Ezy-Awning Meets the Promaster

We opted for the 8x11 foot awning for full coverage

From the first time we took the Buster-mobile on our first outing, we have wanted to add a canopy.  We cobbled one together from an old sail and old dining fly poles, and it worked OK, but not great.

Most of the canopies/awnings we looked at didn't appeal to us for these reasons:

1.  They were too expensive.  $1000 or more just for a little rain protection or shade seemed looney to us.

2.  They needed to be permanently mounted to the roof of the Van which meant putting holes in perfectly good sheet metal, AND making us too tall for the cheap seats on the ferry.

3.  If they weren't permanently installed, they took up WAY too much space to haul around, were heavy, and involved an engineering degree to deploy them.

Ezy-Awning bags

Then we found Ezy-Awning from the Bus Depot.  It met all our needs.  It was cheap, at $119 plus shipping. When not in use, the awning fit in to two bags about the size of those fold-up camp chairs.  When in use it has shock-corded tent poles holding up the roof, so it sheds water like a champ.

This video shows an Ezy-Awning being set up on a VW Westie.  She actually labors it longer than need be, mainly because she's trying to make it all clear to the viewer.  From the decision to set it up, til we say, "there, that'll work", takes us about 10 minutes.  Same with taking it down.

homemade bracket to adapt Ezy-Awning to the Promaster

The Esy Awning is made for VW vans that have rain gutters.  It comes with three clamps that clamp the side toward the van to the rain gutter.  Unfortunately the Promaster doesn't have rain gutters, so we need to come up with plan B.  Howard used the Ezy-Awning clamps and bolted three adapters that he machined from C-channel aluminum.

Their are three mounting pegs on the roof of the Promaster, presumably for roof racks.  Howard's key-hole slotted brackets drop over the pegs, and slide about an inch toward the rear of the van to lock in place, and make a very sturdy connection.

So in a nutshell, here's what we like about the Ezy Awning:
1.  Cheap
2.  Easy to set up
3  Drains well with not puddles.  The back edge drips into the channel on the  van roof.
4.  Only two poles makes for a very useable space.
5.  Tie downs and the shock-corded support poles make the awning very wind resistant.
6.  It's light weight.
7.  No storage problems either when we are hauling it around with us, or when we store it between camping trips.

Taking the Buster the Promaster on the Road

After all the theorizing about how the camper van would work on the road, we loaded the Buster-mobile and hit the road.--1800 miles in almost 3 weeks, in two countries, through four mountain ranges, onto eight ferries, two major highways, many country roads, and several logging roads.  As a vehicle the Promaster handled extremely well, and was very comfortable for both driver and passenger.  We must have said about a thousand times, "I really like this vehicle."

As a camper, we LOVED it.  It worked very well for us.  Our stuff fit, we slept like logs, had a comfortable space to sit and eat, write, draw, and read.  We enjoyed the convenience of our galley, storage space, and porta-potty.  Our water system was adequate because we were always in places where we could replenish our supply.  In the future, if we camp in a more remote location without access to potable water for more than a couple days, we'd need to take another 5-gallon jug with us, but mostly that's not the kind of camping we have in mind.

the seat cushion now divided into 2 sections

We did decided to make a few tweeks to our lay-out.  First of all, both our bench seats that  convert to the bed had one long seat cushion each.  We decided to split the lids to the benches in two, and also split the cushions into two sections.  This made it possible to access either the left or right storage space under the bench without as much effort.  I thought about doing this originally, but was afraid the cushions would shift too much when we were sleeping on them.  We tested the new cushion configuration on a recent 5-day venture to the Washington Coast, and found they stayed in place just fine.   The bench lids are covered with felting that is used in automobile trunks.  The friction keeps everything in place.

Note the seatbelt holding the fridge in place.

