Ventilation

[Sunny43.5]

We use a Bosch electric shear it slices the steel no filings no clippings it is two hardened steel blades one fixed one tilted the tilted one moves at very fast stroke and only moves a couple of mls so the steel is sliced so to speak the finished edge is so smooth you could not cut your self on it plus it does not distort the finished edge . We still hear of DIY people who have either grinded jigsawed or used nibblers these went out with the dinosaurs in our book . Nibblers are only marginally better than jig saw as they spit out hundreds of what we call robots fingernails . The shear does not cause any filings at all .

[hoddy]

I was always keen to put one of these in the roof:
Jaycar Electronics: Solar Powered Ventilator
or Solar Powered Ventilator - Jaycar Electronics
They're solar, battery back up (48hrs), reversible air flow.
Have not been brave to cut hole in new(ish) T5 (good advice about the angle grinder)

[Sunny43.5]

Just remember if doing a T5 it has a ribbed roof from just behind the drivers door all the way back makes it a real bitch to fit any thing into , when I did fit a sunroof into mine it took six hours to profile cut the frame of the sunroof to fit the ribs then I had to fit packing pieces under each of the ribs on the out side .

[Gold Coaster]

Thanks for all the great tips and info. By the time I decide on which type of vent/hatch to install I’ll hopefully have enough courage to take the plunge! At the moment I’m tending towards one around the 350 x 350 mark mainly because I got the ladder out today and noticed that it looks like you can’t go much bigger than this without taking in the curve of the roof. As I worry about possible leaks, keeping it as flat as possible might help.

[Gold Coaster]

We use a Bosch electric shear it slices the steel no filings no clippings it is two hardened steel blades one fixed one tilted the tilted one moves at very fast stroke and only moves a couple of mls so the steel is sliced so to speak the finished edge is so smooth you could not cut your self on it plus it does not distort the finished edge . We still hear of DIY people who have either grinded jigsawed or used nibblers these went out with the dinosaurs in our book . Nibblers are only marginally better than jig saw as they spit out hundreds of what we call robots fingernails . The shear does not cause any filings at all .

Hi, do you usually mark and cut from the inside or the outside of the roof? Thanks

[Sunny43.5]

sorry about late reply always cut from outside we also use masking tape to stop any marks on paint work , we use an air chisel to cut a triangular hole first so we can then use the Shear both operations leave no filings

[Gold Coaster]

Thanks for all your advice Sunny. So does that mean that you can put your weight onto the ribbed sections to do this?

[Gold Coaster]

Hi Gold Coaster,

Here are the pictures, inside and out. You can pop one end up as shown or the whole hatch. They're is a fly screen that you can slid in place after popping up. The ventilation is just passive, but is most certainly adequate.





Hope this helps,

Cheers James
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Hi James, hoping that can again provide me with some information. After the research that I did on this last year I ending putting into the 'too hard' basket but I've now got a second wind and would like to put in a hatch.

My question is regarding the size of the hatch. You said in a previous post that the hatch was 600 x 600 but when I look at the photo above I see that it fits neatly between two ridges on the roof. I just looked at the roof of my T4 (1996) and the is only a gap of approx. 430mm between ridges?

Would appreciate if you could double check the sizing of the hatch, thanks.

[Sunny43.5]

Is your van short or long wheel base ? my son's T4 has 5 blank sections the very front one over the drivers area then 3 more 450mls 500mls and 450mls the very last is where the high mount brake light is so 3 usable sections .

[Gold Coaster]

Hi Sunny43.5, mine is a SWB and looks the same as your son's so I went back out and measured again and you are absolutely correct but I think that you got the order mixed up. It should be 500 - 430 - 500.
The section that I'm looking at installing the hatch is the middle one of these, just behind the interior light, which is the smaller of the three.
Hadn't thought about a LWB. Thinking now that is why James's dad was able to fit a larger hatch in?