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How to Determine the AC BTU Rating Needed to Cool an Enclosed Trailer  

Updated 07/21/2024 | Published 01/18/2020

Question:

I have a 28ft trailer that is 8.5ft wide with 7ft ceiling. Should I go with one or two roof top units? I am in SC where it get really hot with high humidity.

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Expert Reply:

Based on the square footage of your 28 foot utility trailer the minimum BTU rating you'd need from an AC unit would be 4,760. So the Advent 15k BTU unit part # ACM150C would easily handle cooling your trailer. There'd be no need to add a second unit.

To determine how much BTU is needed for a trailer you take the square footage and multiply it by 20 btu and that's the minimum needed.

expert reply by:
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Jameson C
Kevinb profile picture

Kevinb

7/20/2024

It seems from the 20 BTU/square foot formula that most camping trailer's A/Cs are way oversized. Am I missing something? We have a 22ft Bambi Sport Airstream and the A/C is 13,000 BTU, which ramps our 3,000 watt Honda Generator up to over 2,000 RPM. It gets very cool very fast, but the generator gets noisy and it would eat up the tank of gas in less than 4 hours--so I would say it's very oversized for the North East where we use it. Perhaps 13,000 BTU would be needed in Arizona. Trying to run the factory A/C from solar is a non-starter. In the future I hope manufacturers will "right size" the A/Cs to reduce their energy appetites.

Jameson C. profile picture
Etrailer Expert

Jameson C.

7/21/2024

@Kevinb Thank you for passing that info on to us.

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