Autumn and winter bring new challenges, at least if you are traveling in your motorhome. Due to the large difference between warm and cold, condensation usually forms on the windshield. Moisture is generally a problem in the cold season, whether your vehicle is parked for the winter or is still in use.
Why does condensation form on the windows?
The general rule for windows, whether at home or in a mobile home, is that condensation forms when warm air with high humidity meets a cold surface. This is because warm air is able to absorb more moisture than cold air.
The windows, especially in the cockpit area, are always the coldest spots in the vehicle and therefore the perfect place for condensation 🫣.
Dehumidifier against condensation?
If the humidity in the warm air is the problem for condensation, the idea is to simply dehumidify the air. That’s exactly how we tried it too.
We bought an Absodry from Amazon on recommendation and put it in our Cali. We were very surprised at first, because the Absodry was always full of water and seemed to do its job perfectly. However, the enthusiasm didn’t last long, because on the first few trips this fall we noticed that the windows were just as steamed up as they were without them. Well, the Absodry is not a high-performance device. So we thought we’d try a proper dehumidifier.
We went back to Jeff’s department store and bought an electric dehumidifier from Comfee last Black Friday. For 100 euros, the device should be able to dehumidify a room of 16 square meters. That should be enough for the Grand California. A first test at home next to the laundry rack worked wonderfully. For this reason, we were completely optimistic that it could work just as well in the Cali. The first snag, however, was the power consumption of the colleague, we are really not badly equipped and with 300Ah well on the way, but the dehumidifier draws 340 watts. Our 300Ah provide us with 3600Wh, which means we can run the dehumidifier on the batteries for just 10.5 hours without using another consumer. Nevertheless, we gave it a chance…
After a rainy night, we had sacrificed almost our entire battery, only to discover the next morning that the windows were just as steamed up as ever. What a bummer….
Why the dehumidifier does not work
But why did the device work so well in our four walls, but not in the Cali? After a bit of searching and a bit of Google, the penny dropped. Not only do we use ventilation grilles on the front windows, every (new) motorhome must have forced ventilation – we don’t even want to discuss the sense and nonsense of it at this point. The fact is, the Grand California has such a ventilation system, that’s the round white part on the roof of the car.
So we have at least two sources where air is constantly coming into the vehicle interior and, as you may have guessed, moisture from outside. If you’re being nasty, you could say we could have just put the dehumidifier outside the door and ended up with the same result.
To sum up, a dehumidifier, whether Absodry or Comfee, doesn’t work and doesn’t make any sense, because the moisture gets into the car via the ventilation, but if it is switched off and nobody is in it, it goes out again this way.
What do things do?
So now we’ve learned our lesson and are a bit smarter. But we still haven’t found a solution to the condensation problem, or probably we have. 🥹 We’ve always despised the parts and wanted to find another, more practical solution, but at least the dehumidifiers aren’t it, external insulation for the front windows. Yes, of course, now Herbert (no one is being addressed directly here and the name Herbert is also great, so don’t worry) reads our text and says: “Sure, I could have told you that before. We’ve been using that in our Hymer yogurt pot for 20 years.” Yes Herbert, you’re right!
Will we get one of these insulators now? We don’t know! We currently live with the water on the window and wipe it dry every morning.
Now you have read the 724 words up to this point and are thinking what is the conclusion or quintessence of this article. Very easy, dehumidifiers are useless in a motorhome with forced ventilation 😎
P.S. In the end you have now read 783 words, if you also included the article about the air grilles, then there were even a few more. Many thanks for that
