Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos
Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road...
Forum Discussion
condensation
This is what I have come to thus far . First a few pics so I can refer to them .
The first pic is what put around the bottom of the wall at the dinette . It is sill seal used between wood sill and foundation on a house . It is 8" x 1/4" and does not absorb water . This is the area I found the most condensation . Another critical area was around the mattress . In both cases I believe it is the combination of little air circulation and being the lowest portion of the interior aluminum panels . Outside temps were from 22F to 37F . Moving the mattress away from the wall 2" and removing the back cushion from the dinette reduced condensation considerable . Gluing the sill seal around the dinette almost eliminated it . also installed a CPU fan in the rear roof vent to blow down instead of up ( it had no fan at all) . This helped to equalize the temperature top to bottom . but needs a bit stronger fan , still experimenting . I have the original wall furnace which has a small cross flow fan at the bottom sucking air in at the bottom and blowing air up along the heat chamber . I got the brilliant idea of reversing the fan to blow warm air out the bottom along the floor . Took the fan out , tore it apart and reverse it , put it back in and it was a no go . For what ever reason it would not pull the warm air down and out . There is probably some kind of baffling in back of the exchanger that won't allow it , needs more investigation .
One of the problems I believe is the inherent design of the Avion . One , there is no thermal break between the ribs and either the interior or exterior aluminum panels , and aluminum is a great conductor of heat and cold . Second , the interior panel act the same as glass and when the moist air hits the cold surface it is beyond the dew point and condenses . My Avion is in relatively good condition and I have no plans to completely rebuild it , so I am dealing with work-arounds . If it was stripped I would consider another material besides aluminum for the interior panels , also some kind of thermal break . Here is one that might be suitable .
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/wp/plywood.html
This is as far as I've gotten , looking forward to what others have come up with .
This is what I have come to thus far . First a few pics so I can refer to them .
The first pic is what put around the bottom of the wall at the dinette . It is sill seal used between wood sill and foundation on a house . It is 8" x 1/4" and does not absorb water . This is the area I found the most condensation . Another critical area was around the mattress . In both cases I believe it is the combination of little air circulation and being the lowest portion of the interior aluminum panels . Outside temps were from 22F to 37F . Moving the mattress away from the wall 2" and removing the back cushion from the dinette reduced condensation considerable . Gluing the sill seal around the dinette almost eliminated it . also installed a CPU fan in the rear roof vent to blow down instead of up ( it had no fan at all) . This helped to equalize the temperature top to bottom . but needs a bit stronger fan , still experimenting . I have the original wall furnace which has a small cross flow fan at the bottom sucking air in at the bottom and blowing air up along the heat chamber . I got the brilliant idea of reversing the fan to blow warm air out the bottom along the floor . Took the fan out , tore it apart and reverse it , put it back in and it was a no go . For what ever reason it would not pull the warm air down and out . There is probably some kind of baffling in back of the exchanger that won't allow it , needs more investigation .
One of the problems I believe is the inherent design of the Avion . One , there is no thermal break between the ribs and either the interior or exterior aluminum panels , and aluminum is a great conductor of heat and cold . Second , the interior panel act the same as glass and when the moist air hits the cold surface it is beyond the dew point and condenses . My Avion is in relatively good condition and I have no plans to completely rebuild it , so I am dealing with work-arounds . If it was stripped I would consider another material besides aluminum for the interior panels , also some kind of thermal break . Here is one that might be suitable .
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/wp/plywood.html
This is as far as I've gotten , looking forward to what others have come up with .
