The BEST 12v Portable Air Cooling for Motorhomes? Transcool Review

I'm now going to show you our little transcool review that we did so that you can decide if you need a portable aircon unit for yourself. There are loads of different types on the market. It doesn't have to be this particular unit. I'll leave some links in the show notes below for you. OK, it's definitely brought the temperature of the air down. It's cool. It's not cool, but it's cooler than the air. You really, really don't want to like this one, do you? I do not like it, that's the problem. You're like the most biased reviewer ever in all the wrong ways. Can you do me a favour? I'd be interested to know how much it draws so that we know if we could run it off grid. Well, 1.7 amps is max, so full out. I mean, if you were asleep for, what do we sleep? Six hours? Seven hours? OK, let's call it eight hours. OK. Heck, let's call it ten hours for the sake of maths. That's 17 amps. So, you know, if we were driving the next day, it would be fine. If we were completely off grid for a few days, that's a lot. So, do it on really gentle. That's what we were... No, do it on the very, very lowest setting. That's on the lowest setting. So it's still quite noisy, but then I suppose if it was the other end of the van just... That's not too bad, yeah. ...keeping cool at night, or keeping the dog cool. Go on then, turn it up full. That is noisy, but hang on, you can see your T-shirt's proper. Other brands are available. You can see your T-shirt. Clean ones as well. Yeah, clean ones, not the scruffy ones. That is quite impressive, though. Okay, it's kind of hard to show the temperature difference when we don't have a thermometer, but we have got a digital thermometer, so we've kind of got a plan, haven't we? We're not sure if it'll work. No. We have got a plan. Right, go on then. The theory is, what we're going to do for now, we've not got an air-based thermometer, so we have got a normal thermometer. Go on then. It does need to work by touching skin or moisture, so what we're going to do, or my theory is, and feel free to yell at me, people. I'm going to switch it on. I'm going to touch it against my hand in this area. I'm going to let it reset, and I'm going to touch my hand. You stay there and I'll move. Okay. And then it should get up to a temperature. We're at 35.5. Isn't normal human body temperature like 37 or something? I don't know. That's when we find out you've got COVID. Probably. Okay, 35.5. 35.5, back here in this air temperature. Against my hand. Let's put it in front of the transcom. Okay. Okay, so I want to do two tests on this. The first is as it should be. It's a transcooler, and we've just put water out of the tap into it. This isn't cold water or anything like that. It does say put icy water in there or put ice cubes in. But on the basis that we're not going to get ice cubes anywhere, I'm trying to find a way of doing it. So one way is with water, and the other way is going to be with a cool pack and see what happens. Switch on. Reset our thermometer. Ten seconds. We've been a little bit anti. Why? It's a bit noisy compared to the fan. Yeah, it is. I've not been anti, I'm just sceptical. My biggest fear is damp. Because it uses water, that we're going to just put moisture everywhere. In this sort of heat? Yeah, we're blowing across water into the back. You put moisture in. Well, this is actually impressive. That's two degrees lower. So it's lowered the temperature by 213 degrees. Okay, I didn't expect it to be that obvious, actually. No, me neither. Okay, I'm going to turn this off. I'm going to try my probe. What it does is it soaks this blue filter. It gets it wet. So the more you use it, the better it becomes. How does it feel? I mean, it feels cold. I'm actually quite impressed. But it doesn't feel colder than it did with the water in it. It sounds different. It will do, because it's having to go around. Right, well then, ten seconds on hand. I'm just going to hold on, I'm going to warm my hands up. We're doing everything we can to make this not work, aren't we? But that's the one we're doing, because that's getting cold as well. Ready? It's not moving. 18.4, wow. So the optimum one is... Cold water with a cool pack. Now, how long it will stay this cool for, but compared with just the water on it, it was pretty good, wasn't it? So go on then, given this very unscientific, but we did our best experiment, what are your thoughts about the transport that we've been carrying around for two years? It's great. It's certainly cooling it down. I mean, where I'm sat now, it's cooling it down. This is nice. It's noisy. But, okay, hang on, hold on. Okay, so we've put it on the floor. The dog's not actually in the bathroom, he's in the mirror. Better than the 12-volt fan? Obviously, it cools it down more. It's noisier than the 12-volt fan, but we can turn it down and it can be quieter. Okay, so that's halfway. Okay. I'm doing this best. And the fan, that's full, which is definitely quieter. Point the fan at me. Yeah, I can really feel that. Thanks, dog. He's the wet filter that goes in front of the fan. To be fair. Hey, Dave. Hey, Dave, don't say hello. Right. So, anyway, how's that in terms of noise for you? Because Jubiline said it was really noisy. It's better. It's a lot better. It is better, doesn't it? We can have a conversation. So, in general, are you pleased that we bought this? When did we buy it? Oh, a couple of years ago now. 2018. So, yeah. Two and a half years ago, we've been carrying this thing around. I'm still nervous over the damp. Oh, you can feel it. Can you feel it where you are? It's starting to slowly creep round. I'd close the door and let it recirculate. It works better when everything's sealed. Because it recirculates as it cools the air down. Otherwise, you're just bringing warm air back through. It wouldn't keep the door open of an evening anyway. Of a night time, anyway. I'm more impressed than I thought I was going to be. Okay. If you are spending some time in a van this summer, or planning your next adventure, you may find either of these videos helpful. If you are new to our channel and you'd like more tips for motorhoming or camper van life, then by all means hit subscribe and I'll see you on the next video. Thanks for watching.