Installing a MaxxFan on your Sprinter Van
One of the most important things you can do to your van is to add a fan to the roof. When you do anything in a van you add condensation. When you drive, your dashboard has the ventilation that allows fresh air to enter. While you drive the old air vents out. But when you park the car and begin doing things in the van condensation starts to build up.
But what is condisation?
Condensation occurs when warm air collides with cold surfaces, or when there's too much humidity in your van. When this moisture-packed warm air comes into contact with a chilly surface, like the metal wall of your van, it cools down quickly and releases the water, which turns into liquid droplets on the cold surface. This is easy to see on the windows of your van. But what’s not easy to see is how it collects behind the headliner, the wall panels etc. Once the moisture gets into the walls of your van it’s more difficult to get out, especially if you’ve insulated the walls. This moisture can cause that dreaded dank mildew smell and can actually be quite dangerous to your health let alone just stinky.
If you’re planning on sleeping in your van you MUST install a fan. Otherwise you will most likely get mildew or other types of mold growing in the walls of your van.
I read this interesting article from NPR about Every Night You Lose More Than A Pound While You're Asleep (For The Oddest Reason)
“When we sleep we also exhale water vapor. On most nights, the room we’re in is cooler than we are. Our throat, our lungs, the inside of us, is roughly 98 degrees. The bedroom might be 75 degrees. When you breathe in, cool air enters your body. Then, when it’s time to exhale, says Bologna Vest, “our body moistens the surfaces of our lungs and the air we exhale, now warmed to approximately 90F has a relative humidity of almost 100%” — which means, I think, that when you breathe out, your breath pulls water from inside you and “whoosh!” — once it goes, you lose a little bit of water-weight. Anyone who’s had to lug a pail of water knows that H2O has mass. Now, multiply by a night of breaths and gazillions of atoms, and there’s a second explanation for weight loss: disappearing water vapor.” And that pound of water is now all over your van’s interior. This is multiplied by how many people are in the van at the same time. ”
If you ever cook or plan on cooking in a van, that moisture content will go waaaaay up. Simply boiling water for coffee will easily increase the interior humidity of your van in minutes. If you cook in your van, not only will all the moisture of your food evaporate into your van, but the smell of your food as well. You get the picture of what’s going on. Just like the hood in your kitchen of your house, the same concept goes in your van.
Another added benefit is to reduce the greenhouse effect.
When you park your van in the sun, even on a cold day with the windows closed, the temps inside begin to quickly climb. In the summer it can get dangerously hot. Something very unsafe for people or dogs. One of the easiest ways to reduce the Greenhouse effect is to park in the shade and open the windows. If you want to leave the van secured the easiest ways to keep the temps down is to keep the airflow moving. So how does the greenhouse effect work?
Energy from the sun, in the form of short, visible light wavelengths, make it through your windows. We always cover our windows to reduce this effect. But that light energy comes in. Yes some of it bounces back and goes back out of the van but some of that is absorbed by the interior. Just like the outside of the van getting hot from the sun. This is now turned into reradiated heat and converted to longer wavelengths in the invisible infrared range. In show this is now heat.
And now that heat has nowhere to go. It’s now trapped inside your van. And it just gets hotter and hotter. One study, found that the teams go up 20 degrees Fahrenheit above the outside temps in just 10 minutes, and 33 degrees in 20 minutes. If that heat has no where to go, it will just climb.
We travel with a dog quite often. Here’s some great info from My Dog is Cool
What fan should I get?
There are plenty of great RV roof fans on the market from large to small. Check out our other post on installing a Mercedes Benz factory roof van.
But there’s one fan that seems to be the most popular. The MaxxSir
Why do we like the MaxxFan?
It’s cover is motorized
It has multiple speeds & It has multiple reverse speeds
It’s quiet - important on those hot summer nights
It has a remote - this is nice for control from a distance
It has a bug net - keep those mosquitos out!
It has a transparent option (black pictured)
You can drive with it open
It looks good
Before you start
First, get everything you need before you begin. Here’s a list of things you’ll need just to place the MaxxFan onto your van. This does not include the wiring. We’ll cover that in a different post.
We’re not paid by anyone to recommend specific brands here. We fell in love with the Milwaukee cordless tools. In this install we use the smaller and easier to work with M12 set of power tools.
Installation
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