The only other change was to shift the position of the Norcold chest refrigerator.  Instead of being next to the passenger-side bench seat on the left side of the sliding side door, it is now behind the passenger seat, and belted in with a repurposed seat belt.  By the way, we really like the chest-style fridge.  Having used small upright refrigerators in the past, this one worked much better--it could be packed tight, nothing falls out when you open the door. , and it worked very efficiently on the 12-volt system.

We also decided we want an awning, and not the cobbled-together thing we made out of an old sail shortly before we left, but a real awning.  We think we've hit on the perfect solution, and will write about that in the next post.


One of the things that attracted us to the Promaster in the first place was the efficient Dodge V-6 engine and it's highway mileage rating of 24 miles to the gallon.  We had Buster pretty loaded on this trip, and traveled very few miles on anything approximating a highway.  Even so, we got 20 miles to the gallon, so we were happy.

Adding a Window…Gulp.

Even though Howard longed for a Sietz window over the galley space where the poppy quilt had been hanging, he had to face the reality that finding one in the US was not going to happen, and importing one would be hideously expensive.  In the end we ordered a window from Motion Windows in Vancouver, Washington.

The windows are made as replacement windows for RVs and trailers, but since the sides of the Promaster are basically flat and straight, we figured a trailer replacement window would work for us.

The one we got is a double pane, slider with a screen.  Jeff at Motion Windows was very helpful and answered a million questions for us about ordering the window (custom sizes available) and the instillation.  Never the less, when the window came, it sat in the garage for quite a while awaiting a surge of the wild abandon it takes to saw a giant hole in the side of your brand new vehicle.

Now that the window is installed, I like it a lot.  It lets lots of light in, along with ventilation.   It looks like it was factory installed because the black trim matches the factory windows.  I made the same red accordian pleated curtains as I did for the other windows.

So that's the majority of the big (AKA expensive) jobs done.  We are thinking we'll probably get a swivel seat base for the passenger seat at some point, and though we've made a canapy from leftover dacron sail fabric to go over the side door, we've never really tested it out in campling conditions, so it might end up blowing away in the first puff of wind.  All will be revealed in due time.

Privacy Curtains and the Art of Recycling

We used to have a place on the island called the Exchange where we could take things we no longer wanted, but that still had a bit of life left in them, and where people who were looking for usable items could go to retrieve them.  It was a wonderful place and must have kept tons of stuff out of the landfill.  We've made both deposits and withdrawals from the Exchange over the years.  Unfortunately, the Exchange burned to the ground about a year ago, leaving us with usable stuff that we'd like to get rid of and wishing we could go shop the Exchange for a piece of metal, or 1 foot of pipe.  At least a dozen times while we were working on Buster, we've said, "dang, I wish the Exchange were in operation."

But, if the Exchange had been in operation this last year, we would have had to have done something different for our privacy curtains because I recycled a shade I took down in our kitchen.  Now we don't have curtains on our windows at home, but sometimes, in campgrounds, you need them either for privacy or to cut down on the light.

So starting with my old, stained, accordion pleated shade, I cut the metal top and bottom rails off it, and spray painted the interior side red.  (I  LOVE paint--it's transformational, and I am willing to try to paint darn near anything.).  Then I cut the pleated material to size, and sewed some industrial strength Velcro tabs on the curtain, and glued the other side of the Velcro to the van.  These meet my criteria for curtains:

• they are out of the way 99% of the time
• can easily be removed completely
• can be deployed in a snap if needed  
• AND, they were my favorite price, which is FREE.

Folded out of the way and held in place with little velcro strips.

pulling the curtain up

velcro tab on the back of the curtain, and matching piece on the metal of the van

The Bed

We are pretty pleased with the bed.  It takes about 5 minutes to set up, including putting the bedding on, and about the same to put it all away.

The table legs fold up, and the table top fits perfectly between the benches, resting on to rails that run the length of the benches. 

We use the big seat cushions for the middle sections of the bed, and the two smaller cushions for the head and foot sections.  I made the cushion slightly larger than the space, so they would be a tight fit and not slide around during the night.  Since the tops of the benches are covered in trunk-lining fabric, that also keeps things from shifting.

