Should ceiling fans suck or blow?

[cody]

The fantastic vent fan is good but I'm partial to the Maxxair fan, simply because the fan is located outside the bus in a shroud, I believe they are both 12 inch fans but I prefer the spinning fan and what samall amount of noise it creates to be outside the bus.  http://www.maxxair.com/Products/Turbo-Maxx.aspx

[gus]

If you haven't installed your AC yet be sure to install the front one as far forward as possible. I cannot overemphasize this enough. Those huge windshields bring in more heat than you can ever imagine.

Cooling the bus bedroom area does not take much AC unless you are daytime parked for long times in hot sunny areas. For overnight parking with no sun an AC in or near the bedroom gets too cold. We very seldom use the rear AC because it is too close to the bedroom. I'm thinking of moving my rear one to the front but I hate to cut any more holes in the roof.

[rv_safetyman]

We,too, have the Fantastic Fans (3).  For the most part we use them as exhaust fans.

However, in the bedroom we wait unit the sun goes down and the roof cools off.  We then switch it to blowing in.  This puts a bit of air flow over the bed and helps cool us.  Even in some pretty warm conditions, it helps us feel more comfortable.  Certainly better than running the generator all night when not connected to a pole.

Jim

[John Z]

When i bought my bus, i hated the looks of the exhaust hood over the stove. It was a recirculating type so it really did not do much anyway,,, just hung there looking stupid and ugly. There was an older non-powered roof vent located right there, so i replaced it with a powered one. Set to exhaust, it does a wonderful job on venting out heat and steam etc from cooking. It has a thermostat, so it really comes in handy when cooking with the crock pot and we want to leave the coach for a few hours.

Another handy fan is the 12.00 12v camping fans sold at wallyworld. They have a leg arrangement that folds out from the back. I mounted one vertically on the upper cabinets right above the bed. The fan portion can be tilted out/down to any angle. It has a hi/low switch and i have the on/pff switch mounted where i can reach it from bed. Makes a real nice "ceiling fan" for the bed. I have a couple of these and can move them anywhere in the bus they are needed to help move air.

[jjrbus]

Hot bus, big windows, greenhouse?  Me thinks awnings at each window would do far more than a dozen fans!!  Jim

[gus]

I started to install awnings when I got the bus. The PO even gave me a new 20' awning.

Then I noticed in the CW catalog how many different devices there were for holding down and rigging awnings. That told me that they were a real problem, just like all the stuff for sealing rubber roof leaks!!

Then I read all the stories in RV magazines about awnings blowing away in sudden wind gusts and storms and of people having them come loose running down the road. I'm a slow learner but I got the message, no awnings for me.

They no doubt do a great job and I would like to have that benefit but the hassle is not worth it.

[H3Jim]

John Z, any pics of that wally world fan?

[jjrbus]

There are awnings like my 21 by 8 foot awning and then there are window awnings!!

[John Z]

Hi Jim (H3Jim),

I am heading home from the tropical tip of Texas and am stopped for the night in mid-Arkansas. I should be home in a couple days depending on the weather up there. When i get home i will post pictures of the fan. I bought a new camera on the way down a few weeks ago and have not spent the time to learn how to resize photos.

John

[H3Jim]

Thanks, I use Fastone, a free, shareware image viewer.  It has a great section that I use all the time to email pictures to my friends and family.  Since much of my family is still on dial up,  the yare sensitve to the picture size I send them.  For pics I post here, I send them to myself, save the attachements (Pictures) and then up load the picture to the board.  I'm sure there are easier ways, but I backed into it and it works for me.  Your mileage will vary.

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

I just went to the Fastone site, and this next link is the index page, and they have a free, standalone photo resizer. 

http://www.faststone.org/index.htm

I look forward to seeing  the pics.  These new cameras are great, but all this stuff has a learning curve.  I joke that even my microwave is smarter than I am these days.

[Tony LEE]

The original designers of the bus were counting on coping with 60 tired Londoners getting home in bumper to bumper traffic so the direction of the original air flow will not be all that relevant. We spent a month in the UK in late summer and too much heat was never an issue. Too much rain, too much traffic perhaps, but never too much heat.
We are in Morocco for the winter and you would never have to worry about too much heat even here except maybe right down the bottom. Middle of Summer in Morocco would be crazy.

Interesting to note and resulted in a bit of a chuckle from me was the sight of many Europeans and Brits parking in full sun, carefully covering their tyres against damage from the sun and then putting out the lounge chairs and stretching out as naked as was decently possible to soak up the sun all day. Skin must be tougher than tyres.

[JohnEd]

Gus,

There are so many coaches equipped with awnings that "some" must be installed or maintained poorly.  Also,  any awning will blow away in wind.  If you are home wind is easy to detect as the entire coach rocks from the sail force exerted by the awning.  Problem is when you leave for the afternoon and wind comes up.  That will rip the thing right off.  There are three clamps that restrain the thing from opening while you travel.  A clamp that is detented on the arm, a screw down clamp on the arm and the "cog wheel" like mech in the roller that won't unwind till a lever is thrown.  I have never seen one unrolled on the road and I acct for 67 years of looking down roads. 

These things add so much to the comfort of the coach that I hope you will find some way around your considerations.  Quality install and a qualified operator are the key issues.

HTH,

John

[BG6]

I'm talking about simple ventilation fans here, not air conditioning - should they blow fresh air into the bus or suck hot air out? Or would the ideal be to have some sucking and some blowing to have a flow of air through the bus?

That's the ideal!

You can't suck air out unless you're letting air in somewhere else.

You want your exhaust fans to be as close to the peak of the ceiling as possible, and intake fans lower than that, to take advantage of natural airflow.  If you have escape hatches, these are a really good place to mount fans or aircons.

[BG6]

On my bus it isn't possible to open the windows,

They don't swing out for emergency exit?  Every coach I've seen has the windows hinged at the top and latched at the bottom.

This means that you can put a screen across the inside, open the window and prop it open through a small hole in the screen.

[BG6]

I started to install awnings when I got the bus. The PO even gave me a new 20' awning.

Then I noticed in the CW catalog how many different devices there were for holding down and rigging awnings. That told me that they were a real problem, just like all the stuff for sealing rubber roof leaks!!

Then I read all the stories in RV magazines about awnings blowing away in sudden wind gusts and storms and of people having them come loose running down the road. I'm a slow learner but I got the message, no awnings for me.

They no doubt do a great job and I would like to have that benefit but the hassle is not worth it.

You see all of those different mechanisms because each company wants to make money from you.

I've never seen a awning be a problem on the road except when the owner failed to cage it properly before driving away.  However, a friend of mine worries about this, so he developed a simple, foolproof lock -- he put eyebolts in above and below the awning, about a foot back from the front support, and sticks a bungee there.  If the front is secured, the rear won't be a problem unless you get a 75 MPH tailwind.

In the campground, just close it up if there is a windstorm.