BRING ME SUNSHINE!

Replacing a broken roof vent gives former deputy editor Nigel Donnelly the chance to let the outdoors in for his project van

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Motorhomes dating back to the nineties can often be a little murky on the inside, thanks to flickery fluorescent lights, small windows and opaque roof vents.

Our project ’van’s windows will just be getting a drop of Autoglym on a soft cloth, but both the lighting and the roof vent are improvable.

Time to go shopping In fact, it was a chance discovery on Facebook Marketplace that prompted the roof vent upgrade.

Our ’van had been reasonably well equipped in 1998, and one of several nice items was a kitchen extractor roof vent. But it had definitely seen better days. It was filthy, and had clearly been extracting a lot over the years.

Cleaning is not a big problem, but more questionable was the state of the support legs. Two were broken, so the vent could be opened, but it flopped about. We quickly concluded there was no point cleaning a broken vent.

The other issue was the lack of daylight above the kitchen. The opaque extractor vent didn’t let in much light, so we decided to look at our options for an upgrade.

The vent opening was the standard 400 x 400mm, so we had a good choice of solutions. We could have bought another extractor vent, but given that we don’t do a great amount of cooking in the ’van, and they are very noisy, we decided this was not for us.

Instead, we decided to look for a standard opening roof vent without an extractor, but with a clear cover to spread a little more daylight.

Top of the line for clear, opening roof vents is the Seitz Mini Heki. The only obstacle was the price – a Mini Heki costs around £150.