brunnhilde's enhancements to combat solar gain

A camper is like home, you want to make it as comfortable as possible. More important than home you want to make it energy efficient. Thermal performance is one area that can never be overemphasized.

Mitigating solar gain in Brunnhilde has been a long process for me ever since I acquired her two years ago. I wanted some time to think though the best strategy and implementations. Like planning renovation to a house you are better off first spend some time living in it while observing the less than obvious, as well as giving yourself time to formulate plans. With time you can reexamine your plan and refine them and save from making bad decisions.

this is the shady boy light weight awning that I installed quite some time ago

I have been wanting to further clean up Brunnhilde's appearance of the fervorous embellishments. The US badging and designation of the Mercedes Sprinter has long irks me. Long gone were all the Dodge grill and emblem. I have been wanting to remove the "2500" legends on the front doors. I just don't understand why 2500. 2500lb of payload?

 even the raised letter of the Sprinter irks me now so off it goes while I am in the mood

 someday i might invest in the over-priced "Powered by Mercedes" legend to fill the empty spot

 i have consider putting the "316 CDI" emblem on the doors but still unwilling to spend the money ($100 for 3 plastic badges)

 i recently tracked down a couple of small leaks on the hull so i patch them with epoxy

German car manufacturers like to tout how great German engineering is. The hard truth is these days very often Deutsch designs often fall way short of the hypes. Take this kitchen range extractor fan for example. It suffer from very basic design oversights and I am only referring to the centrifugal blower. The housing is made with plastic which distorts from the molding process. The motor shaft comes into contact with the plastic housing because the plastic bows in hence causing the fan motor to labor under friction. I found the problem and drill a hole where the motor shaft rubs against the housing a few months ago. Immediately the blower acted up again because the plastic continues to deform. The impeller starts to rub ever slightly against the plastic housing.

To fix this I open the blower again. Even with infinite care I cannot avoid breaking one of the snap-together-once-only plastic tabs. Yes, the designer is so arrogant that the blower is intended to be non-serviceable.

I carefully heat up the offending plastic housing with a heat gun and corrected the bowing. I am hoping the heat from the cook top burners do not cause the housing to deform again.

 surf and turf - new york steak and sockeye salmon

 more salmon - i try to take advantage while wild salmon is (relatively) cheap

 my smoked salmon

 instant ramen with stewed pig stomach

i like they tout that there are more than $1400 in saving in total - as if this will make me to buy more; sorry for the rant

It took me a while to figure out the best way of removing the big sunroof for painting. I didn't refer to the service manual because I don't trust it. My planned method:

• open the sunroof in full
• remove fuse to prevent accidental closure (and the risk of breaking the activation mechanism)
• disconnect the actuating arm pivot joints on the sunroof
• remove the screws securing the four hinges
• lift off the sunroof from the outside

actuating arm pivot joint on the sunroof secured by 4 socket head screws

 removed the fuse for safety

i am glad i chose this method instead f trying to remove the plastic hinge pins; the screws on the two outer hinges had worked themselves loose from vibration (someone might have mess with the sunroof before and failed to tighten with proper torque)

 with the help of a tall ladder i managed to lift off the sunroof by myself

this is what I used to reduce solar gain while giving myself time to think through how to properly paint the skylight; my final decision is to paint it white on the outside

 removing the four hinges

 note the grey plastic cap has water drainage on one side

ready to be sanded a bit to promote paint adhesion; actually the paint solvent does dissolve the skylight a bit forming a chemical bond

 take a picture of the part marking for future use

this spray bomb is a ripoff; Krylon charged me 35% more money and the extra 35% by weight is just more solvent and propellant; the paint is so thin it was very hard to avoid runs

 while i am at it i also spray painted the epoxy repair on my sailboard hull

a bit of overspray on the fin - i just didn't want to bother to do masking; it is easy enough to take care of the paint particles with water and fine grit sandpaper

 even painted white there is no shortage of light coming through

 installation steps are the reverse of the removal

 i put on the "James Cook Freunde" given to me by Peter and Barbara

the decal was a bit past its prime and i had to be very carefully removing the protective wax paper as the decal kept wanting to tear itself apart

 finally there is a decal that properly denotes Brunnhelde's true name - a James Cook by Westfalia

we have been getting a long stretch of scorcher days here in Portland; to beat them I decide to get up really early and start working around the house while the air is nice and cool

I have finally invested $20 in a roll of foil insulation and cut them to size for all the cabin windows. They are for to reflect the sun as well as added thermal insulation and are removable.

I took some temperature readings with this infra thermometer in a near 90F day under clear sky in the mid day sun.
the black plastic on the sunny side

 the glass is hot to the touch - 130F water can scald a young person

the blackout area of the glass is 16 degree hotter!

I was so right not to order my Mini Cooper with the glass Skylight. While it is nice occasionally in a cool summer night the skylight is a negative thing to have most of the time.
the silver metallic paint performs nicely - i wish there is a black car nearby i can demonstrate the drastic difference; i had a black bmw and i said to myself, never another dark color vehicle

 the front windows are only slightly tinted so are much cooler - the reflective fabric works well to reflect most of the light back out through the single glazing

very low reading inside behind the black-out curtain - only about 10F of temperature rise in a parked vehicle in direct sun

with the big skylight painted white i also place a 1/4" artist's foam board for further insulation and light blocking - very impressive temperature reduction

 this is the measurement inside the opened bath skylight surface

 with my low power ventilation fan running the cabin temperature is just 91F