It’s times like these that I really miss having Mods/Admins that would give out forum titles 
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Europe has this style too. They dont work on USA chargers and sometimes come a little puffed
Who knew that potentially my biggest problem in this whole van saga would be air quality? 
In my quest to lower the co2 levels in the van, I’ve introduced a much more difficult beast to tame… humidity.
Sleeping with the fans on has worked marvellously for the co2, but at night the humidity levels here can be upwards of 90%, so I’m cycling my van with very wet air 
I can’t seem to get the humidity levels in the van far below 65% even with exhaust fan on all day while i’m at work. The internet tells me that I need to try and keep humidity below 55% or I’ll be risking mold growth within the van.
The little dehumidifier i bought definitely works, but apparently not well enough to keep up. I’ve just purchased a proper dehumidifier that should definitely be capable of deep drying the van, but there’s no way i’ll be able to run it for any meaningful amount of time off the batteries 
I have already resigned to the fact that i’ll likely need to dock at the shed weekly, and i’m totally fine with that. I just hope that a deep dry every week while docked will be enough to keep humidity levels at bay.
These are the things they don’t tell you about #vanlife
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My buddy who lives in his Land Cruiser has the same issue, he wipes down the whole interior car daily tho cuz he loves his Toyota more than anything in the world
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I never dealt with the humidity issue, other than being able to exchange the complete interior air volume quickly, with intake amd exhaust Fans cranked to high and running a activated char ola filter sock on interior fan. My windows wouldn’t fog up Unless it was raining, and I entered van soaked.
Mold and mildew were issues, on ceiling and walls. The ‘mold armor’ product might have helped slow its return.
I’ve Not slept inside since the October hurricane, and not looked inside in a few months now, but it needs another scrubbing, and Ill run a 80 watt ozone generator, which certainly helps its stank, for a while anyway. It might also kill mold and mildew spores.
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Relevant Technology Connections 
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Personally I just completely gave up on this battle. I hang air fresheners, leave windows open all day and just generally spend as much time outside as possible. Place is stuffy no matter what I do.
The activated charcoal sock filter I added to the intaKe side of a 92mmx36mm 12vdc fan got loaded with dust, lint and dander so fast, i was both amazed, and disgusted.
Later, I made a Hepa filter with a shop vac hepa filter surrounded by activated charcoal, and if i did not have huge air exchange going on with intake and exhaust fans cranked up, when opening the door i could tell the air was crisp and fresh.
I run that filter in my bedroom now, but its likely clogged and just a white noise maker.
I despise air fresheners, or cologne or perfumes.
My intaKe fan shroud has 3 fans in a sliding window on side of van The actiVted charcoal filter sticks to velcro nicely, anx would stay in place at highway speeds.
It would get loaded even when not driving, anx wouod also hide the fans from casual observation. It did restrict airflow, but the Fans had enough extra RPM on tap that it was not an issue.
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I’m so glad you are documenting this here. I may be going down the same path and I’m learning so much from this thread.
My goal is to find a van that someone started but then “life got in the way” and they couldn’t complete it. There’s a lot of them out there and I’m pretty patient (which is to say I don’t have the money right now anyway)
A couple years ago I was doing the electrical on a friend’s Tiny home and she had a setup that consisted of 2 fans with some sort of filters, one on each end of the building - to quietly circulate a small amount of fresh air through all the time.
I can’t find the link to the device but with the proper Google Fu you should be able to find it. they were 120v devices but at least you could research the idea.
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I don’t have time to watch right now but i watched the first 30 seconds and i’m intrigued enough to watch the rest later
This is absolutely not an option.
Preach. I use essential oils in a diffuser for nice smells, but artificial scents give me bad headaches.
I really like this idea and my fans definitely have enough oomph to handle it. It will likely have the added benefit of dulling the sound ever so slightly as well, extra bonus.
This will also nullify the need for insect mesh. Will definitely look further into this.
Yep, i can do that with my two rooftop fans and if I incorporate filters as @SternWake suggested, I’d have a similar thing happening.
