Roof Fan Installation

A big right of passage when DIY'ing a van is the roof fan installation. There's nothing like cutting a gaping hole in a brand new van. No pressure! :) I highly recommend you pick up a decent metal jigsaw blade. I believe the one I used was 25 teeth per inch and it cut the sheet metal like butter even with an old jigsaw. I also recommend watching as many YouTube videos as you can stomach on this as there's a lot of good ideas (and what not to do) out there, they're just spread out. We decided to install the fan above the bed to maximize the room we will have for solar panels in front of the fan. The fan's cover encroaches rearward so if you mount it in the front of your van's roof, you lose a bit more roof space. Between the roof fan and our unobtainium window vents we hope to get some decent ventilation.

Getting ready to drill/cut.

Drilled 2 small holes next to each rib to center Hein's adapter front to back.

Put a toothpick in each hole so we can line up the adapter on the roof. The channels center the adapter side to side.

Sketchy rear roof access.

Getting ready to deface the van. :-) Used a sharpie and the positioned adapter plate to draw the hole square on the roof.

Drill a hole in each corner of the square for the jigsaw.

Taped up the box from Hein's fan adapter to catch any metal shavings as we cut.

Dad hooking up power for the shop vac to get all of the metal bits from drilling and cutting. We also used compressed air to blow them off the roof. Get them ASAP before they start to rust!