if you don't have to, use a evap pond with a towel bar/towel weaper. Easy as pie to make.

Absolutely untrue. Where did you get this information? Ac works anywhere, at any humidity level.

[tattoogoddess]

It is a hell of a lot more efficient in humid weather then the playa. It will work but not near as good as a swamp.

[Elliot]

Anybody consider all the variables here?

[BBadger]

It is a hell of a lot more efficient in humid weather then the playa. It will work but not near as good as a swamp.

No, AC is not any more efficient in humid air. It might help eradicate the enemy-that-is-humidity from the area being cooled, but it isn't made any more efficient by the presence of humidity. Air conditioning can also be made to perform better than swamp cooling in all cases because it relies on a heat pump, so it can actually directly cool the air, not merely move some volume of moist air that then must evaporate in order to cool the surroundings.

Swamp coolers require special conditions in order to cool as well. Without sufficient exhausting of that moist air with drier air, the swamp cooler only serves to increase the humidity in an area, which in turn reduces the body's ability to remove heat through evaporation.

[Molotov]

RE: air conditioning vs. swamp cooler. Points made. Thank you for the input.

See you in 2015. I will be the grizzled old dude celebrating his 60th year on Earth on the playa.

[tamarakay]

RE: air conditioning vs. swamp cooler. Points made. Thank you for the input.

See you in 2015. I will be the grizzled old dude celebrating his 60th year on Earth on the playa.

Welcome! There is no better place to celebrate

[ranger magnum]

It is a hell of a lot more efficient in humid weather then the playa. It will work but not near as good as a swamp.

Do some homework before spitting out completely wrong information.

[maryanimal]

What is a casita trailer?


ETA: I googled it! I like those trailers!