Shore Power and the Challenge of Curves

looking from the outside. 

Drilling a Big Hole in the Van
The wires for 12 volt and 110-volt are in blue conduit and run through the support structures inside the van.  However, Howard needed to drill a hole in the side of the van to install the shore power hook up.  He describes drilling a hole in a new vehicle as similar to doing surgery on yourself.

Never the less, in spite of the trepidation, all went well.  The hole wasn't hard to drill, it was the right size, in the right place (due to a guide hold drilled from inside the van.) 

A moment of pre-drilling tension

The shore power gadget fit in the hole perfectly, and looks like its always been there.  Whew.   Another little challenge.

No Straight Sides.
Howard continues to build the furnishings for the van, which are a constant challenge because just like a boat, there are no straight sides.  I think the Promaster has the straightest sides of any van on the market, but it still is not a box with nice right angles, and the cargo floor is definitely not parallel to the ground.  The rear of the truck is somewhat higher than the front.  We think this because the van is made to carry 5,000 pounds of cargo, and fully loaded it would be parallel with the ground??  The Ducato/Promaster is the number one van used for camper conversions in Europe, and in spite of all the websites about conversions, no one has said a peep about angles and curves. 

Building the closet.  The bench seats are ready for cushions, but the foam has not arrived yet.

Building the Dinette/Bed

The Ceiling is in.  It's quarter-inch birch plywood, with a nicely finished side.  I'm going to use a light Danish oil on it.  We wondered if the plywood would sag, but because the roof of the van is slightly curved, and the plywood is bowed upward, and screwed to the metal cross-supports of the van roof, we think it would take a catastrophic even to cause it to sag--something like a freeway bridge collapsing on top of it.

Howard built the frames for the two 24"x60" boxes which will become the seats for our dinette, and the head and foot of our cross-ways oriented bed.  The boxes are framed with 1"x2" and faced with quarter-inch ply.  This seems to achieve both our goals--light-weight, and strong.

The seat tops have piano hinges running the length of them, so the lids open for storage below.  The box on the the left has a petition dividing it into two storage units, fore and aft.  The box on the right is not petitioned and can be accessed from the top, or through a door at the back, so we can stow long things, like sun chairs, the awning, etc. and where we can put dirty things like shovels, auto tools without dragging them through the rest of the van.  We are going to put trunk liner material on the floor of both boxes to deaden the sound of stuff bouncing around in there, and to minimize stuff slipping around.

The best price on trunk liner that I've found is from AutoTrim.  It's about $5 a yard, for 54" wide fabric that is similar to felt.

I've been debating what to use for a mattress on the bed, and finally decided on medium density foam with a latex foam topper from The Foam Factory.   Foam Factory offers free shipping on orders more than $75.  Just so happens that FREE is my favorite price.   I ordered a queen-sized piece of both the HD36-R 4" foam, and the one-inch latex topper.  Hopefully that will give us durability for the seats, the  and the sleeping-on-a-cloud softness our old bones crave for sleeping.

A Camper? Really? Why?

Sunrise in Angor Wat, Feb. 2012

Many of our friends are a little incredulous that we are fixing up a camper with the idea of hitting the road.  They point out that we have a comfortable little sailboat, and live in some of the best cruising grounds in the world--the inland sea that stretches from Seattle all the way to southeast Alaska, three bodies of water collectively called the Salish Sea.   They're right, we could sail here for the rest of our lives and never begin to explore all the islands, harbors and anchorages.  but there are a lot of things we can't see from a boat.  We have only seen the coastlines of America, and very little of the interior, even though Howard did cross the US in the '60's on a GrayHound Bus.  We've flown  across the US  many times, but you can't call that "seeing the country." 

Early morning in Luang Prabang

It's not that we don't travel.  We've seen the sun rise at Angor Wat, and set at Stonehenge.  We've seen monks start their day in Luang Prabang, and winter begin in the Arctic.  We've cruised the Canal du Midi, seen Kīlauea erupting, climbed the Prescelli Hills, steamed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and tagged sea turtles on the beach in Costa Rica, BUT, we've never seen the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Tetons, Monument Valley, Glacier National Park, or hundreds of other wonders of North America.  So, before they take our driver's licenses away from us, or we start wandering away from home with no idea where we are, we plan to hit the road and see what's out there between the Cascade Mountains and the East Coast.

 Sun rising/setting to begin months of winter darkness

Insulation continues...

Deciding on the insulation has been a fits-and-starts event with a lot of Google-ing: What's environmentally friendly?  What will help keep the van cool//warm?  What won't cause undue condensation and the dreaded lurgy of rust?  What is semi-affordable?  What won't add too much weight or thickness to the walls or ceiling? Yeesh.  In the end, you just have to click, "add to my cart" and hope for the best.  After getting the Ultra-Touch, we had some doubts that it was the best product to use, but sending it back cost about the same as the product itself, so we used it.

