dust in caravans

The first thing to do when you get a new v an is to crawl under it with a caulking gun and check everywhere something penetrates the floor. You will be surprised how many pipes and hoses are not sealed properly.

Another place of dust penetration is via the fridge, the power cord goes through a hole to pick up a power point within the van, close up this hole. If the fridge cabinet is well sealed it will not get much dust behind the fridge but if there are any gaps into the van interior via the fridge you will get heaps of dust through those.

First thing is to make sure all possible entry points are properly sealed, eg seams, pipe and wiring entries, and the fridge is sealed to the interior etc. Also door, windows and hatches, including toilet cassette hatch, must have good seals.
Secondly some form of pressurizing system such as a scupper vent or a fan type will aid in keeping dust out..
A low vent, usually in the door, and a high vent are required for LPG safety. It is your choice if you seal these when travelling on dusty roads but they must be uncovered when stopped.

Broodie,
my van has 6 vents on it. 2 for the fridge, entry door, microwave, range hood and one above the bed.

I only cover the van door and the one above the bed as they are direct entry. I have adhesive velcro hook on the entry door and vent near the bed, I just have 2 pieces as of light weight carpet that fit over the vents. The carpet sticks to the hook no problem and is easy to remove. First thing I do is TURN OFF THE GAS before placing these covers over the vents. The sink drain will be open but I have never worried about it and never have any dust in the sink or basin.

Everything else is totally sealed

You can get a pressure vent fitted to the van roof, although I just open the forward facing vent on the 4 season hatch to pressurise the van slightly. Seems to work ok for us.

Good seals as much as possible and a decent pressurising fan that blows through a air filter and you shouldn't have serious problems.

Google is probably your friend in sourcing the fan, but they're readily available.

Its way overdue that caravan manufacturers are made to build to an appropriate australian standard.....

It is an totally appalling that this question needs to be asked at all....

Can anyone consider asking this prior to taking delivery of a new vehicle???

The whole caravan industry builds to a discraceful standard....

Broodie
The only way to ensure NO dust gets in is to make sure every vent & orifice is sealed up.
All doors & need good compression seals with more than one latch pulling the door closed to ensure a good seal. Any windows, skylights, roof vents etc also need to either be fixed or have good compression seals with strong positive closure latches.
Anything less than this will eventually move & flex & start to let in dust even if it seems OK at first.
Hope it turns out well.

Geo

My Goldstream RL Vacationer off Road camper van has an air inlet on the roof that causes the internal pressure to be higher thus limiting entry of dust.
I am yet to prove how effective it works, but will be going on a big trip off road, in a couple of weeks.
The one on the ARB canopy on my Colorado Dual cab does work. Even though there are largish gaps around the tailgate area of the tub, no dust is evident, except for a minor amount along the bottom of the tail gate which does not carry though to the interior.
Positive air pressure works better than trying to seal everything up.

Closing up door vents is no problem with gas whilst travelling. I always turn of the gas at the bottle and not at the stove on the last use.

Gooday,
Have been through this exercise, there was a Pressure Hatch, (Scupper) Vent, installed in our Caravan, 21ft, at build approximately 6"x4" and on the first trip across the Great Central Road despite having this open it worked like a Vacuum Cleaner. On return I had 2 more pressure hatches installed, one either side of the existing at the front, larger approximately 8"X5", have not got the caravan here to measure.
Have since done many gravel roads including the Great Central and the Tanami since then, did tape over vents and had virtually no dust come in due to the inside being pressurised.

I would be very wary of using the front of the 4 Seasons hatch as a pressure vent when open, have heard of them flying off.

The other option, which I know some have done, is install a Marine Blower, (Fan), somewhere on the caravan with a filter element and a switch in the tow vehicle, and turn it on when they get onto gravel road.
Can assure you if you have sufficient pressure it overcomes the problem.

We have had a number of small stones come inside from oncoming vehicles who insist on maintaining the highest speed possible when they meet another vehicle, but no dust problem.
Cheers,
Boroma604

In my view, the essential first step is to stop the van from sucking the dirt in (low pressure points on the van outer, created by passing air)....as mentioned above, getting a bit of clean pressurized air inside via a scoop hatch (scupper) is the go. Once that is done, blocking up every hold you can find completes the job (including the door vent, but only while mobile). Done right, you can travel long dusty outback roads and dust won't be an issue....just a minor event, sometimes, maybe :-).

yea hi Broodie H3 my reply might be a bit late however we have a Windsor Rapid 4m
and like all other responses you need to seal up all dust entry points prior to travel
We have the normal forward facing small hatch on the roof which will catch air into the van to pressurise inside.
we then found whilst travelling slow on dirt roads the dust tended to billow up into & through open vent . You can fix this by fitting a 12 volt radiator fan inside to suck through a filter wiring this to a switch in vehicle.
Ours was a simple exercise as the Rapid has a small vent above the kitchen so we placed a small fan & filter into this cavity and oolala no more dust .
It is imparitive that the fan must be forward and high enough to achieve pressurisation .
Regards Garny