We sleep crossways...our heads where the small red cushions are in the photo.  Originally I was going to buy a double sleeping bag, but then nixed that idea in favor of making up a regular bed.  We put a mattress pad and bottom sheet on the cushions, and then cover up with a comforter that has a fleece duvet cover.  We are warm and cozy.  A sheet and duvet cover are much easier to wash and dry than a double-sized sleeping bag.

The final size of the bed is 60 inches wide and 74 inches wide--a short queen-size, but since neither of us are 6'2", it works for us just fine.

The Table

 Howard built the table top to fit exactly between the two benches to make a bed.  He topped it with white formica so it would have a durable surface.  We wanted a table that could be removed completely so we could use the van to haul stuff.  Also, we thought a table we could set up outside might be handy if the place we stopped had no picnic tables.  I ordered the folding legs on line.  They are very sturdy.

When we are underway, we strap the table to a D-ring bolted to the floor.  By the way, the floor between the benches is raised about 6 inches higher than the floor in the rest of the van.  The wheel wells dictated the height of the benches, but that left our feet dangling like Edith Ann.  Raising the floor also gives us a long thin storage area, accessible from the rear doors for things  folding sun chairs, and walking sticks.
In the photo you can see the rails that the table rests on when it is lowered.  I intend to paint the rails black, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

You can also see the open end of the bench on the right.  The lid of this bench lifts also, so items can be accessed from inside or outside the van.  We wanted a place to store mucky things like muddy boots, a wet awning, our shovel, axe, tire chains, and toolbox--things that we wanted to have accessible, but that we didn't want to live with.

Because Howard is a belt and braces man, as an after thought, he put a bar across between the benches on the forward side of the table to make sure the table doesn't come sliding forward when we are underway.  The bar is easily removable, but securely locks in place.  Next to the bunk on the left is our chest NorCold refrigerator that runs on shore power or 12-volt. 

To lower the table into the bed position, we fold the legs.  In this photo the legs are folded, but not locked in place up against the underside of the table.  We usual leave the legs like this when we make up the bed, because  it is easier to set the table back up.  We merely have to lift the table up, and the legs drop down into position and lock.

On the Road with the BusterMobile

We took Buster to San Juan Island and camped in the county park.  All systems worked well, we slept like logs, and those expensive batteries ran our little fridge and lights just fine...so we're happy.

We do have to report one rather large design flaw...mistakes were made, I blame myself!  Originally, on my paper mock-up, I made the tall cupboard 12 inches deep.  Then I thought it should be deeper, because that would give us considerably more storage space.  So I extended the cupboard to a depth of 20 inches.  The cupboard is great, however, I didn't adjust the length or placement of the table, which means there is now only about a four inch gap to squeeze into the dinette on the driver's side.  

Fortunately the table isn't fixed in place, so it can be tipped up enough to squeeze in on that side, or we can do some acrobatics and climb over the end of the table if we feel flexible enough.  When we are under way, the table is held down with river-rafting straps so it doesn't launch itself through the front of the van on a panic stop.  But when we park, we unstrap it so it can be tipped up easily.  Also, we can get into the dinette through the back doors...but of course not when we are rolling down the highway of life.

Flooring for Buster

We hemmed and hawed over what to put down for flooring over the plywood subfloor.  We had carpet in our old van, and that was pretty bad.  Keeping the pine needles, sand and mud cleaned up took a fair bit of effort.  Other flooring solutions--linoleum, vinyl, wood, bamboo either weighed a lot, or cost a lot or just didn't look that good.

We think we found a great compromise--looks good, is really light weight, was super easy to install, and feels great under foot.  It's EVA matting that fits together like a giant jig saw puzzle, is soft and cushy like a yoga mat, but looks very wood-like.  We think it also adds a bit of insulation and sound deadening.   It's a snap to clean up--just a quick swipe with a broom.

