The manual suggests they should be fitted when the van is laid up during the winter months. Why is that? Is it just to keep leaves and stuff from getting in. If so, should you fit them when towing? I would prefer to leave them off as I keep the van in a garage and they are, like a lot of the plastics, looking a bit brittle.

All I can think is that it's to keep out leaves etc and looked at logically, if you're worried about dust then you should fit them when travelling at any time. Having said that they're not exactly airtight or watertight, they just stop up a large hole and reduce the potential cold airflow so the fridge can work in cold weather. There are lots of folk with WWB's who never use them and don't notice any performance issues with their fridge. They're not always supplied with new vans and they're silly money to buy as accessories.

This all makes sense. I only need to fit them if the outside temperature drops below 10 deg but I could turn the fridge off then if I had to. My life is a lot simpler now. thanks all.

Quote: Aaron Calder wrote in post #3

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I think the covers are useful for Pucks with front facing fridge vents but otherwise can be forgotten about.

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I do use them over winter, it's not unusual for spiders to spin webs over the gas jets and cause ignition problems, although there is a very fine mesh behind the grill so I would assume only the smallest of spiders can get through. When washing the van I always put the covers on to stop water been forced in. ....

I was only thinking about water the other day. When we had the '01 540 it had the vents in the doors, but though we towed through quite a few big storms the area at the door stayed bone dry.

Funny you should say about spiders but the vent cover only covers up the big vents that allows cooling air to circulate up the back of the fridge. The gas burner vent, fed by a separate sealed tubed flue to the right of the upper vent, is never covered by winter covers, as to do so would be to invite CO poisoning. So putting winter covers on won't stop spiders crawling down the flue to the sealed burner area.

Presumably water can drain out when washing. May even remove the spider's webs.

Quote: steamdrivenandy wrote in post #7

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Funny you should say about spiders but the vent cover only covers up the big vents that allows cooling air to circulate up the back of the fridge. The gas burner vent, fed by a separate sealed tubed flue to the right of the upper vent, is never covered by winter covers, as to do so would be to invite CO poisoning. So putting winter covers on won't stop spiders crawling down the flue to the sealed burner area.

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Yes I did look into that solution but in the end I got one of these

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00G05A2MU/r...5740111_TE_item

Which just hangs out of the kitchen window over the top fridge vent if needed. In the ideal world I'd get a spare vent and chop it to fit as a neater job.

As a bonus, in winter it provides a bit of internal air movement in the van to keep condensation at bay.

That's a good idea, I like the feets!