Shower fan/vent

[Maddie jackson]

Looking for some help regarding my vans wet room im building. Hoping its not like the facebook groups where everyone just argues in the responses lol.

Ive built a small shower and toilet cubicle in my van (promaster/boxer) and im coming close to being sorted with everything i need for it. Im happy with everything but cant make my mind up about fitting a fan/vent in there.

At first i was concrete with my decision to fit one. I grew up in a old farm house riddled with mold and hated it. Ive planned all sorts of steps in my build to avoid mold, as i know it can be a problem in campers and proper ventilation/temperature control is the best way to stop it building.

However ive started to doubt fitting one for the following reasons.....

1 - First of all i cant actually find a decent one apart from the maxxair dome fan which wont fit under my solar panels and i wouldnt dream of mounting it on the side wall of my van so that isnt an option. What id want to fan to feature is opening/closing feature to keep van warm in winter conditions and rain and a standard air out feature to extract moisture. However all the ones i can find are either just plain old vents that are open 25/7 or extractors that wont fit on my roof under my solar and extractors that say water proof have people leaving bad reviews on saying they leak in the rain and also dont close so let cold air in.

2 - I have to full size maxxair fans fitted in my van already, one to the rear and one at the front, with my solar panels fitted in the middle. I chose this route as i said before ventilation is very important to me. So i was thinking the van is already such a small space, I already have two big fans and 3 windows i can open do I REALLY need to fit another small fan just for the shower cubicle? What if i was to leave the door open.... Would the maxxair fans do a good enough job of sucking out any moist air? Or make a small slit in the shower wall at the top and turn on the rear fan which would have the same effect.

3 - showers in a van are likely to be a couple of minutes long, cover with water, turn water off, soap full body, rinse. Showers will be warm in winter and cold in summer heat for me also. So how much mist will i really be creating? Or because they are wet rooms will the water just sit there and cause mould. With this in mind i was thinking i could put a standard manual opening vent in the shower wall coming into the living space of the van to keep air flowing and dry out the wet room but would it allow a smell to linger in the van from the composting toilet? Even though i can open and close the vent to suit.

4- final point is more rust risk and also extra cost and faff. If all the above has truth to it and fitting yet another fan would be unnecessary im cutting another hole in the metal work risking more rust, leaks and not to mention the cost of a decent fan.

Thats all my thoughts.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Millie Master]

This may or may not be of interest to you.

I fitted a Propex blown air heating system to my van which has one vent inside the shower/loo cubicle.

No-one dislikes the smells associated with these confined spaces as much as I do, we also dislike the dampness of them after having had a shower, yet these aren't any problem for us as we always have the roof vent open and always have the heaters fan going no matter what the weather is doing outside, on the cold setting in summer and hot in winter.
Quite literally no smells linger in there as they are simply blown away and as for the moist walls following a shower, they dry out within only a few minutes of finishing our showers.

Exceptionally simple and exceptionally cheap in my case as I bought an unused and still packaged 2nd had Propex heater on Gumtree for only £50

Phil

 

[SquirrellCook]

Along the same lines, blown air of some type is the only answer. The Murky build has a very large wet room below a double bed. The only problem I’ve had is the so called marine ply was not water proof and I’ve had to rebuild it in buffalo board. A phenolic resin board. The Betty build is having a conventional shower/toilet room as we are to old now to climb down into the wet room.
This has a mushroom fan that comes on as it senses you. It will also have a heated towel rack behind the toilet ran of the hot water system. It also has blown air, so if I notice a damp problem I can pop a hole in the wall. Above the door is an opening connecting to the rest of the van. I have no opening windows so am relying on two max fans.
Mark

 

[Sprinter 1 cup]

I've a max fan in the hall way outside wet room. but only one . I'll be looking for mould in about 2 years .

But if you go electric fan put a seal coat / lacquer over the curcit board befor you fit in van so it cant arck out.

 

[st3v3]

Small opening skylight in the bathroom - raise the solar a little if required. We had that in a small van and that was usually enough. If not, leave the door open and set the fan you have to bring air into the van with everything shut. That air and the steam, should go out of the skylight.

 

[jonnyboy]

I bought a small mushroom vent from ebay (cost 13 pounds) and fixed a computor fan in it to work as an extractor.