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Sat May 17, 2014 5:42 am

I swear I've searched. Has anyone installed a small fan where the fridge flue vent is to just vent out the van whilst parked?

I don't have the original fridge in there, so the flue vent is sealed off and doing nothing. I was thinking of installing a small fan (like a computer fan) on that hole and wiring in to the existing solar to have a little air movement / hot air extraction when parked in the sun. I'd wire it to the solar 12v output side of things to just run off solar and not the battery (since I'd really only need it in the sun).
Anyone done this? Is it even worth bothering with? I'm in Florida and have no A/C, so every degree counts ;)

Sat May 17, 2014 7:27 am

Not a bad idea seeing as your reefer is gone.

However, that computer fan your thinking of installing at the back end of that vent hole doesn't move enough CFM to make much difference.
Not in the heat & humidity where your at.

Sat May 17, 2014 7:34 am

ryecatcher wrote: I swear I've searched. Has anyone installed a small fan where the fridge flue vent is to just vent out the van whilst parked?
It's not uncommon to add a computer fan where the city water port is/was to expel the hot air generated by the fridge. But I don't think a similar fan at the flue vent would be very effective at venting the entire van cabin because of the fan's small size/location. A better solution might be a larger fan at the skylight. I've done this and, while I don't have hard data, it does seem to be mildly effective.

Sat May 17, 2014 8:34 am

I have also been thinking of how to deal with this heat problem in Florida. The van gets super heated during the day when parked. Our wimpy A/C systems cannot cool it off after it is super heated. The skylight guy used to sell a solar vent that attached to our skylight. You must cut a round hole in our existing skylight. Either a 3" or 4" hole. These vents are used on boats. They are sold by Westmarine. Read the reviews. They seem to poop out after 2 years of use. It is the only thing I have found. They are made by Nicro. Here is Westmarines website:
http://www.westmarine.com/nicro-ventilation--day-night-plus-solar-vents--P012_363_001_516

The other item I looked at is Fantastic Vent (fantasticvent.com). It is a complete replacement of our skylight. The problem with it is that it requires modifying our hatch size. On Westy owner did install one. These vents have excellent reviews. They have one that detects rain and closes the hatch.

Sat May 17, 2014 9:49 am

I have the Micro stainless vent mounted in my pop top about 2 ft.behind the skylight.

This year it's 10 years old and works fine.

Mind you it's by no means a typhoon, but it moves air.

Sat May 17, 2014 10:18 am

Thanks TK. I am going to try one as long as I can still fit the Westy in my garage. The vent does reduce my clearance some. I will have to measure. The other option is two skylights and switch for my road trips. Need to garage the Westy due to hurricanes here. It was in the garage during Hurricane Andrew and was fine. Not so for the cars outside.

Sat May 17, 2014 10:43 am

This is not exactly what you are looking for, but I installed a marine fan by Calframo (model #748) by the kitchen light. It swivels side to side and pivots up and down and we use it as an exhaust fan, cooling fan, hair dryer, etc. and it only uses .25A on high speed. Calframo also has a neat hatch fan but it appears to be too big for our skylights.

Link to their series of fans: http://www.caframo.com/marine/marine_products_12voltfans.php

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Mon May 19, 2014 9:38 am

I am not using this to cool the van, only to remove heat from behind the stock fridge when camping. Here is a front view and side view. It is angled to keep water from running it. I installed it in the city water port as mentioned above.

For camping on cool enough nights, we use a 12 volt oscillating fan that we clip to the roof cross bar. I notice you are in Florida, if you search the gallery for my username, you will see our camping AC install. I copied many members ideas and added a few touches of my own. mark

Mon May 19, 2014 11:52 am

ryecatcher wrote: I swear I've searched. Has anyone installed a small fan where the fridge flue vent is to just vent out the van whilst parked?