I often wonder if both of the fans being in the roof is doing enough to actually circulate the air. I’d really like to cut into the side of the van down low and rig up a vent like this but I don’t think i’ve got the ticker to do it.
In the mean time, i’ve brought in the big guns. Got this neat little bluetooth hygrometer that shows me real-time humidity and temperature on my phone and logs the data as well so I can monitor changes over time.
God i love data for the sake of data.
For the last 2 nights i’ve had a small space heater running at medium power all night in the van and it’s brought the humidity back down to 50%. Left the exhaust fan on all day today, so there would have been fresh air coming in all day and still sitting pretty at 50%.
Enter the big fuck off humidifier. The manual says it’s capable of controlling humidity for a 3 bedroom house and can bring humidity down to as far as 35%….
Its been running for 30mins and exceeding expectations already 
this gives me great confidence in it’s ability to deep dry the van. I’m gonna leave it on for the evening while i go walk the doggos and hope that my van doesn’t shrivel into a prune while i’m gone
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Wow, so 5hrs total and it’s pulled around a litre of water out of the van.
I am SUPER stoked with this purchase.
Its nice to have the bluetooth hygrometer now so i can keep tabs on it, but i think that the plan now will be
Exhaust fan on at night while sleeping to circulate fresh air and keep co2 down
Little dehumidifier on during the day with roof vents open and a fan on inside the van to circulate air. I don’t necessarily want to circulate outside air in, just keep air moving inside the van.
Diesel heater as necessary, if humidity rises too high and i can’t get back to dock, running the diesel heater overnight should dry it out enough as a band-aid
Deep dry once a week while docked at shed.
I think that following this routine will be a pretty solid preventative measure towards combatting moisture build up and mold. Can’t really do a lot more!
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What about desiccant packets places under the seats?
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Lol, i would need a LOT.
I have a couple of these desiccant sacks that i put in my bed during the day. They max out in under a week and need to be ‘recharged’ by dehydrating them in a microwave.
I bought a cheap microwave off marketplace just to do this each one needs 2 rounds of 5 mins in the microwave to be fully recharged. I’d need MANY of these to be even close to effective and recharging more of them would suck.
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Have never come across this channel til this video and have now watched a couple. I do like this dude, thanks for the recco!
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For my dehumidifying needs, I use silica gel beads (sample only: https://www.silicagel.com.au/silica-gel-beads). For example, I have some in a glass baking try inside a sealed plastic box for my interchangeable lens camera gear and filaments.
Drawing from my years getting my chemistry degree, when the beads turn from blue to pink, I will then take the baking try into the oven and heat them up at a relatively low heat to evaporate all the absorbed moisture. It’s a practice I started learning for quantitative chemistry.
Obviously, this is not viable for something as big as a van (use a more active method for that) but I thought I’d share this for people’s dry box needs but they don’t want to use a powered dry box.
I think some of the beads in that tray are 15 years old at this point.
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Yeah the sacks i linked above have beads that are orange when dry and green when saturated. I’ve been blasting them in the microwave to desaturate and it seems to be doing the job well.
I give one an initial 5 min blast and then mix the beads up well and let it sit while the other one goes in for 5, then I repeat that. Doing the job so far!
Microwave should work as microwaves energize the water molecules which eventually transition them into a gas phase.
My baking dish doesn’t fit in my microwave though so the oven it is.
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I’ve been having issues with my greywater occasionally getting air-locked and overflowing prematurely. I installed an extra hose into it today to act as a breather, but also to double as a water input to allow me to flush the tank out.
I also fully completed the rerouting of my diesel heater exhaust, i was a little short on exhaust pipe before.
I did a bit more insulation stuff inside as well, hopefully can get even more done tomorrow.
Since drying out the van last weekend, it’s kept an average of about 50% humidity although its definitely interesting to note how much it fluctuates! There is definitely a correlation between lower temperature and higher humidity, it’s good to have the data as before I was only reading humidity at night when it was much colder, so it was more concerning.
For now i’m not going to dry the van out again, I’d like to get a bit more data to see how the average goes over a bit more time.
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