oh my gosh that's amazing did you see that
did you see that would you like more freedom when it comes to where you stay with your RV
this summer we have actually discovered a way to run our AC off of a standard household hookup
so while we're here mooch docking in Colorado and it's getting heated up we're staying cool inside
in this video we're gonna show you what we did and how you can do it too we are Charity Ben
Dakota and Trinity we decided we didn't want to wait for a life of adventure so in 2017 we bought
our first RV and set off to live a life of travel in the USA we've visited over 38 states
in three years and have many more to go follow along to learn all the best places
to see rv and travel tips and much more before we jump into today's video we just
want to give a huge thank you to those of you that have jumped in and have decided to support
us on patreon your support really helps us to keep videos like this coming to you plus we've got some
fun giveaways going on right now for our patreon supporters so you can check that out at the
link below now it's getting a little hot here in Colorado actually which is somewhat surprising the
temperatures here are about the same as they are this week in Florida now of course we don't have
the humidity but needless to say these rigs aren't insulated very well and if you get some sun
on them they're definitely going to heat up on the inside so staying cool in the summer and
having the ability to run your roof AC units when you're living RV life is crucial to being able to
have a good time and avoiding anybody getting too hot and cranky so traditionally to be able to run
both AC units on a rig like this or many other rigs you need a minimum of either 50 amp or 30 amp
service depending upon how your particular rig is set up now for us having a big rig we use 50 amp
service and actually we have a lot of campgrounds that we're going to be staying at this summer
that only provide a 30 amp hookup now we had this happen to us in Zion National Park last summer
where we only had access to a 30 amp hookup and we did try to keep both of our ACs going because it
was a hundred plus degrees during our stay there and we're pretty sure that strain of trying
to run both of the ACs on only a 30 amp hookup took out the compressor in our front AC
which resulted in us having to replace it while we were on the road to a very expensive
repair bill so that just wasn't fun so we've actually been kind of on the hunt for an option
or looking at what can we do to be able to run both of our acs when we need them on less power
and we were super super excited when we found out about this particular product so in doing
some research we found out about this soft start RV now basically what this does is it allows you
to run your AC units on less power and how that works is when the compressors kick in on your AC
units you see an amperage spike and kind of the best way that I thought about describing that is
if I was in the middle of a field and there was a big rock that I needed to move I could kind
of approach it one of two ways I could just run full bore and hit the rock with every single
ounce of energy that I have to get it to move or I could gently kind of start rolling the
rock and get it rolling bit by bit to get out of the way so obviously one method takes a ton
of energy and the other method doesn't take that big burst of energy and that's kind of like how
the air conditioners work with the compressors when those kick in so the way they're
designed to run from the factory is they get a big jolt of electricity that kicks that compressor
over to start cooling the air for your AC but what this does is it kind of gives it that rolling
start so we're super excited to be able to put these in today because this is actually going
to mean that we're going to have better life of the compressor because it's not getting that big
jolt up front it's going to be a little bit easier on that compressor mechanism to be able to give
it more of an extended life because it's not so hard on it when it kicks in so probably one of the
most exciting things that I am excited for is this is actually going to save us money in the long run
and i'll get to how that's going to happen here in just a minute but I want to let you know that we
did talk to soft star RV because we knew that you guys were going to want one too and so we have a
special discount for our viewers so the link below will give you a savings on purchasing this and if
you use our link below purchase directly through them they offer free shipping it's actually
cheaper than what you can find it on amazon so make sure that you use that link below so
that you can get a discount on yours now this is how this is going to save us money and I'm
super excited about this most campgrounds and if you've done some campground reservations this year
you've probably noticed that a lot of campgrounds charge more for a 50 amp site versus a 30 amp
site or they maybe have an extra fee per day if you want 50 amp service versus 30 amp
service the other thing is is a lot of the thousand trails campgrounds will not guarantee a
50 amp site they only will guarantee a 30 amp site and so we are going to be able to use 30 amp
instead of 50 amp when we need to at these campgrounds which is going to save us in the long
run the other thing is is this opens up so much more mooch talking opportunities where we haven't
traditionally looked for those mooch docking or even a lot of like boondockers welcome where
people will have a household plug-in for you to you know boondock or mooch dock at their
