Caravan Dust Reduction Systems (and why we have the Gusto DRS in our Suncoast caravans)
Travelling is all about stories and there is definitely a story behind every decision we’ve made regarding our Suncoast Caravan builds. You may be wondering why from this point on we will have a Gusto Dust Reduction System (DRS) fitted as standard in all of our vans. The reason for this involves a trip more than 10 years ago out to Birdsville in outback Queensland. We were warned prior to going about the high possibility of dust incursion into our caravan but didn’t think too much about the issue with regards to the many vents that are found in most caravans. We blocked what we could including the big one that’s at the bottom of just about all caravan entry doors.
The road out from the Diamantina Development Road Rest Area along the Birdsville Development Road at that time was partly sealed but mostly dirt from where you turn left at the rest area all the way out to Birdsville. Once we arrived, we opened the door to find that while the fridge door on our new van had fallen off, there was no dust inside. (NOTE: The van at the time was one we owned previously before Sunvan Caravans). Phew! We thought that this dirt road travelling that we knew we would be doing a lot more of was a cinch. We had it covered! After a few days with friends, we all headed back home to Brisbane along the same route pulling into Windorah for a quick beer before heading on out to Cooper Creek Crossing to set up for the night.
Of course I did manage to get us bogged in the sandy creek bed but thanks to the help from others, this was quickly remedied. Once we had picked a spot, Kaz opened up the door to find that the entire caravan had a thick layer of dust on every flat surface in the van. A bit of dust would have been disappointing but fairly easy to handle but this was everywhere….and lots of it! It even made it into all of the drawers, covered our clothes, food as well as the cooking and eating utensils!
From that point on we were on the lookout for some way to stop the dust from coming in. First was the flip up hatch and while that helped, it didn’t stop all of the dust plus you had to remember to close it after pulling up as well as the fact that it did not work at slow speeds.
There are other non powered dust reduction systems on the market but these do not work at low speeds, are prone to leaking, are affected by tailwinds or a change in wind direction and are roof mounted. Roof mounted DRS are hard to reach up to when you need to clean the filters so we didn’t think that was going to be the best option.
When we found The Gusto DRS we had a winner. It’s wall mounted, 12V powered, has an easily accessible filter that can be cleaned and reused over and over as well as a pressure sensor indicator light that tells you when that filter needs cleaning. Job done, no dust. For more information and specifications, please download the Gusto brochure.
Contact Us Download the Gusto DRS Brochure