Ultra-touch

Boards hold the ceiling insulation in place until the glue sets

Here's what we've done so far.  The interior floor to ceiling height is important to us, because we have the low-roofed Promaster, so we did not treat the floor the same as the walls and ceiling.  We glued Ultra-Touch--the thin, blue-ish stuff backed with aluminum foil, pictured on the left above to the walls and the floor.  Its main purpose is sound-deadening, but it adds some R-value too.  It is sold for engine compartments and other vehicle applications.  After gluing the Ultra-Touch to the metal, the cotton layer made us extremely nervous, because cotton takes on water like a sinking ship.  To attempt to mitigate moisture accumulating in the cotton layer, we sealed all the raw edges against the van's metal with aluminum tape, reasoning that the aluminum backing plus the aluminum tape would create a moisture barrier--hopefully sealing moisture out, rather than trapping it in.  Time will tell.

Rigid Foam Insulation

The next layer of insulation  is Rmax Polyisocynurate...a name that doesn't roll off the tongue.  It is an extruded closed cell foam that claims to be environmentally friendly with no discernible impact on global warming....really?  It is a ridged board that comes in 4-foot by 8-foot sheets, and is also aluminum backed.  This is the layer that will be behind the finished wall boards.

The Floor--a Different Story

On the floor, we only put down the Ultra-Touch, and topped it with quarter inch plywood.  Again, we are trying to keep the maximum height, ceiling to floor.  We now plan to top the plywood with a foam matting material that is similar to yoga mats.  It will be cushiony underfoot, easy to clean--at least easier to clean than carpet, and add a bit of insulation too.  Some of the Amazon reviews say it holds up well.  Again, time will tell.

Information, not Endorsements

I've provided  links to retailers of products we have used, rather than to the manufacturers, because the retailers generally have more information about the products, and include customer reviews.  I'm by no means endorsing any of the retailers...or the products for that matter. 

The Electrical Power

The sound deadening Ultra-Touch is now glued to the side walls, and the raw edges are sealed against the van's metal walls with aluminum foil tape.  We are hoping the aluminum foil backing on the Ultra-Touch combined with the  aluminum tape will function as a moisture barrier as well as sound deadener.

We know whatever we do, there will be dozens of people who sadly shake their heads and tell us what a b-i-g mistake we've made.  Maybe.   But we've plunged ahead with what we thought made sense at the time.  We plan to put a layer of thermal  insulation against the aluminum foil before we put up the wall boards.  Debates abound about what to use, but we think we will go with formaldehyde-free, encased fiberglass bats.

The blank section on the sidewall behind the driver's seat is where we plan to add another window, so we haven't done anything to that yet.  We still are lusting after a Seitze window, and still have not found a North American supplier.

110-Volt Needs:
The big job now is the electric.  We want a deep cycle house battery that can be charged by the engine's alternator, shore power, or a solar panel.  We think three 110-volt outlets will be enough, as we will only occasionally plug in a small box heater, possibly a toaster oven or an electric kettle, and an AC/DC refrigerator.  The refrigerator will be the only appliance in continuous use.  We also will want to be able to charge the iPad, iPod, and cell phones, when we are parked, and shore power is available.

12-Volt Needs

We plan for all the interior lights to be 12-volt LEDs.  We changed over to LED lights on our boat a while back, and are very happy with the amount of light they provide for almost no battery drain.   We also want to have a couple 12-volt plug-ins for iPod, iPad, and the AC/DC fridge, and a 12-volt line for the electronic ignition on a future propane cooktop.  The wires for all this will run around the van through the blue "Smurf" conduit--the blue "hose" you see hanging out of the van support struts.  We don't plan to have an inverter, because we
can't think of what we would want to run with one if we are off the grid.  We also do not want a generator--too much noise, fuel consumption, weight.  

Speaking of What We Don't Want
Reading other conversion van websites, our power needs seem much smaller than most.  We do not plan to have a TV--we don't have one at home, so we definitely don't want one on the road.  We are not going to have any electric pumps or a water heater.  We are not going to have a built-in furnace, a big sound system, or a desk-size computer.  Our old van just had the factory-installed dome light and we wore headlamps for reading after dark.  In some campgrounds where 110-volt AC was available, we did run an extension cord out the window, and used the power mainly to run either a little box-style electric heater, or our bread-maker.  Kind of nutty to travel with a bread maker, I know, but waking up to the smell of baking bread is pretty wonderful, especially on a cold, drizzly morning.  We keep thinking we should put in extra outlets for future needs, but really, the bread maker aside, we aren't big power users.  

Our Hot Water System
We are going to use the same hot water system we use on our boat:  a gallon-sized coffee pumper-pot.  In the morning when we are making our tea and coffee, we keep boiling the kettle and filling the pumper-pot.  It keeps the water scalding hot for nearly 24 hours.  A couple squirts of boiling hot water in the sink, mixed with cold water, and there's instant warm water for dishes, hand washing, and personal ablutions.  

We have a Mr. Shower for outdoor hot-water showers.  We plan to get a  Mr. Heater (Jeez why can't we be on a first-name basis with these products?) for knocking the chill off in the evening or early morning, never when we are sleeping--for that we have a down comforter, hot water bottles, and body heat.