I don't have the original fridge in there, so the flue vent is sealed off and doing nothing. I was thinking of installing a small fan (like a computer fan) on that hole and wiring in to the existing solar to have a little air movement / hot air extraction when parked in the sun. I'd wire it to the solar 12v output side of things to just run off solar and not the battery (since I'd really only need it in the sun).
Anyone done this? Is it even worth bothering with? I'm in Florida and have no A/C, so every degree counts ;)

The hot air in the van will be near the ceiling, not below the belt line of the van where the vent is located, it is also a very very small vent for the air flow.
Little to be gained cept maybe a dead battery by hooking a fan to it, verses leaving the front widows both opened an inch or few , this will allow cross flow of air as it is near the roof line, so hot air will be removed,

also the fan powered unit will be very ineffective if there are no windows opened. You have to allow air in, to replace what the fan pulls out. If you open the windows you may find you don't need the fan.

Fri Jan 12, 2024 4:12 pm

Did a bit of searching and this was the closest I found to the topic, so if this has been discussed somewhere else, feel free to point me there.

I want to use my unused flue vent from the original dometic fridge as an exhaust fan for my new truck fridge. I'd like to be able to exhaust hot air from behind the fridge out of the van. Keep things cooler inside (not expecting this to cool the inside of the van, but would like the fridge not to heat it further) and want the fridge to be more efficient. I've read a bunch of people saying that an additional fan behind the fridge helps a lot on that front.

I'm thinking a 12v computer fan on the inside facing out and a dryer vent type cover on the outside to keep it weather tight. I don't like how this looks and its probably too big, but this is the idea. Maybe have the vent fan hooked up to the fridge compressor power, so when the fridge compressor kicks on, it automatically starts the fan.

Would be even cooler if I could make it look stock on the outside by using the chrome flue vent cover, but not sure how I would make that work without water getting in.

does anyone know dimension of hole in the van wall for the original flue vent on a westy? (its an 85, but assuming they're all the same?) / has anyone done this already?

This is the opening I'm talking about with the fridge removed. This is a still from the GoWesty video for installing the fridge delete kit.

Fri Jan 12, 2024 4:34 pm

I don't see why you can't just leave the original flue vent cover in there and make it look stock. The vent was designed to shed water.

Fri Jan 12, 2024 4:44 pm

PDXWesty wrote: I don't see why you can't just leave the original flue vent cover in there and make it look stock. The vent was designed to shed water.

Shed water while parked is one thing, but driving at expressway speeds in the rain is what I'm more concerned about. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for it to look stock on the outside, but I just don't think that original vent cover can provide that.

I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere in the manual that it originally had a valve under the dometic fridge to drain any condensation or moisture from the air intake / exhaust tubes. I'm not super confident it would create a weather tight closure for a 4" fan and I definitely don't want water in that wall as I still have the original insulation behind there.

Fri Jan 12, 2024 5:37 pm

while admirable to suck heat out (that's why other RVs have the fridge hot stuff in an exterior compartment), it's also advantageous to not transfer the heat to the interior in the first place. insulating the hot exhaust pipe does 2 things... keeps the interior cooler AND increases stack temperature so the water vapor from propane combustion exits as VAPOR and not acid rain running down the inside of your van aka fridge side seam rust.

thread here: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9445702

Fri Jan 12, 2024 5:53 pm

^^^ Dan, he’s using the flue port to vent his 12v Truckfridge.

If I was cool enough to have a full Westy I might have an opinion, but I’m not and I don’t…sorry.

:oops:

- Dave

Fri Jan 12, 2024 6:08 pm

dhaavers wrote: ^^^ Dan, he’s using the flue port to vent his 12v Truckfridge.

- Dave

again, my critical readings skills fail me. now that i'm retired, it's so nice to not have to be exact in everything!!!!

Fri Jan 12, 2024 8:39 pm

DanHoug wrote: dhaavers wrote: ^^^ Dan, he’s using the flue port to vent his 12v Truckfridge.

- Dave

again, my critical readings skills fail me. now that i'm retired, it's so nice to not have to be exact in everything!!!!

You happen to know how big that hole is that the Dometic vent goes through?

Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:46 am

Looks like the internet already has everything if you look long enough.

Has anyone done this before?

Looks like they drilled an extra hole (presumably because they're using the stock dometic fridge and need the original flue vent to do it's job. I would be repurposing that original opening, but this is the idea. Love that you can seal it off when your'e driving in rain.