 The matting comes in colors, but the colors are mainly primary colors.  We like the wood-look, and it seems to go pretty well with the gangster-stripped suiting on the cushions.

As you can see, the color scheme for the whole project is black and white with some red thrown in for good measure.

Furnishings for Buster

The dinette benches are done.  I found the fabric online at The Fabric Guru which sells end-lots of fabrics.  You kind of have to sort through to find which pieces you like AND that have enough yardage left on the bolt for your project.  I got 13 yards at $6 a yard...more fabric than I needed, but the price was right and the shipping was really cheap. 

The fabric is a nice thick wool blend that looks a lot like banker/gangster (they are kinda the same these day, no?). business-suit fabric. I painted the walls behind the benches simi-gloss white.  We still haven't worked out the dimensions for the overhead cabinets

The foam for the seat/bed cushions came from Foam Factory--I bought a queen-sized slab of semi-firm foam, 5 inches thick called HD36-R foam, topped it with a one inch layer of super-soft latex foam, and wrapped the foam layers in a one-inch thick blanket of acrylic batting--It's kind of a Princess-and-the Pea bed.  I glued the two layers of foam together with spray glue from the foam factory, and lightly tacked the acrylic wrap in place with spray glue.

The benches are really comfortable to sit on, and when made into a bed,  are  60 inches wide by 74 inches long bed--just about queen-sized.  They form a supportive, but cushy bed--just like sleeping at home, which was a major criteria for our little rolling home-away-from home.  The bases of the dinette/bed benches are covered in trunk liner from the Auto Trim Store.  It covers up any rough carpentry, looks nice, and helps with the sound deadening.

The galley is done now.  The drawers and doors are installed.  The sink and the water pump are working.  The tall cabinet still needs doors.  In the photo we have a piece of canvas hanging over the front of the cabinet just so the batteries aren't visible.  Today Howard is working on shelves to go in the cupboard, and doors.

On a recent short road trip we tried out some of Buster's amenities, including make a cup of tea in the ferry line. 

Note the unfinished wall behind the galley.  We plan to put a window there, but still haven't settled on which one.  Howard still lusts after a Dometic Seitz window, like these from an Australian supplier, but they are not available in the US.  To order one from Europe or Australia and have it shipped is hideously expensive.  So we are still shopping for a window.

Plumbing--Potable Water, Gray Water and Black Water

Continuing our keep-it-simple theme, the galley cabinet houses all our plumbing.  In the bottom compartment, there is the porta-potty, with room behind it to store the chemicals for the toilet.  A hatch cover secures the porta-potty with sliding bolt locks so it doesn't accidentally come flying out of it's compartment on a hard right-turn! 

When we lived in Arctic Alaska for nine years, a porta-potty was our only toilet, so while I wouldn't say a porta-potty is my first choice in sanitation, we are quite familiar with all technical aspects of this form of waste management!

The stainless steel sink is a standard home bar sink from Home Depot, with a Whale brand marine footpump to send clean water  from the blue tank to the sink faucet.  The gray water from the sink drains into the white tank below, and both are secured with a nylon strap.

For "on demand" hot water, we have a gallon-size coffee-pumper thermos like all gas station junk food shops have (not shown). That pumper pot is great.  It keeps water very hot for nearly 24 hours.  Whenever we make tea, we just boil an extra kettle-full and add it to the pumper pot.  A few squirts of nearly boiling water added to the cool water from the clean-water tank, gives us plenty of warm water for dishes or washing up.

For a full-on shower, we have a Zodi Camp Shower that we use outside.  We've used it on our sailboat, and it does a good job of supplying ample hot water and enough water pressure to get shampoo out of our hair, and make us feel like human beings again.

The foot pump for moving water from the blue tank to the sink can be seen sticking out of the side of the cabinet in this photo.  It is very easy to stick our foot around the side of the cabinet and pump the water.  The foot pump is out of the way and doesn't get accidentally pressed. 

