New to this forum, Looking for suggestions/ideas that havent already been tried. We have a 28 foot Jayco Heritage (30 foot from drawbar to tail) and have owned this beast for about 18years.
I have water ingress issues that are testing the best techs. We have replaced the popup vent assembly to only find that the frame (of the roof vent) cracks after a couple of trips and in comes the water, great when your sleeping NOT!!! Given that this is a recurring problem, I'm thinking that the roof maybe lacking in strength/rigidity and when on the road the wind flow over the van creates flex which is actually causing the cracking of the vent frame. First question is - Has anyone experienced this issue? if so second question - How have they rectified the problem?
Possum3 said
03:34 PM Jun 17, 2024
Welcome to the Forum Eagleye.
The roof vents supplied by Dometic are of questionable quality and require fitting to a solid base - if there is any flexing in the roof they will crack. If mounted on a Meranti (timber) framed van that has the opening at correct size it should not flex.
If you don't have a rigid mount on your roof, you could always make a frame to cover the opening out of 3mm aluminium and mount your plastic frame to this
Eagleye said
06:09 PM Jun 17, 2024
Thanks Possum 3, I'm considering putting in a support to improve the rigidity, initially inside made easy sense, but optically not appealing, maybe a topside reinforcing rib of a square section alluminium tube from onin e side to the other, might be the answer, at least it's out of sight (well mostly)but that comes with possible leak issues with the fixings through the roof panel. Project still under consideration, someone must have encountered this issue somewhere and solved it.
New to this forum, Looking for suggestions/ideas that havent already been tried. We have a 28 foot Jayco Heritage (30 foot from drawbar to tail) and have owned this beast for about 18years.
I have water ingress issues that are testing the best techs. We have replaced the popup vent assembly to only find that the frame (of the roof vent) cracks after a couple of trips and in comes the water, great when your sleeping NOT!!!
Given that this is a recurring problem, I'm thinking that the roof maybe lacking in strength/rigidity and when on the road the wind flow over the van creates flex which is actually causing the cracking of the vent frame. First question is - Has anyone experienced this issue? if so second question - How have they rectified the problem?
The roof vents supplied by Dometic are of questionable quality and require fitting to a solid base - if there is any flexing in the roof they will crack. If mounted on a Meranti (timber) framed van that has the opening at correct size it should not flex.
If you don't have a rigid mount on your roof, you could always make a frame to cover the opening out of 3mm aluminium and mount your plastic frame to this
Thanks Possum 3, I'm considering putting in a support to improve the rigidity, initially inside made easy sense, but optically not appealing, maybe a topside reinforcing rib of a square section alluminium tube from onin e side to the other, might be the answer, at least it's out of sight (well mostly)but that comes with possible leak issues with the fixings through the roof panel. Project still under consideration, someone must have encountered this issue somewhere and solved it.