Our Coach

Our Coach

No matter what your rv is, a Travel Trailer, 5th Wheel, Class A Motor Home or what have you, we all seem to have the same issue.  Cupboards that can’t seem to keep the heat out.

Why is this a problem? Well, for a couple reasons.

1: it’s hard enough to keep some rv’s cool in the summertime (especially when you have a darker colored coach like we do) and when the sun is beating down on the outside of your walls, it can make the inside of our cupboards extra warm.

2: Keeping your food in these heated cupboards is not good for your food nor your bank account when you have to replace the spoiled or melted food.

And quite honestly, melted chocolate chips is not an option in my opinion.

Most rv walls are made with a thin layer of insulation.

The Thin Walls In Rv's

The Thin Walls In Rv’s

As you can see from the picture, it’s not much of a barrier between the inside of the rv and the hot beating sun outside.

So what does one do to solve this problem?

We are not unique in this solution. As a matter of fact, their are some of you out there that have done this already and I’m hoping you are happy with this easy, quick and cheap solution.

We found this thin insulation on a roll that we were able to buy by the foot while we were at Tiffin, in their campground store. You may be able to find something like this at your local camping store. Also on Amazon…CLICK HERE.

Measuring the inside of our cupboards, we bought what we needed, got our tape measure out and scissors and went to work.

Lining The Empty Cupboards

Lining The Empty Cupboards

Lining The Empty Cupboards

Lining The Empty Cupboards

First step is emptying your cupboards completely. This may take a while if you’ve lived in your rv for a while. Just think of it as a good time to really do a good organization job and purge anything that you haven’t used in a while.

Second, get your tape measure and measure the entire length of the inside wall of your cupboard. Keep in mind that if your cupboard is on a slide you’ll want to measure the side of the cupboard that is on the outside slide wall as this will get heat from the sun also.

Walls All Lined And Stuff Back In Cupboards

Walls All Lined And Stuff Back In Cupboards

You’ll also want to measure the roof. At first we did not think the roof of the cupboard would need to be insulated because it is protected from the sun by the slide topper. However, after we lined the walls and put everything back into the cupboards, we took heat measurements and the top of the cupboard was significantly hotter than the walls. Therefore defeating the purpose of lining the walls because it was still letting heat in. So we ended up lining the ceiling of the cupboards too and this helped significantly with the reduction of heat.

We also found that when lining the ceiling portion, you will need some sort of double sided tape to keep the insulation from dropping.

Walls All Lined And Stuff Back In Cupboards

Walls All Lined And Stuff Back In Cupboards

Adding Insulation To The Ceiling Of The Cupboards

Adding Insulation To The Ceiling Of The Cupboards

Speaking of heat. We took heat measurements before the lining was installed and after.

Before Insulation Installed

Before Insulation Installed

After Insulation Installed

After Insulation Installed

As you can see from the pictures, the heat was reduced by at least 10 degrees. Keep in mind, this was only on a 70 degree day. So imagine what a typical summer day savings would be.

In our opinion, this was a much needed improvement to reducing the heat build-up inside the cupboards.

We also took it upon ourselves to insulate our bathroom vanity. Now our toiletries are no longer luke warm and that is welcome change.

Now time for a Public Service Announcement: It is not advised to keep medication in your vanity. Heat and moisture from the shower and such may degrade the medication. It’s always best to keep your medication in a cool and dry environment. Insulation installed or not.

We’ve been happy with our results of the insulation liner inside our cupboards. For those of you that are not thrilled with what your cupboards will look like with a silver liner inside them I did think of something that may help. You can always go out and buy some decorative contact paper and stick it to the liner. That way when you open your cupboards it will just look like some type of wallpaper. Just a thought.

And if you are looking for it…You can get it from Amazon…Here is the link… CLICK HERE