How to cope with no APU

I thought cycle century was anti-idling for reefers so I just set it to continous run to mess with the law. I fought the law and the law won.

 

Yes, that load of meat is worth more than the driver. Somebody paid money for that meat. Somebody else is paying you to run that truck. See the disconnect? Especially if you're an experienced driver running for a training company. Company's gotta pay you more to run that truck than the newbie student that just graduated off his trainer's truck (still looking at you, Werner!). Remember, to some of these companies your butt in that seat is only worth as little as they can pay some other idiot to drive. And if other idiots will drive without basic needs and comforts, why shouldn't you?

 

APU, idle, Idleaire, motel is their choices. No idle is not an option. I always stuck to them rules and I've always been comfortable. You can't sleep when it's all hot and humid out. I had my AC go out once on a trip from CA to FL in the summer. I toughed it out the whole way across the desert mainly because it was dry heat. When I got to humid FL, they put me in a motel until the AC was fixed. That's the way it should be.

Alot of them anti-idle laws have stipulations like CT says no idle when out of the truck. Or have a pet. A dog is allowed to idle, but you can't. Go figure.

 

Because I did it when I was young, old school. Didn't spend much time parked. So they mandate you sleep 10 hours and mandate that you can't sleep for those 10 hours?!

Hand me a public official for a week and they would come back with a new perspective.

 

Yeah, but that perspective would last just as long as it took said public official to get back into his air conditioned car, office, condo, what have you. And I agree with you, a certain comfort level is absolutely necessary to maintain proper sleep patterns. A person can't sleep if too hot, and sleeping too cold can be downright deadly! I was honestly surprised that over the past winter, drivers weren't turning up dead in their sleepers due to hypothermia, especially here in PA. But some of the companies don't care, the feds don't care, and the states don't care. The companies are too busy packing all that extra money into the owner's or investors' pockets, and the feds and states are looking at trucks as big rolling ATMs. Toss in a bunch of tree-hugging enviro whackos and ambulance-chasing lawyers who advertise how dangerous all us truckers are, and there you go.

We must love this job, to put up with all this crap on a daily basis.

 

A point about the ice chest air conditioners. Do not bother with them. A 6000BTU air conditioner, which is about the smallest you would want to use, provides a certain amount of heat removal, hence "BTUs". 12000 BTUs is the equivalent heat removal as the work of melting one ton of ice. Cooling systems are rated in BTUs per hour. They usually do not say "per hour", it is assumed.

A 6000BTU per hour air conditioner provides the same cooling (on its best day) as would melting 1000 lbs of ice per hour. And people wonder why the a/c takes so much juice to run.

Assuming an approximately 12 gallon ice chest air conditioner with 100 lbs of ice, there is 600BTU of total cooling capacity. It is easy to see that it will not be adequate for the purpose of keeping a hot bunk cool overnight. It may blow cool air on your face for a few hours until it manages to melt the ice, but the rest of you will still be hot and sweaty. It will take a few hours to melt the ice because the fan cannot move enough air over or through the ice to melt it fast enough to make 6000BTU (lasting 12 minutes), but will make more like 100BTU for 6 hours or 200BTU for 3 hours. If you can build a tube or coffin to sleep in, just barely big enough, and insulate it like an ice chest, it still won't keep up with body heat because at rest the body makes about 250BTU per hour.

OK, what about using a cooler made with tubing through which water flows, and a small radiator with fan, and filling this cooler with ice so as to get every last BTU out of the cold water?

Ice has a "specific heat" (scientific term for the capacity to absorb or release heat energy) that is of about half that of water. That is why, at the instant ice melts to water, it cools so well. It doubles its ability to absorb heat in that one instant.

Once melted however, the ability to absorb heat changes so little that it does not matter in the practical world of ice chest air conditioners. Once the ice is melted, its already done its work and the circulating water will soon be at room temperature.

Sorry if this is confusing and I am no expert at it, just trying to give an explanation why these things do not work very well for the time and expense involved with filling and emptying them. If what I have said is wrong, someone please point it out.

 

Im pretty sure they give the drivers a higher idle time that dont have an apu, and bottom line, if its two hot or freezing in the truck, apu or no apu im staying comfortable, and if that means idling my truck so be it. theres ways to that u can cut down the idle time so u can get more for when u really need it

 

This is hard to believe! After 32 years of mostly reefer pulling and into the freaking CARB laws of CA I have yet to have seen any driver with a reefer get ticketed for it running.

I'll need to see the ticket before I believe this one! Even NYC/MA, Boston doesn't bother you unless you're parked in a more residential area type of city then they might ask you to move.

As for continuous running of the unit, that's a good idea for certain loads. All you needed to win was a copy of the BOL with the directions for cooling. BUT! Send the bill to the company and get them to pay the fine as it was their freight correct?

 

That was a joke.

 

Okay so a question I haven't been able to find yet...

2000 watt inverter 5000 btu window air conditioner just sitting in the truck (not in a window) would this work? I've found some cheap 5000 btu ac units with good reviews. I've heard of a guy doing this. It worked till he was sitting in 112 degree heat. My company is strict on idling. I've been told if it's above 88 degrees they will let you idle but I'd rather find a way around that.