Truck Bed Office- Climate Control

On our first Georgia to Oregon Camping Trip in 2016 I was faced with the dilemma of my truck no longer fitting our family of 5. The reason being that only the front passenger seat fits a rear facing infant car seat, and the back seats are too small for adults. You might be thinking it's time for me to sell the truck, but this set up actually works quite well (who would want to sell one of the last full size pickups actually built in Japan???). My wife drives an 8 seater Toyota Sequioa and we still prefer this truck on longer trips. Being able to see and hand the baby snacks and toys is much better than a screaming baby behind you, and I really enjoyed having the little one close by when my wife needed a break from driving. The Bedryder Truck Bed Seating System was a great escape from all the kids for my wife, and allowed me to work without distraction or background kid noise on phone calls.  Being able to work while my wife drove is what allowed us to take 5 and 6 week trips.

Climate control

It took me several attempts to figure this one out which is why I decided to write about it. At first I tried getting the A/C tuned up so the truck would blow the coldest air possible (I'm impressed my truck A/C still works for being over 20 years old!). Then I sealed the windows between my truck cab and truck topper with a bicycle inner tube, and setup a small fan for pushing air out of the cab of the truck. 

See the small fan clipped on the window and the inner tube seal

This approach didn't really work at all. The A/C system for this truck was designed just for the cab, and it ended up making everyone in the truck hot. Thankfully the summer of 2016 was a mild one and I was able to open the side windows (the low humidity of the west helped a lot). There were a couple of times driving before we reached out west that it was just blazing hot. I could tolerate it as long as I had plenty of ice and water to drink, but its not really something I could convince others to do. If you google the term "accordion truck boot", you can find a product that will make a more permanent seal between the truck cab and your topper. I wanted to try some other things before I went this route.

Fan-Tastic Vent

The Fan-Tastic Vent 801200 RV Roof Vent ABS LID Vent Create-A-Breeze 3-Speed Manual Crank ABS Smoke Dome is pretty much the secret sauce to climate and moisture control. I don't know how I did without this on our first cross country trip in 2016. This thing is like a giant attic fan and a must have if you get stuck in a traffic jam and it's 100 degrees outside. It's also wonderful for sleeping. Without this thing my son and I would wake up in the back of the truck with condensation all over the inside. It also makes a great sound for sleeping at night, and trust me you need some background noise when you camp at established campgrounds. You should always expect there to be trains, barking dogs, or highway noise. In order to run this while driving, and also block out the sunlight you need to purchase the Maxxair 503.1504 (00-933069) Black Vent Cover as well. The instructions that I received in the box did not recommend using this particular vent cover with the Fan-Tastic Vent. I removed the bug screen on it and had no issues (the Fan-Tastic Vent has a built in bug screen that also protects little hands from reaching in the fan). Keep in mind this whole Fan-Tastic Vent install is going to require you to cut out a hole in your truck topper. Mine is getting old and faded on the top so I had no issues with that. This setup is also great for pets if you want to keep them out of the truck cab. Here's a picture of what my truck looked like with the Fan-Tastic Vent and cover.

Power

Now that I had a Fan-tastic Vent, I needed a power source (I needed power for my laptop and second monitor as well). Some of the newer trucks are coming with an outlet in the bed of the pickup. This would have been a nice option, however you still need to consider running the fan in the evening when the vehicle is not running. Running this fan all evening could lead to a dead car battery in the morning. Besides a dead car battery, most car batteries are not designed for long, slow current draw. I spent a lot of time researching all the different battery options out there like lithium, deep-cycle lead acid, and AGM. Then I started trying to figure out how I was going to charge the battery. Could I hook up a second battery in my truck to the alternator? Run a generator on the gear trailer while we were driving? Do I need to buy the pure sine wave generator which is more expensive? Use Solar? It's pretty overwhelming with all of the options out there, and the industry is starting to see this. Someone at eTrailer told me about the Goal Zero Yeti product line. This is exactly what i was looking for. One thing you will need to learn about is the watt hour rating of a battery, and how many watts your devices use. For example, if a battery is rated at 400Wh that means it is able to power a device pulling 400 watts for 1 hour. In the case of my macbook pro which uses around 80 watts, this battery would be able to power that for 5 hours (400/80). The Fan-tastic Vent pulls about 17 watts on low so round up to 20 watts and this could easily run for 20 hours. Add a solar panel to the mix like I did and you will be able to go beyond the 400Whr since it will be charging while you are using it. I started doing some research on portable power stations and came to the conclusion that there were cheaper options than the Goal Zero Yeti product line. On top of the higher price, I was seeing reviews about poor quality of the product. I decided to give the POWEROAK 400Wh Portable Power Solar Generator Lithium ion power supply for Emergency Camping backup power source with 300W DC/AC Power Inverter,12V Car DC/AC/USB Outputs, Charged by Solar Panel/AC/Car a chance instead after reading through the reviews, and wasn't disappointed. I also purchased a solar panel similar to this one, ALLPOWERS Solar Panel 100W 18V 12V Bendable Flexible Solar Charger SunPower Solar Module with MC4 for RV, Boat, Cabin, Tent, Car, Trailer, 12v Battery or Any Other Irregular Surface. I can't claim to be an expert on solar panels, but there were several spots in full sun where I was seeing 60 watt inputs. It might have been a little higher if the rooftop tent and fan vent weren't blocking some of the sun as you can see in my diagram above. If you decide to go with a bendable solar panel like the link above, you will need to bolt down all 4 corners well. Otherwise this thing will start flapping around like crazy when you are driving 65 mph. Since I've recently moved the rooftop tent off my bike rack, I plan on remounting my solar panel to a board that I can attach in the middle of the bike rack.