Decisions to be made:

• the brand of electrical panel//isolator/charger/etc.
• which solar panel--we know it will have to a  flexible, portable one, since our height is limited by ferry height restrictions.  Any fixed panel on the roof would definitely put us over the limit.

Can Your Relationship Weather a Van Conversion?

Taking on a big project like a van conversion that involves a pretty big chunk of change can put some stresses on an otherwise smooth-sailing relationship.  Howard and I didn't expect any issues to arise over our van conversion since we had pretty much agreed on the basics:  We want a camper van with very simple systems, similar to our boat.  We felt confident that we could pull off the conversion since we've worked together on many large home improvement projects and rescued a derelict sailboat about seven years ago, so how hard could a van conversion be?  

Well, it turns out, harder than we thought. The boat was really easy compared to the van. For starters,  the boat was free, so we didn't have to worry about ruining something expensive.  Secondly, we decided early on not to reconfigure the boat layout, so that minimized a lot of major decisions.  And thirdly, the division of labor on the boat was clear--Howard dealt with the completely defunct engine and related mechanical systems, while I took on restoring the wood, paint, canvas and upholstery.   

The van, now called Buster, has a less clear division of labor, so we have taken to squabbling about the details--the windows, the flooring, the cooker, the details of darn near everything.  Adding to the tension, Howard is a man of action, and I am a woman of equivocation, so although we eventually end up on the same page, we have to travel through the valley of much contention first.

If you are undertaking a conversion project with a partner, I think it helps to clarify your goals right at the start, state your non-negotiable needs, and clearly define your budget.  With those parameters in place, go forth and create...and keep reminding each other that this is supposed to be FUN.

Plan, Plan, Plan

 Starting with a big empty box leaves lots of room for planning, and lots of opportunities to make some costly mistakes.

Our old van only had some homemade, built-in storage, and a piece of plywood thrown over the wheel wells and topped with  foam for our bed. That served us just fine for many years.

This time around though, we want a few more creature comforts, so we started off with a wish list:

• A full-sized bed--Many of the conversions we've looked at have had beds not much bigger than a single.  We decided we want something around the size of a double bed.
• Indoor Cooking--We like cooking outdoors, but we want the ability to cook inside if the weather is lousy, or the bugs are out in full force.
• A table--Our sailboat has a booth configuration, and we like that--eating at a table, having a table to work on, and bench seats to lounge on opposite one another.
• Simple systems--like water delivered from jerry cans with a foot pump, no hot water heater (more about our hot water system later.)  No furnace, no interior shower, no generator.
• Storage--lots of storage for food, clothes, tools, outdoor stuff...
• The ability, if needed, to haul things in the van like plywood sheets, building materials, and gardening supplies.
• PortaPotty.  We lived with a PortaPotty for the 9 years we lived in Arctic Alaska, and we have one on the boat, so we're not as grossed out by them as a lot of people.  We plan to use the facilities available at campgrounds and rest areas, but at times when that is not available, the PortaPotty will be appreciated.
• Since we need to keep the height of the van under 90-inches for the ferry, and the manufacturer's brochure says the van is 88 inches high, we cannot add anything that makes the van taller, so a raised roof vent is pretty much out of the question.  We've decided on an opening sunroof to provide ventilation, without adding height.

I made a cardboard mockup to help us visualize what we're thinking.  At the back of the van, against the back doors are two facing bench seats, 56 inches wide.  Underneath the benches the two ends that face the back doors are open for under-the-bench storage of things like sun chairs, boots, tools, chains, rope, etc.  The front half of the benches are partitioned off from the back half, and are accessed from inside the van through  lids  that lift up.  The table comes off the pedestal and drops onto rails between the two benches to make a 74-inch long by 56 inch wide bed.  Removing the table also makes it possible to slide in several sheets of plywood or sheet rock for some future DIY home improvement project.

We are debating if we can have overhead cabinets along the walls above the benches, or if we would constantly bonk our heads on them.  We'll have to make a full-size mock up out of cardboard to see if they are feasible.

The galley is just under 5 feet long, and 20 inches wide, it is behind the driver's seat.  It has storage underneath and overhead cabinets that are 10"x10" x 5 feet long.  Next to the side sliding door is a 15 by 20-inch cabinet that houses the porta potty--easy to access and easy to pull out for dumping.

Decisions and dilemmas to be solved: 

• What flooring material to use
• should the galley be shortened in favor of including a ceiling to floor cabinet?
• We've installed sound deadening material  (Ultra Touch by Bonded Logic).  But we aren't sure what else we should do for insulation/vapor barrier.  There are as many opinions on the Internet as there are snakes in Georgia.  
• We keep going round and round about what kind of cooker we want, and how to deal with the fuel. 
• We want a window over the galley area--a Sietz Window, but they are not easy to find in the US.  One dealer told us they are great windows, but they are packaged so poorly, that 50% of the windows were broken when he received them, so he quit carrying them.
• We haven't decided what to do about carrying additional passengers, since we've only got two crash tested seats…should we add others, and if so how and where?
• What to do about the electrical set up.