Electricity & Batteries

There's been a big gap here in documenting what's happening in the van because I was away for awhile with the Red Cross working at the Oso landslide.  Now I'm back, I'll try to catch things up.

One of the big jobs Howard worked on while I was gone  was the electricity. Not only was it a big job, it was really expensive.  Our main requirements for electricity are to run the Norcold portable refrigerator we have, and to run the interior lights, charge devices like an iPad, cell phone or laptop. 

On the advice of a marine electrician, we went with two 6-volt, golf-cart-style batteries rather than one 12-volt battery.  The electrician told us these would yield more amp hours than a single 12-volt battery--he said we could be off the grid, and not running the engine for three days, and the batteries would be up to the task.  Hope so.  The batteries were shockingly expensive.

The electrician advised Howard on how to run the wires, and get everything prepared, then he did the final installation and hook up to connect the engine batteries, house batteries, battery charger, isolation switch, and so forth.   In spite of our keep-it-simple theme, this got pretty complicated.

The house-battery-bank is charged by the van's alternator, but only after the engine's battery is fully charged.  They can also be charged by shore power when that available.  There is an isolator between the house batteries and the engine battery, so we won't drain the engine's battery when we are parked, but with a flip of a switch, we can and start the engine with the house batteries if that is ever needed.  We've talked about getting solar panels...but at this point, we weren't ready to do that.  We would have to use a portable solar panel, because we can't install anything on the roof of the van, as that would make it too tall for the standard fee on the ferry.  Staying in the cheap seats has been a primary goal all along.

So we now have shore power going to two 110 volt outlets, 12-volt power going to three 12 volt outlets and six 12-volt LED lights.  That seems more than adequate for our needs.

The tall cupboard in the photo above houses most of the electrical gear, with space left over for a few shelves.  Next to the tall cabinet is the galley with a sealed compartment on the bottom to house the

port-a-potty.  In the right-hand wall of the tall cabinet, facing the galley is the 12-volt/110 volt distribution panel.  We bought an all-in-one Progressive Dynamic "Mighty Mini"  which our electrician said was a good piece of tack at a good price.  We haven't used it much, so we can't really give it a bunch of stars, but it seems to be just what we need. 

The panel has a face plate that snaps over all this all this technical looking stuff, and looks quite nice.

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.

The New Van--a Promaster

Ever since we donated our 30 year old Dodge van to NPR in around 2009, we have missed having a vehicle we could camp in.  Periodically we've talked about getting another van, but the huge engines and low gas mileage were deal breakers. 

When Mercedes-Dodge Sprinter vans appeared in the American market, we took a serious look at them, but living on a ferry-served island, the height of the Sprinter meant a ferry ticket would cost almost double.

Then, after the Mercedes/Dodge divorce, we started to hear rumors that the Fiat Ducato, a van we had often seen in Europe, was going to be marketed by Dodge in North America.  We were interested in the low-roof, long-wheel base version that would give us lots of room for a van conversion, and yet still qualify for the cheap seats on the ferry.  Best of all, the Ducato, called a Promaster in North America, gets 22+ miles per gallon. Ordinarily, we would be the last people to buy a vehicle the first year it is released, but two things convinced us to take the leap.
1.  We were offered a really good deal on our low-mileage Honda Element.
2.  We're old geezers and if we are going to hit the open road again, we'd better get crackin'.

We spent many a happy hour in our old van, including driving up and down the Alaska highway.  You couldn't really call that old van a camper since it mainly had a piece of plywood thrown in the back over the wheel wells, and topped with a piece of foam rubber for a bed, and a big built in cabinet where we could stash everything from the Coleman portable camp stove and a shovel, to food, water and clothes.

We are aiming higher this time, and plan to add a few more creature comforts.  We're starting with a big empty box, lots of ideas, lots of anxiety about how to do it right.  Right meaning mainly that we don't take a brand new, perfectly good vehicle and screw it up in some significant way.