One Awesome Inch
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Okay here is my plan for stealth van ventilation. The point of this is to eliminate the need for exterior venting on the van. In my view, ventilation panels are a dead give away that someone may be living in the van. They make it look more like an RV and less like a work van. Living in the PNW I will need to remove humidity out of the van. Also, since I will be using the Wave 3 propane heater, which will add 2 ounces of water vapor to the air running at 1600BTUs, proper ventilation is even more important.
Let me know your thoughts on this....
1. Cut a space behind the rear license plate about 5 x 8 inches. This will be the fresh air intake. I will be adding some sort of sliding door to adjust the amount of air coming in, but my guess is that it will be mostly wide open.
2. Cut a hole in the partition wall, separating the house area from the driver area, and put in a computer fan to suck out the air into the driver area. Ideally I would like the fan to be behind the driver seat for maximum stealth, but I also want it to be above my stove to suck out any steam from boiling water, cooking etc. This fan will be connected to a 12v dimmer switch so that I can adjust the fan speed. I want it pretty low so that I can conserve battery power. Also I want the fan speed low so that I can minimize the amount heat being sucked out.
3. The air from the house area will be sucked out and exhausted into the driver area. I will open both the driver and passenger door window about 1 inch to facilitate removal of the exhaust air. I will have those window cover thingies on my doors to keep the rain out.
I wonder if opening both windows by 1 inch will be enough to prevent condensation from forming in the driver area. Thoughts?
The trickiest part of this is to figure out what speed I should run the fan at so that I can take the humidity out of the van living area, but try to minimize the amount of heat lost. However, I know heat loss is inevitable.
Any thoughts on this? Any problematic areas I missed?
Let me know your thoughts on this....
1. Cut a space behind the rear license plate about 5 x 8 inches. This will be the fresh air intake. I will be adding some sort of sliding door to adjust the amount of air coming in, but my guess is that it will be mostly wide open.
2. Cut a hole in the partition wall, separating the house area from the driver area, and put in a computer fan to suck out the air into the driver area. Ideally I would like the fan to be behind the driver seat for maximum stealth, but I also want it to be above my stove to suck out any steam from boiling water, cooking etc. This fan will be connected to a 12v dimmer switch so that I can adjust the fan speed. I want it pretty low so that I can conserve battery power. Also I want the fan speed low so that I can minimize the amount heat being sucked out.
3. The air from the house area will be sucked out and exhausted into the driver area. I will open both the driver and passenger door window about 1 inch to facilitate removal of the exhaust air. I will have those window cover thingies on my doors to keep the rain out.
I wonder if opening both windows by 1 inch will be enough to prevent condensation from forming in the driver area. Thoughts?
The trickiest part of this is to figure out what speed I should run the fan at so that I can take the humidity out of the van living area, but try to minimize the amount of heat lost. However, I know heat loss is inevitable.
Any thoughts on this? Any problematic areas I missed?