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Maxxair Fan Review: The Best Vent Fan for Campervans

A vent fan may not be the sexiest item in your camper van, but it is low-key one of the most essential items to have. A high-quality fan is worth the money. In this Maxxair fan review, you’ll learn why the Maxxfan is the undisputed king of mobile home ventilation.

We keep our Maxxair fan on 90% of the time. The only time it’s turned off is while we’re driving. Otherwise, it’s kept on and continually bringing in fresh, cool air.

We’ve used our vent fan in virtually every environment possible:

  • Blistering hot weather
  • Freezing weather
  • Endless monsoon-style rains
  • Humid weather
  • Corrosive salty beach air

No matter our environment, our Maxxair vent fan keeps chugging along and does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

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What We Like

What can we say? The MaxxFan Deluxe Roof Fan just plain works! Let’s start our Maxxair fan review by listing everything we love about it.

Maxxair | Maxxfan Deluxe

A high-quality vent fan is a top van life essential. It exhausts stale, greasy, & musty air and promotes fresh air flow into the van. The Maxxfan's unique rain cover allows you to continue operating the fan even when it's raining hard outside.

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1. Rain Cover

Unlike many other vent fan brands, the MaxxFan has a rain cover. This allows you to continue using the fan even when it’s raining outside.

While most vent fans have a simple pop-up lid, the Maxxfan has a useful rain hood that allows it to draw air through a downward-facing screen. This prevents any rain from entering the camper.

And if you haven’t lived in a camper van yet, you should know that keeping your vent fan on when you’re trapped inside your vehicle while it’s pouring outside is critical to interior comfort.

Without proper airflow, the air gets humid and sticky, and the floor becomes moist.

Trust Us: Being trapped inside your camper under rainy conditions is pretty darn uncomfortable.

Streamlined Look

Black Maxxfan rain hood

Unlike the bulky aftermarket rain-hoods you can buy on Amazon, the rain cover included with the MaxxFan is sleek and streamlined. What’s nice is that with a turn of the knob, you can raise and lower the rain cover to the height that you want.

2. Strong Air Flow, Yet Quiet Operation

If you want to cool down your van and bring in fresh air quickly, the Maxxfan can do that in a cinch. With ten different fan speeds, the Maxxair fan can move huge volumes of air in seconds.

Maxxair fan cooling down a camper van and a human's feet
Enjoying the cool breeze from our vent fan.

In fact, the moment we turn our fan on, we’ll already begin to notice markedly improved air quality inside our camper literally within 5-10 seconds.

At night, on the lowest 1-2 speeds, the Maxxair fan is virtually silent. You’d never know it was even on.

Keeping It Quiet: As the bug mesh starts to build up with dust, the sound of the air passing through gets louder. Keeping the mesh clean helps to keep sound to a minimum.

3. Low Power Draw

The MaxxFan draws less than 3 watts of power at its lowest speeds. This is important because even though the energy draw is so low, a vent fan can still consume considerable power over a 24-hour because of its continuous use.

What We Dislike

No product is completely perfect. In this Maxxair fan review, we do list a couple of critiques of this fan.

1. Rain Cover Is Hard To Clean

More parts mean more things to clean. And because the MaxxFan comes with a built-in rain cover, it’s just another part you must clean and maintain. Cleaning the rain cover means getting onto the roof and detaching the cover from the main fan unit. It’s not difficult, but it’s time-consuming and inconvenient.

2. No Sealant Tape Included

Our RV windows came with sealant tape to prevent rainwater from leaking through the sides. We wished Maxxair would include something similar since these fans are almost exclusively being installed on campervan and RV roofs.

Instead, we had to purchase our own Butyl Tape and lap sealant to create a watertight seal.

Ready To Install? Check out our MaxxFan installation post to learn more.

3. Retaining Knobs Are Hard To Turn

To clean the bug mesh, four retaining knobs need to be turned out so that the mesh can be removed. But putting the mesh back can be tricky because the knobs don’t turn back in so easily. It takes practice.

Maxxair Fan vs. Fan-Tastic Fan

The Fan-Tastic fan is a popular vent fan alternative to the Maxxair fan. Though prices fluctuate, a Fan-Tastic fan tends to be about $100 cheaper than their Maxxfan competitor.

Fan-Tastic Vent Fan
$252.47

Popular vent fan alternative to the Maxxair fan. The cover must be in the closed position when raining, so the fan has limited use when wet ouside.

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03/09/2024 08:40 am GMT

But perhaps more importantly, the Fan-Tastic fan is sleeker and has a more streamlined look. This makes the fan a better option if stealth camping is a top priority since the Fan-Tastic fan is less visible from the street side.

But even considering the fan’s cheaper price point and lower profile, we still wouldn’t buy the Fan-Tastic fan simply because the fan lacks a rain cover. And to repeat our point above, we think the rain cover is the MOST essential feature of the Maxxair fan.

True Story: We once parked next to another camper fan. While they were out, it started pouring rain. Their fan didn’t have a rain cover, and they had left the top open while they were out. Not surprisingly, the rain poured inside their van, and everything got wet. And when they got back, they had to hang much of their wet belongings in the sun to dry out.

