Skylight and roof vent questions

[o1marc]

Originally Posted by matthews2001

Well I bought the 26x26 suggested, $97 on Amazon.

The hatch was hollow inside so i just cut the largest hole i could,, and screwed the skylight onto the remaining (flimsy) 'frame' with sealant. It stiffened the cutout hatch back to normal and the hatch still works. Love the lightened up inside (I have smallish windows), price and time. Need to trim the inside and not look at the outside-looks rough!

Did you get one piece of Lexan for that price? I posted in my link the source I got mine from, 2pieces of 26 x 26 tinted for $80.

[matthews2001]

no it was a bubble skylite i got, not a flat sheet. about 10 inch deep? You can see the ac and roof if you put your head up in there! Yeah, $100 plastic. What gives?

[matthews2001]

OK so here are the photos.

I figured out how!

BTW It is so hard to take good photos without a wide angle lens i guess, of different areas of the bus. Any tips?

[sshhaammaann]

I originally wanted to put in a hatch door that flipped up but the one I purchased would be literally impossible to weatherproof the hinges where the door opens so I went for a skylight instead. I widened and carved out the rounded opening where the old emergency door was to a 24 x 24 square opening with metal shears and then ordered a 25.5 x 25.5 skylight off of Skylight Depot (who knew). Then I had my welding buddy come out and use some of the metal I had ripped out of the bus to create a 1 inch raised frame with a 1 inch lip jutting outward in all directions where the skylight sits which we screwed & sealed. Then I went to Home Depot and got some thin metal flashing which I cut to size, painted white, and then fitted to the outside of the skylight. I used a ton of Henry’s roofing sealant and butyl tape to make sure that they stuck together and kept rain water rolling off and away instead of trickling in.

[ol trunt]

Peeping toms. Ha. Nice job and it should never leak.
Jack

[Native]

That domed skylight was a real nice find!

[aswallie]

Does anyone know of a low outside profile vent fan? I want to run a cat-walk/deck down the middle of my bus to service the solar and ideally a vent fan under the deck. If i need to take up more inner room that's fine, we're doing a roof raise.

[dzl_]

Originally Posted by aswallie

Does anyone know of a low outside profile vent fan? I want to run a cat-walk/deck down the middle of my bus to service the solar and ideally a vent fan under the deck. If i need to take up more inner room that's fine, we're doing a roof raise.

how low profile are we talking about?


You could get a low-pro roof vent fan like this which apparently only has a 4 inch profile, or a little dome fan like this

[aswallie]

Great question, I'm honestly not sure. In the end i may need to offset them and mount it to the left or right. The Maxxfan mini might be the route i head.

[musigenesis]

I just got an ordinary MaxxAir fan: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y3KL5P5/ and it sticks maybe 3.5" above the surface it's mounted on. I'm mounting it towards the side over my shower, so it will only be maybe an inch or two above the centerline.

[aswallie]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I just got an ordinary MaxxAir fan: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y3KL5P5/ and it sticks maybe 3.5" above the surface it's mounted on. I'm mounting it towards the side over my shower, so it will only be maybe an inch or two above the centerline.

That 3.5", is that when it's open? Does that style of vent let rain in when in use?

[dzl_]

Originally Posted by aswallie

That 3.5", is that when it's open? Does that style of vent let rain in when in use?

3.5" must be closed height. That is the type of fan that fits in a 14 x 14 hole, so a little quick and dirty eyeball geometry pretty much confirms its significanctly taller than 3.5" when opened.

[musigenesis]

Yeah, the 3-4" is only when it's closed, and it will let rain in when it's open. I didn't think through your question enough to realize this wouldn't work for what you need.

One of my crazy ideas was to repurpose an air impeller I salvaged from an old inflatable mattress into a no-profile ventilation fan. The thing is AC and it's noisy as hell, but it moves a crazy volume of air. My plan is/was to mount it on the underside of the bus and run a 1.5" diameter hose or tube from the ceiling of my shower down through my interior wall and through the floor, with this air impeller at the end of it mounted underneath (in some sort of ventilated baffle box to help with the noise).

I need to do an experiment with this thing with a vacuum cleaner hose and see how well it actually works. It occurs to me you could use an old vacuum cleaner in the same way.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by matthews2001

OK so here are the photos.

I figured out how!

BTW It is so hard to take good photos without a wide angle lens i guess, of different areas of the bus. Any tips?

Attachment 31853

Attachment 31854

Attachment 31855

Oh wow, you're basically doing the same thing I'm doing with my escape hatch. How did you deal with closing the gap between the top and bottom plastic layers of the hatch? Looks like you sprayed in some kind of foam. I was thinking of trying to weld in strips of plastic with a soldering iron, or maybe I'll just use bondo and that metal mesh stuff you can use with it.

I bought a flat piece of 1/4" Lexan to use and then realized I could have bought a domed piece for about the same price. My plan is to rivet it in place and then heat it and push up on the middle with a bowl or something and a floor jack to give it a small bit of curvature. I need to keep the profile as flat as possible so I can still fit in my local car wash bays.