Another momentous day! We installed our first major item – one of two vent fans in the roof! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to feel like we’ve officially begun. As of today, we’ve had Alevander for 24 days! Most of these days were spent just gutting him from his former identity as a man cave. But now, today, we have constructed the first piece of his new life.

So, how was our first? Honestly, it went okay. I guess I just had higher expectations. Some of it was awkward. It took longer than expected to finish. But, in the end, I was satisfied.

Okay, I’ll stop with the innuendos. 😉

Installing the vent fan was more difficult than I had anticipated. By the time the stars aligned for us to actually install the van, we had watched so many videos, read and re-read so many posts on how to install vent fans. We thought we had it down. Then, the reality of van build reared its head…

Is this Supposed to Happen?

Our first problem:

We discovered that the frame we built to support the vent fan wasn’t a perfect square. We were trying to copy the Greg Virgoe approach, which uses a wooden frame under the ceiling. The frame provides more substance for the nails to bite into. Otherwise, the fan is only drilled into the thin metal of your ceiling.)

Because our frame didn’t fit, we decided to disassemble the frame and glue the pieces individually to the ceiling. These steps alone took all day, and we left Alevander overnight with a gaping hole in his back, waiting for the Geocel ProFlex RV to dry.

Our second problem:

By the next morning, the Geocel ProFlex RV had not dried! When I removed the clamps holding the wood up, all but one of the wood pieces came crashing down. Ughhhhh…

We resolved that one of us will just hold the wooden piece to the ceiling, while the other drilled from the roof. This would result in the same thing – it wasn’t necessary for the wood pieces to also be attached to each other.

After laying down the butyl tape and drilling in the roof flange, we lay a thick bead of Geocel ProFlex RV around the edges and on top of the screws. While not great as an adhesive, it’s still great as a sealant. Because we used self-tapping hex-head screws that protruded above the roof flange, instead of laying flat, the silicon on the screws was more like a dollop of soft serve ice cream.

Our third problem:

When we lay the fan cover down on the roof flange, the holes didn’t line up! Jon thought we did the roof flange incorrectly, and insisted I undo everything so that we could start over. Ahhhhh!

I resisted, and spent a good while just staring at the half-installed vent, trying to align it again and again, not sure what could have gone wrong. I stared so long, it felt like I was just wishing the reality not to be so.

Then, it occurred to me! There were three holes that were supposed to line up: two of the holes (the hole on the fan cover and the hole in the metal clip) were of a smaller diameter, like for a normal screw to fit through. The last hole, on the roof flange, had a diameter three times larger. Why would it be designed this way? Well, it could only mean that the exact placement of the hole should be adjustable! The metal clip can be moved up or down a little bit, as needed, and still line up with the hole on the roof flange. And -perhaps this little bit of movement could give just the lift needed to allow the fan cover to line up too.

So, I pushed up the metal clips up a tiny bit and made sure all four clips were even with each other. This small adjustment aligned the fan, the metal clip and the roof flange. The screws then went in easily.

Ta-daaa!! Crisis averted.

What We Learned

Our first major installation in the van was a roller coaster of emotions! You know how you can just feel stress in the air? And it takes extra focus to keep your emotions in check, in the interest of being productive? That’s what it was like for us.

But, despite such high stakes on the table (a large hole in your roof that may leak and cause lots of damage if you screw up), we handled it. I am proud of how we worked together to brainstorm and resolve (and re-resolve) the problems that arose.

We installed our second fan wayyyy faster and more easily. Practice makes… a decently installed fan that “will suffice?!”

What was your first major installation, and how did you feel?