First long trip nigles

 We have just had our first long holiday in our Duetto, all two weeks of it. All the joys and woes will be told later. For now I have a leak that is realy easy to find but not shure how to fix. The roof vent above the kitchen was opened for the first time this holiday. One or two of the warmer days  A short time later I was woken to the sound of driping water. Got up to close said vent to find it shut. The water was coming in were the handles fix to the vent at one side. On closer inspection I found the handles apear to be loose in the vents. As yet I havnt vetured up top but is it posable the fixings for these handles are loose or are we looking for more complex troubles.

When we had a caravan we had the rooflight shatter from heavy snow sitting on it. Piece of cake to replace the whole thing if the handles cannot be tightened.

Hi dave , Just had the same problem my self, I found that the handles connected to roof vent are factory sealed, Where thy are fixed together the plastic had small splits in the recessed area, As temp/fix I removed vent cover from handles, shortened the stubs that locate the handles to the vent cover drilled pilot holes in the handles and with screws and rubber washers fixed them back together then sealed recessed area with sealant/adhesive and fitted the vent back in place,( buy a new one take about twenty mins to remove and refit,) ken.

Hi,
One of our vents has just broken,is it really that easy to replace,where do you get them from
will it be an exact match or is it possable to buy more up to date ones
also how expensive are they?
Thanks I know someone will come up with the right answer ,you really all are a very helpful bunch of people

Yes it is really easy to replace with like for like. They are a standard size as used on caravans, 400mm x 400mm or 280mm x 280mm. They come with just flyscreen or flyscreen and blind or you can get just the dome and handles. It's really a case of looking for an exact match. Simply search Ebay for Rooflight or Skylight (or both as people call them by both names).
Just undo every screw you see from underneath and remove bottom frame. This will then show you how the external frame/dome is clamped in place. Undo that and then you best work from outside to cut through the hardened sealant to free the skylight. Installing replacement is just the reverse making sure you use plenty of new sealant (having cleaned off all remaining old stuff). You can replace the standard type with a more modern Heki or Fiamma with clear domes which will look a lot lighter but they are expensive.

Paulmold wrote: You can replace the standard type with a more modern Heki or Fiamma with clear domes which will look a lot lighter but they are expensive.

Before you decide to buy a more modern one.
I replaced the one in our in our toilet with a clear Fiamma about 3(?) years ago. It is now a yellowish colour which I can only guess is the effects of UV. I don't know about Heki but it seems that the material used in the clear Fiamma ones is not as good as it could be.
The opaque original MPK one over the kitchen area still looks like new.

Frank

I recently replaced two of mine.

I spoke to Auto-sleeper parts first but they were waiting for stock to arrive. They said mpk were the make.

So having searched various online spares eventually found that ebay were the cheapest....not always the case.

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ian

Thank you all you are all AMAZING

That's kind  

But is anyone else left wondering why Frank(Boxerman) changed his rooflight to a 'clear one' in the bathroom?

Not wanting to be rude but if his avatar is anything to go by it was n't to help with a closer shave  

Ian

ian wrote:That's kind  

But is anyone else left wondering why Frank(Boxerman) changed his rooflight to a 'clear one' in the bathroom?

He changed it because the original one developed a leak where it (wasn't) sealed to the roof. When he came to remove and re-seal it the screws were rusted in and snapped off. The local motorhome place (Riversway) only had Fiamma ones and only had clear ones of those.

Not wanting to be rude but if his avatar is anything to go by it was n't to help with a closer shave  
Ian

Shave? wots a shave?? 

Frank

 This forum idea is a life saver. I had visions of replacing the whole roof vent not realising the lid and side arms are seperate. I was not keen on the idea of disturbing the whole unit and getting a good seal afterwards. It would be an outside job between bursts of bad weather which is asking for trouble. I asume mine will be the 400mm size, I think the the clear ones may let in more light but as some one said they will yellow in time.Any one of the E-Bay sellers to be recomended from past use please..The people I bought the van from put fly screens and night blinds on the two main vents. I might change both just to be safe. I think a leak like that over the bed could be a bit of a pain.   AS a slight deviation I was suprised to only see a few Autosleepers during our two weeks in France, Belgium and Germany. Perhaps I shouldnt have said were we were going. To be truefull the fellow travelers we did meet were very social and were very keen to tell us of there travel tales. One couple said they were not speeking because he wanted to go home and check his garden. It aint going to go away so whats the worry, we have rare breed things hiding in our jungle of a garden.

I bought mine a few weeks ago from this seller. No problems at all.

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I love touring France . So many characters...and that's just the Brits!!

Cheers Ian

 Hi Ian, There is life in this part of our country. Thanks for the sugestion. I would like to try replacing just the top bit. As I said the leak is only from were the handle fits on to the lid. Making leaks is easy fixing them is another matter. I am going to go and a sus and bogle at the job whilst it is still daylight. What coulor did you fit to yours.

Hi. Just a bit more info. I have just resealed my roof lights using mastic tape from a local caravan shop which was very good plus I used a bit of pu sealant round exposed joints as belt & braces not certain that was necessary but I have stopped the leaks. The job was relatively easy even for a novice like me although I was advised to use plastic scrapers & white spirit to remove all of the old mastic so as to not damage the grp roof & that was very time consuming, a plumber mate of mine said they use a scraper with a metal blade ( like a razor ) in their job which is probably ok for an expert but anyway I did not damage the roof so I was happy. Also I was told to then wipe down area with methylated spirits to clean of white spirit to enable new mastic to stick to GRP roof. Just one more thing I bought a new MPK 400mm sq roof light for the living area & I don't whether it's because I have an old camper but the inner & outer sections flanges on the old roof light were a lot wider than the new one & I guess the opening may have been cut out to suit because the new roof light flanges were not wide enough to go over the existing opening to give a seal so I would advise to measure & check before buying. I reused my old one & the company in Leominister refunded me thru ebay less postage & were ok & good to deal with.Hope this was helpful.
Cheers Phil.

In case anyone is interested I just replaced the (broken) flyscreen mesh on the kitchen roof vent in the Symbol. I think this is the same type of vent mentioned on this topic. I used "midgemesh" as we are in Scotland. Having completely removed the old screen, Evostik worked fine.

Rgds

Mikebro

While we are on this subject, it is also easy to replace the flyscreen and also the blind. You can get just the flyscreen in its frame or a frame containing blind as well as flyscreen and also you can get the blind on its own to put into your frame.

Perhaps we should re-title this thread 'replacing rooflight/skylight.'

 Many thanks folks, I ordered the roof vent as Ian sugested via fleebay. Arived very fast. Unfortunatly due to doing one and a half jobs the fiting was delayed until last weekend. Nice easy job but be aware that the locking catches as suplied seperatly, a choice of black or grey, required triming slightly. The new latches dont line up with the small cut outs in the suround. It only needed about a 1/8" in yorkshire measuring to make the catches lock into place.
The kitchen area is lot brighter now. It was suprising how gruby the old cover was. And it was well foobared around the bolt holes. One bolt was completly missing the hole being filled with sily gunk, probly bathroom stuff.  Now I see why the handle was wobly.
 Next task being to fit a new water pump. It was leaking before we went to France and taking ages to get rid of the air . I nearly bought a diaphram but the model number on the pump didnt match with the diaphrams. I think its an origional pump. It says 16PSI but the replacement is 20 PSI ?. I am asured it is the corect one so here goes. Next trip will be to the Berwick area early next month so best get things sorted I supose.