The Verdict – The Maxxair Fan Is the Best RV Vent Fan

Maxxair Maxxfan Rain Cover - Best RV Vent Fan
Maxxfan rain cover on our camper van

Yes! We absolutely believe that the Maxxfan is the best vent fan for camper vans.

  • Works When It Rains
  • Durable
  • Quiet Operation
  • Low Energy Consumption

We understand that it’s important to do your own due diligence, but we did hours of research and realized that the Maxxfan was the best fan for our needs.

And to save you the hassle, we wrote this Maxxair fan review to tell you exactly how we feel.

Maxxair Fan Competitors

If you’re still unsure about the Maxxair fan and want to see what else is out there on the market, check out the competitors below.

Fan-tastic Fan

The Fan-Tastic Fan is another commonly used vent fan for camper van conversions. It’s a popular fan because of its low profile, which makes it easier for stealth camping. Fan-tastic fans are also cheaper than their MaxxFan counterparts.

But the lack of a rain cover means using this fan when it’s raining outside is unrealistic. And for us, this is a deal breaker.

RVLOVENT Vent Fan

RVLOVENT Vent Fan
$124.95

Similar in construction to the Fan-tastic fan and a good alternative if budget is a concern. Unlike the Maxfan, however, there is no rain hood.

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03/09/2024 08:49 am GMT

For the budget-conscious, RVLOVENT’s vent fan might just be the best VALUE vent fan for camper vans. The fan unit fits into a standard 14”x14” hole, is quiet, and provides great value. However, for such a budget model, it’s worth reminding that you ‘get what you pay for.’

RecPro Solar Vent Fan

RecPro Solar Ventilation Fan
$39.95

Solar-powered mini ventilation fan. This tiny fan is unassuming and ideal for stealth campers. However, the fan cannot move the air required to control the interior climate properly.

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03/09/2024 09:22 am GMT

If you’re still looking for a way to circulate air in your campervan, but stealth is of utmost importance, the RecPro Solar Powered Vent Fan may just be what you’re looking for.

This fan is small and unassuming. In fact, the RecPro fan might just be the STEALTHIEST vent fan for camper vans.

It also has a tiny rain cover so that it can still be used when it’s raining outside.

However, before you pull the trigger on this tiny fan, we don’t think this fan can move anywhere near the amount of air needed to ventilate the inside of a campervan properly. We encourage you to visit the Amazon page to check out this product and read their reviews.

FAQ

Is a Rain Cover Worth It?

Yes! And a million times, yes! After 2+ years on the road, we’ve spent many days and nights stuck in our van when it was raining decently hard outside. Venting the inside of your van during the rain is arguably even more important, so we feel getting a vent fan that comes with a rain cover is absolutely necessary.

Is It Better To Install Two Vent Fans in a Van?

We’ve heard that installing two roof vent fans on a campervan does wonders to REALLY circulate air all throughout the interior and to bring down internal temperatures during the hot summer months.

Our only hesitation is that having a second roof fan removes valuable roof real estate that could be used to install more solar panels. If you already properly calculated your solar array requirements and figured you can still fit a second vent fan on your roof, then we say go for it!

Will These Fans Keep My Pet Cool in the RV All Day During Summer?

While a roof vent can keep your van’s interior cooler for longer during summer, we would not recommend leaving your pet inside your van ALL DAY under a blistering sun. It also depends on how well you insulate your camper van and if you can find a shady spot to park.

Is the Maxxair Remote Control Worth It?

Some of the higher-end vent fans come with a remote control to operate the fan without operating the manual button on the physical fan unit. In our case, because our campervan is so small, it actually doesn’t take much effort (or distance) to turn the fan on or off manually.

Can You Drive With the Maxxfan’s Rain Cover Lifted?

While we wouldn’t recommend it because the headwind would put a lot of pressure and stress onto the joints of the rain cover, we’ve definitely done it before by accident! But once we realize what we’ve done, we always pull over to lower the rain cover.

We Hope Our Maxxair Fan Review Sold You

We hope you enjoyed our Maxxair fan review. We firmly believe that the Maxxfan is the best vent fan for camper vans, and we think you will agree!

Cat sleeping alone in an RV
Our cat Maya is also enjoying the breeze

After over 4+ years on the road, we still love our MaxxFan and wouldn’t do anything different with this part of our van build. We did van life in Mexico for an entire rainy season (spoiler alert: it rains A LOT), and the rain cover on our MaxxFan was perfect for our needs.

And being able to circulate fresh air while pushing out bad air really increases the long-term livability of our campervan.

If you have any questions about installing a vent fan on your van, please let us know in the comments below.

Happy building!

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2 Comments

  1. Your vent fan installation instructions were great – except you forgot about connecting the electrics. I currently have a vent w/o fan. Where do I get the power from?

    1. Hi Laurie, so sorry I completely forgot about the electrics part. You’ll need to connect the the fan’s black (negative) and white (positive) to a battery. Do you have a house battery located in the back half of your camper? You can run 14 or 16-gauge wire from the battery to the fan’s supplied wires.

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