Vent sealing

Some sort of positive pressure works best .

Cheers
Jim

Marts09

Go to YouTube and type in "how to seal caravan from dust".

This will give you lots of ideas.

We took our Avida Emerald from Windorah to Birdsville and sealed the vents over the stove, lower vent for the fridge and a removable seal on the entry door. There was almost no dust inside.

Cheers
Duncan

The dust is like talcum powder, it will get into everything unless you seal all opens.

It will also stain anything if left on it, white vinyl canvass etc.

If you re sealing vent, remember to open them up again each night as some of them are there as a safety vent in case of gas leaks.

An air scoop towards the front of the van will help pressurise the van and stop the dust from being sucked in.

One handy hint, if the external sealing takes on the colour of the dust, just spray it with silicon spray and it will wipe clean.

Yep re introducing air pressure to the interior...the best strategy in my view. Reading here and there over some years suggests vans are great at establishing negative interior pressure (at the rear and the sides) as they move through the airstream. Our van came with a Camec scupper fitted at the roof’s front...I improved that function with a Camec scoop fitted over the scupper. We just put a temporary flap over the lower door vent (to hold some of that pressure - and, with a compressor fridge, we have closable wall vents too). Works for us. Any investment you can make on interior dust prevention pays off large at the end of those long dusty trip days ??.

We have a 16 ft Jayco poptop caravan. It has a 2 piece door with a security screen on the inside (plus flywire) and the main door outside. There is a vent in the bottom of the outer door, which we bung up with a piece of squishable foam carpet underlay. We open the outer door, insert the underlay and close it all up again. When we get to the destination, we remove the foam. It is usually full of dust so we bash it to clean it and it is ready to go again. We also have a scupper vent in the roof to pressurise the van whilst travelling. The foam must be soft enough to allow it to squeeze up and seal, but it must not be to thick or it will distort the door frames. We found carpet underlay to be ideal. We have had the van from Nocundra to Tiboorburra, and at times we could not even see the van because of the dust. There was virtually zero dust inside the van, and that was before we fitted the scupper vent.

LPGas is heavier than air, and therefore you must remove the door seal once stationary or any gas leakage will not be able to escape out the door vent

Install a roof top air inlet vent, you pop them up before departing and they face forward, so blow air out all your vents and seals. Being rooftop, they dont get the dust. If you are planning to convoy on dirt, you keep your distance or do as others have suggested with foam between doors etc.

I’m a true believer of the positive pressure system, have had one on all sorts of vans, campers etc. for over 40 years but they have to be filtered it you have just a fwd facing vent/fan etc & not filtered & you get caught be hide or oncoming traffic a dust storm etc all your doing is swapping the way dust gets in, computer vans work well on campers & canopy’s etc. bigger vans etc. need more & present on my large slide on I have a Davis craig fan going thru a Holden air filter, have a great trip

Depending on your vehicle and trailer combination you need to be careful with scupper vents, particularly if you have a camper trailer where the roof-scupper vent is low, usually below the roof height of the tow vehicle. With our original combination of Ford Maverick and Goldstream Crown the scupper vent was effective. The previous owner towed with a GU Patrol and said the scupper vent worked with that combination. Not so with my current Pajero, the rear spoiler directs air downwards and even at 70 km/h throws up a huge dust cloud, which, without a significant crosswind envelops the trailer, with the scupper directing it into the camper. If I was a more confident with metalwork/hacking holes in the camper body I would fit an air filter-bilge blower positive pressure system such as that described by Vince M.

Hi Marts,
Even with pressure hatches no van is dust proof. I generally use newspapers/cardboard and masking tape to cover outside vents. Along with a pressure hatch and covering all your vents I would also recommend placing a plastic cover over your bed to stop the fine dust settling on your bed linen while travelling. I have used the cheap drop sheets from Bunnings or a plastic mattress protector. Good luck and enjoy you trip.

Dometic caravan accessories now sell a filtered roof vent, i don't know much about it & have not seen one yet, but might be worth a look