Wednesday, April 24, 2013

What A Difference A Pop Lock Makes!

Fan With Screws
Ventilation fans are great! They use far less power than an Air Conditioner and can provide a beautifully cool
breeze. Nowadays, airborne pollutants; dust pollen, bugs(!) and the like come straight in through these things. A screen helps a great deal, but have been pretty annoying to clean. Either you got up on the roof with a vacuum or removed the MANY screws holding the screen onto the fan assembly. Not any more! Well, at least for long time fantastic fan (and clones) users. My old vent fans had those pesky screws, but the manufacturer makes a kit to swap from screws to push in tabs!
Yay! Not that I'm a huge fan of cleaning, mind you, but it's a good practice to get in to. Especially if you are breathing the bad stuff in.


Installing these couldn't be much easier. Just get your handy dandy philips head screw driver and remove all the screws holding your old (and likely dirty) round screen cover off. Take the new version out of the box (it contains two of them), and "pop" it on. Be CAREFUL you have to line it all up and gently press them in. Why? How do I know it's a bad thing to force the little tabs in?

You guessed it, while installing I snapped one of the little buggers off. I wasn't really in a rush or anything, just thought they needed a little "help" to fit. I was wrong.

Busted Off Tab
Rushing is never a good thing. Great way to make mistakes though. I highly recommend it for adding extra angst to your life.

You could still use the screen with one missing tab, but I'd probably be thinking about it for most of the trip! I decided to use the extra in the box.

To be honest, when I replaced the other (bedroom) fan/vent, that one came with the removable screen. That was how I knew they existed. So I had a spare.


The Tabs!
These tabs REALLY grab hold of the edge of the opening. I am being very careful when I remove them for my (much more frequent) cleanings. I have to tell you, they get pretty nasty, pretty quickly. What are we spewing into the atmosphere anyway? No surprise I get dark streaks from my roof! Better outside the RV than in our lungs!

Once finished, you find that since its so much easier to do, you'll clean them more frequently. Believe it or not, the inside of my RV has been much less dusty. Especially those lightweight "floaty" dust bunnies that hide near the hardwood floors.

Installed.
Another simple way to make your life easier and healthier that doesn't cost much at all.

If you don't have some kind of a powered vent I highly recommend one. I prefer boondocking and use solar charging almost exclusively for power, so any way I can cool the interior without using too much power is a beautiful thing.

Since I have two powered vents, I usually leave one on exhaust (pulling air out of the RV) and one on intake. This way you always have a nice breeze that exchanges the air inside so it doesn't get "stale." Try it, you'll like it.

To clean them, I remove the screen, blow it clean with some compressed air then rinse it in light soapy water in the sink. You wouldn't believe how dirty the water gets. Then a clean water rinse, air dry and re-install. Easy!

The Fantastic Fan brand that I have installed isn't the only one available. That brand used to get rave reviews for customer service and would replace any part, regardless of age, for free. They used their advertising and marketing budget on these replacements to build positive word of mouth. A good idea! They were recently bought up by Atwood....we'll see how it goes.

Be Seeing You...Down The Road,

Rich "The Wanderman"
www.thewanderman.com










10 comments:

  1. Think I'll stick with the screw in screen for my Fantastic Fan as its in the bathroom and doesn't get run near as often as the Shurflo Comfortbreeze does, which came with a far smarter designed easy removable screen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Matt,
      Really? In the bathroom? Isn't that like a wind tunnel when it's on? Also, I'd be cleaning that one even more often! :)

      Rich "The Wanderman"

      Delete
  2. I just use my portable Shark...cleans lint and dust a minute or two. Use a hair dryer to blw leaves out from the inside.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anon,
      Portable or not it's still easier to remove them to clean and not go on the roof!

      Rich "The Wanderman"

      Delete
    2. Rich,

      I don't go on the roof...the hair dryer works from the inside...just fyi. Some day though, I'll have to finally remove the screen because the fan blades are getting dirty!

      Delete
    3. Anon,
      Another good reason to have a quick removable screen, I clean the blades too!

      Rich "The Wanderman"

      Delete
  3. Once a year is all I need to clean my screens and I use my air hose from inside the RV. I was amazed at how good it worked considering I was trying to blow the lint in the same direction that it accumulated, YET, it did work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. George,
      Compressed air cleans dust and lint very well. When I use it, I generally have lint and dust everywhere BUT where I want it to go!

      I remove the screen and blow it clean then give it a quick rinse in the sink. Works like a charm. You should see how dirty the water gets!

      Rich "The Wanderman"

      Delete
  4. Use a blow dryer or when you get home a shop vac...I carry an air compressor and use that...works great to blow the leaves back the way they came in. The bath fan is one of those turbo jobs and the screen just twists off...very nice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bill,
      The blow dryer/shop vac is a great way to get the loose debris back out the way it came in, but the stuck on pollutants and regular dirt are more stubborn. A soak, wash and rinse makes sure they're clean!

      Rich "the Wanderman"

      Delete

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