Hello, I’m new to this forum. I recently purchased a 2021 VanLeigh Beacon 34RLB. Love the trailer! My previous 5th wheel (Montana Legacy) had attic vents installed at the front and back of the roof. It seemed like a good idea to help prevent moisture from collecting inside the attic space. I noticed the VanLeigh does not have them. Has anyone added attic vents to their RV? Maybe the design of the VanLeigh trusses/roof is different and it won’t work? I see there are now solar powered vents available. I would like to know if anyone has installed them on their VanLeigh. Thanks!
We have a 2020 Beacon 39FBB. I have not installed any attic vents on our unit. We do have the three vent fans (kitchen, half bath & master bath) and black/grey tank vent roof penetrations, along with the three A/C units.
I don’t think the attic area is airtight, at least on the interior side. I’ve replaced two of the vent fans, two of the A/C units and the shower skylight and was able to see some of the attic space from those areas. From what I was able to see everything looked OK as far as water/moisture was concerned.
Not sure I’d want to put another hole in the roof which I think increases the risk of water intrusion and would be a worse situation than air possibly being trapped in the attic.
Not sure if that was helpful, but wanted to share my thoughts.
Welcome to the group! I also have a 21 34RLB and outside of some issues we have worked through I love the thing.
This is an interesting topic as while I was in Indiana I did a Keystone / Montana factory tour and saw their roof vents and wondered why they do it opposed to other manufacturers without. When I asked they gave me the “we do extra” explanation and showed me how they also route their water lines in the heat ducts so as not in the underbelly. While on the tour I did look into their ceiling duct work and they had a patent on a piece of plastic that they placed on within and sold that to other manufacturers in the Elkhart area. That would have been extremely helpful to Vanleigh with their collapsed duct issue.
I would subscribe to Stuarts thinking in that I would prefer to avoid more holes in the roof. I have observed several roof replacements in Tishomingo and Redbay (including my own) and havent seen issues in any roofs with moisture in a Vanleigh outside of the outbreak in 22 with the broken sky lights. I speak with Danny from Tish often and will have to ask him what his experience has been since he is replacing a lot of roofs / decking when doing Flex Armor.
For those interested pics are the plastic pieces Montana used in their ducts.
Thank you for information. Good to hear the attic is not air tight and that your attic space looked to be in good shape. I’m planning to remove covers here and there to inspect mine. I’m with you on not adding more holes in the roof if not necessary.
Thank you for the information on the Keystone tour. Maybe they have experienced condensation problems in the past with some of their roof/attic designs. I’m with you and Stuart on not adding additional sources for potential leaks. What originally got me thinking about this is I found some low spots on my roof decking. There is no indication of leaks inside or on top of the RV. I talked with Danny at Tishomingo on Monday. He mentioned that he has seen this before and thought it was likely due to some OSB that was installed on some of the VanLeighs. Evidentially the wood may have been installed with a very low moisture content, then we exposed to higher humidity the wood expands with nowhere to go causing the warping. Makes sense. My thought was maybe there is too much humidity in the attic making things worse. It’s comforting to hear you have not seen moisture problems on the roof installations that you have seen. Thank you for that information.
We purchased our Montana new back in 2015 before Keystone came up with the duct supports. I experienced the same issues with collapsing ducts and resorted to inserting PVC pipe. That’s on my to-do list with our VanLeigh along with all of the other items when outfitting a new RV. We put over 40k miles on our Montana during the 10 years of ownership. Overall it was a great experience. We are really looking forward to spending time in our VanLeigh.