private property we've not really looked at those because we've felt like it's not going to
have enough power to run our ACs and do what we need to do but now this is going to open up those
doors so this just means more freedom for us with RV life this summer and being able to save more
at the same time so we're super super excited about the opportunities that this is really going
to provide for us in moving forward with RV life this summer we kind of wanted to compare a before
and after on these electrical spikes with the soft start versus before so we haven't installed it
yet it's going to get installed in just a minute my handy dandy cameraman husband is going to
be installing them but right now we've got the generator running and we've got this little power
display that we have up here so no ACs running right now we're pulling between seven and eight
amps with just the refrigerator a few fans running some lights that are on computer equipment
plugged in that's what we're pulling right now so i'm gonna come over here and i'm gonna
turn the thermostat over to say to kick on the ac there went the spike did you see that huge spike
so that was a huge spike that happened when that compressor kicked on and then now it looks
like we've leveled off to using right around 27 or so amps 26 amps and this is with both
acs running so front and rear ac is running generators on so we should be able to run 30 amps
of both ac should be able to run 30 amps with both ACs and still have plenty of power to run other
things so one thing that you will have to remember is that if you're using like 30 amp service
like we just saw if we've got both ACs running we're probably leveling out around that
27-ish amps now because we work remotely we're bringing you these videos we do have a
lot of equipment that we've got plugged in from time to time so if you are at a 30 amp
campsite and you've got a 50 amp rig like this and you're running both acs you'll just need to
kind of be aware of what your power usage is with the other components and maybe run just one asc
if you're going to be running say the microwave or if you have an onboard washer and dryer like we
do if you're going to run one of those components then just run one of the acs we also if we need to
could you know switch some of our components over to propane so like we could run the fridge off of
the propane we can run our hot water heater off of propane so we do have kind of a little bit
of wiggle room in what sort of components are actually using electricity versus what sort of
components are using another power source so in that particular situation running both ACs hooked
up to a 30 amp with the soft start just can maybe pull power from another source for some of those
other components to be able to have the power we need to say charge laptops or run an extra fan
I think the bathroom fans running right now so needless to say we're not exactly the best at
conserving power but we're getting better okay so I am going to head up there on the roof
and get these soft starts installed on both the front and the back ac unit what
i'm going to do is just take off the shroud from the ac then underneath the electrical panel
is the model number of each of the ac units so I'm going to go up there take a picture of those
and then look up the wiring diagram for each one so basically you just put on the connectors onto
the soft start and plug them into the appropriate spots match up the colors it's supposed to be a
pretty easy install so good news is that if you can see that RV right there I've got charity's
dad on call to help me out if I get stuck um I am definitely not a handy guy by any means
but the RV life has really taught me to become handy it's really forced me to to really get
outside my comfort zone and just get stuff done first thing you really want to do is just take
the cover off on the ac which is pretty simple there's usually only like four screws then
on the side you're going to see a little plate a panel where all the electrical comes
into right here and then on the back of the the plate here is a yellow tag and then you'll see
the numbers 1976 and then followed by the 1976. like on this mach 15 is e136 you'll go on onto the
website and i'll put a link right down below that website will give you the wiring diagram
for the model unit ac that you have so we now have the soft start installed on both ac
units the front and the rear so what I'm going to do is turn on the front AC and we're at about five
amps right now and we're gonna see if we get that you know 40 amp spike when it starts up
so turning it on and let's uh see what it looks like okay should kick on any minute
oh my gosh that's amazing did you see that did you see that it spiked eight or nine it
didn't go past 11 this time so that is so amazing and it's a just a 110 outlet so I'm able
to kick on that front ac without any huge spike blowing breaker so we're super super excited with
these results with soft start so there'll be a link below if you want to check it out again our
viewers get a special discount through soft start RV and now we are so nice and cool we're going
to really be able to enjoy the rest of our time here without being sweltering in our RV on
those work days being able to run that one AC off of just the household power here super super
excited about that so if you learned something new in this video today make sure that you click that
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over here until next time we'll see on the road
