We love our 2020 Airstream Globetrotter 23FB …

… but there’s always room for improvement. In the case of Airstream’s 23FB models, which have a rear bath, we’ve heard and experienced two common complaints. This week we fixed both of them.

The biggest gripe is that the bathroom has no vent fan. I’ve never encountered any other modern Airstream model that lacks a fan in the bathroom. To my mind, it’s essential for getting the humidity of a shower out of the trailer.

It may be that Airstream though the Fantastic Vent located just outside the bathroom door would be good enough. It certainly does move a lot of air, and Airstream thoughtfully provided a cut-out in the wall above the bathroom door to allow steam to escape, but despite this the Fantastic Vent doesn’t do a good job at clearing the bathroom air. Nor can you run it on a rainy day.

Entreaties from my beloved about smells emanating from the bathroom eventually became ultimatums, and finally even threatened to permanently derange the peace of our Airstream. This was the final straw, so I vowed we would have a bathroom fan like every other Airstream owner has and deserves.

This week we towed the Globetrotter over to Colin Hyde’s shop in Plattsburgh NY for this project (and two others, which I’ll document in subsequent blogs).

The key, as in any other project involving cutting a hole in your Airstream, is to “measure twice and cut once.” Maybe even measure 10 times to be sure.

Chris, of Colin’s staff, has worked on my trailers before and I completely trusted his skill (as I do of all the guys who work for Colin). He removed the center LED light in the ceiling to get access, carefully measured and marked the locations of everything, then got my approval before cutting. The photo above shows what 23FB owners will need to know.

We took power from the ceiling lights, which means the fan will only run when the lights are on but that doesn’t strike me as an important limitation. The fan is barely visible from the outside (unless you’re on a ladder like I was for the photo above), and once installed it looks what the factory would have done.

This would be a tricky DIY job. It required some skill and careful work to cut the hole precisely, then some re-wiring, sealant for the roof, etc. Chris did everything in a couple of hours but if I’d done it I’d probably spend most of the day—assuming I had the proper tools and supplies. While I’ve done a lot of Airstream work, this is one upgrade that I was glad to hand off to a professional.

Now that it’s done, we’re all breathing a sigh of relief. Literally and figuratively.

I’ll write about the other upgrades we got done at Colin’s shop in the next blogs.