Installing roof fan in Ford E350

[etbadger]

Another option to avoid cutting holes is to wire the dash fan into your house-battery (instead of off the engine battery) and just use that with a window cracked. It works well for us, no additional stuff to carry, and it can move a lot of air if you really want to.

Drawback is that it does speed regulation by resistance, so I replaced the speed switch with a PWM motor controller for continuously variable speed and much less wasted energy.

-e

[Christopher Thwaites]

I used several of the round solar powered vent fans from West Marine on my 42' trawler. They work well for supplying contiuous air movement to avoid mildew but they are not powerful by any means. They also require a 4" hole.

[PSmith]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but I'm getting ready to cut the hole in my roof for a 14 x 14 fan tastic roof vent and I found this thread. Does anyone else have any additional pictures, info or suggestions for installing one in the stock steel roof of an econoline?

Thanks!

[LenS]

I installed two in my Chev. Express van. One was in the rear where a flat area was provided for a roof vent. The other was towards the front of the van roof. Just behind the 'B' pillar. There the roof was ribbed. Not sure if the Ford roof ribs are significantly different or not. I sealed the Fantistic Vent using rope caulk. Rope caulk is a very sticky hand shape-able material. I just added an extra 2-3 layers of it in the rib low spots before screwing down the roof vent. Ran all screws down evenly and slowly to squeeze out any extra rope caulk. The stuff also gets soft with heat, so I re tightened the screws 2-3 times over the first summer. Worked fine. I got the rope caulk at my local ACE Hardware. It comes in white or brown. After it squishes out over a summer I trim the excess off with a plastic picnic knife.

Good Luck

[LenS]

My latest installation was on my penthouse fiberglass top. It also is ribbed. It had the additional problem in that there are 5 strips of plywood sandwiched in the fiberglass that run fore and aft. Putting the vent hole in the roof cut one of these "rafters" in two. So I had to make a frame to sister the cut rafter to the ones on either side of it to assure I got the roof strength back. I also used rope caulk to seal vent to frame joint and the frame to roof joint. I have had no leak issues with the installations.



You will note that with this design I added fillers for the roof rib valleys. It was easy to do since I was all ready making a frame to strengthen the cut roof.


You can see some of the rope caulk squeeze out at the joints. I have also painted the wood frame white to protect it and match the penthouse color since installing it.