It Pay’s To Read The manual

Being a typical man I put some vents in for the fridge, but now after reading the installation manual I have found out that the vent’s are way to small. So off to the caravan shop to oder the right size vent’s as well as an extension for the flu so the hot air go’s straight out side. The post about putting the small vent’s Prep work for the new fridge. Not what to do !!!

Though’s vent just don’t make the grade.

Should have read the fridge fitting manual be for I started the job.

Time to make a mess & rip out the vent’s

So now is the time to start pulling the vents out, the only problem is I fitted them to well. This is not going to be fun at all, but lesson learnt and I’ll read every manual from now on.

Now that I’ve cut the bottom hole to size, next will be to bend up some sheet metal to fit in the gap so it will be waterproof again. This will be one pice at a time not like the first time when I made up the ducting in one pice.

Nice outlook And the side’s in place too.

The right size vents now

After fixing the bottom and top vent holes, now it’s only a matter of fitting the new right size vent covers. Now this was the best part as I know I’ve got it right this time!!

Now for the top vent

F!#k this is not fun as the top vent is even a bigger pain to get out, as I had timber all the way around the vent hole.

This one was even harder to pull out than the bottom one.

After grinding out the new hole in the fiberglass.

now the gas fitter will be able to fit off the fridge.

Now that job is finish for the last time I think I need a drink. But lesson learnt I will always read the installation manual first before starting another job.

Just need some vents

To date we have used our fridge on 240v & 12v, as it was not vented it also keep the bus warm.

But now it’s time to make up the waterproof ducting for the vents for it’s final resting place.

Sheet metal Time

After marking out for the vents, I’ll make a cardboard template to see if I’ve got my measurements right. Well the cardboard one worked perfectly so time to mark it out on some sheetmetal and cut it out.

Where is a folder when you need one

It would be nice to have a folder, but there is no room on the bus for one of those. Lucky I’m only using 0.6mm alum sheet, so I can bend it by hand over some timber.

Just have to bend the flange on one end now.

Time to cut more holes in the bus

Well I’ve made the ducting, now it’s time to fit them. Out with the grinder again, let’s hope I’ve marked it out right.

Just making sure that the outside hole will be in the right place before I go crazy with the grinder on the outside of the bus.

Drilled and countersunk ready to screw into the timber around vent ducted.

Timber support so I can screw from the outside panel and seal with some sikaflex.

Well it won’t leak now, just a bit messy.

Looking from inside with vent cover + fly screen on.

So that was the hard one, the top one will be a lot easier as I only have to cut through the fiberglass panel.

As I’ve only one set of hands I screwed the top vent into place, otherwise there was no way I could have done this vent by myself. Both top and bottom ducting are screwed from the outside of the bus.

Braced in place so I can screw it in place from outside.

Top ducted screwed and glued into place, not so messy this time.

Both these vents can be unscrewed so I can clean the fly screen and also have access to the back of the fridge when I need to fix things. So next part of the project will be the kitchen walls, as well as some sparky stuff.