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Date:         Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:47:20 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: A camping season with the Bus Depot Add-A-Room
In-Reply-To:  <jct9ohrxt3858ksyswaky972.1413474226155@email.android.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

> For my 2 cents I would say that it's a good product ... It is very simple to > "install" and the design is good. For the money a usefully space and way > to have an airy bedroom. > > Now to the flaw, there is a giant hole below the bumper and side to side. All > sorts of bugs can enter this way. So you have to do something for this hole... > The fix is a tarp tucked under the mattress and down the back and you can > even continue it across the floor of the space. > > Overall $79 is a good price.

The rear hatch shelter does leave a gap under the bumper, but little to no gap on the sides if you pull it taut. The sides are elasticized and pull in rather snugly to the sides of the van. There are also two loops at the roof that can be used to attach ropes or bungee cords to pull it roof tighter toward the front of the van. A couple of ties are included for this but I just use bungee cords because it's faster. I attach one end to the loop and the other to the poptop hinge. Between these, I get virtually no gap between the van and the Add-A-Room, and it goes up in five minutes.

As for the gap under the bumper, you could hang a piece of tarp there as Vanaru suggests, but another solution is to just use your rear hatch screen. This gives you the extra space and provides easy access while keeping bugs out entirely. If you have a Westy you should already have one, but if not, we offer one for $49 that also has a zipper for easy access in and out of the rear hatch:

http://www.busdepot.com/255070412 (gray)

http://www.busdepot.com/253069602or (brown)

That being said, personally I've found bugs to generally be a non-issue anyway. My family uses this unit all the time, often in East Coast areas that have no shortage of mosquitos and flies. (In fact we "field tested" the prototype for a whole summer before I released it commercially, and I made some tweaks to the production version as a result.) We use it all night long almost every time we camp, and have actually become very lazy about putting up the rear hatch screen. While you'd think mosquitos, etc. would find their way in from under the bumper, they just don't seem to. A mosquito would have to go under the center or front of the van, find it way back to the rear bumper, up into the shelter, and then into the van. Maybe the path is too convoluted, or they just don't tend to fly that low, but in any case we've rarely found a mosquito in the van, even on nights where we were getting eaten alive outside before we turned in.

Speaking of the rear hatch, by the way, we have also just started importing this rear hatch lock extension for the Vanagon:

http://www.busdepot.com/333000143

While it cannot be used in conjunction with the rear Add-A-Room (which requires the rear hatch to be open to act as the roof), it can be used in conjunction with the rear hatch screen.

Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. www.busdepot.com


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