Epic Guide to Van Life Electrical & Solar (How to Get Electricity in a Van)
Confused about installing electricity in your van? Check out our guide to everything electrical for tips, how-tos, and awesome diagrams.
Best DC-DC Chargers and Battery Isolators for Vanlife (How to Charge Your Van While Driving)
Having electricity in your van is just plain awesome. It means you can live completely off the grid with lights, a fridge, phones and computers – all while not worrying about electric bills or power outages. Many vandwellers install solar power in their rigs. But sometimes solar just isn’t enough – especially if your budget…
Mounting an ARB Awning on a High Top Van (Without a Roof Rack)
We didn’t install a roof rack when we built our van. At the time, we didn’t see the need for one. “Our roof is going to be taken over by solar panels and a vent fan,” we thought. “There’s no reason for us to get a roof rack.” How wrong we were. We know now…
Vanlife Mold Prevention and Redoing Our Floor: Tips and Lessons
It’s every vanlifer’s worst nightmare. There’s a leak somewhere, and a good rainstorm brings a steady drip of water that might not seem like a big deal at first. But that water ends up leaching into some dark, unventilated corner of your van, and before you know it you’ve got a mold problem. This is…
Installing Our Water System: DIY Van Build Plumbing Made Easy
If you plan on going off grid for any length of time, you need water in your van. And if you like to cook as much as we do, you’ll also want a sink for washing dishes and a way to catch waste water. But how do you go about setting all of this up?…
How We Made Custom Kitchen Cabinets for Our DIY Van Build
Without water and a way to cook food, living in a van just wouldn’t be possible. Buying food and drinks at restaurants and gas stations all the time is not only unhealthy, it’s also expensive. So, one of the most important parts of any van build is the kitchen setup. Our kitchuation (…kitchen situation…get it?)…
How to Build an Easy Portable Solar Panel Mount Out of PVC
It gets hot in the summer. Even hotter inside of a van – no matter how good your insulation and ventilation are. And when the sun’s beating down and making that temperature rise, sometimes you just need to park your van in the shade to help keep it cool. The problem with that, though, is…
How to Build a Plywood Battery Box for a DIY Van Conversion
Where do we house all of the electrical components in our van build? We have two big AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries in our van, and we decided to build our own battery box out of plywood. With a sealed battery like AGM or LiFePO4, a battery box isn’t required. If charged and discharged properly,…
How to Fit a Queen-sized Bed in Your Van: Badass Pullout Bed Frame Design
How do you live in a van and make it comfortable at the same time? Especially if you’re traveling with another person, it’s vital to maximize every inch and make sure there’s plenty of available space for stretching out. Even more so if you have dogs (or cats) in the van with you. In our…
How to Make Your DIY Van Build Easier with Pocket Holes
You’ve got your van insulated, you’ve installed walls, a floor, and a ceiling. Now you need a bed, a kitchen unit, maybe a bench to sit on. But how, exactly, do you put all of this together? Whether you’re building furniture or building a custom van interior, there’s always more than one way to do just about…
Creating Our Mobile Log Cabin: Easy Steps to Staining a Van
If you’re living in a van, it’s important that it really feels like a home. And for us, there’s nothing more comfortable and homey than having wood lining every surface. Our birch plywood walls and beautiful cedar plank ceiling looked great right away, but staining and sealing them really brings out the grain patterns and…
DIY Van Conversion: Awesome Cedar Plank Ceiling Installation
In our last post we went over how we installed plywood walls in our van. The next step in turning our van into a home is hanging the ceiling. We toyed with a few different options for our ceiling. Many van-lifers just screw up a sheet of 1/4” or 1/8” plywood, which is relatively easy…
DIY Van Conversion: Installing Plywood Walls in Our Van
After fully insulating our van and installing laminate flooring, the next step was to put up the walls. As with every part of the van build process, there are many different options to choose from for walling material. For our van, we decided to go with 1/4” birch plywood because it’s flexible, easy to work with,…
Installing Laminate Flooring in Our Conversion Van
A few weeks ago we did a post on how we insulated our conversion van. The last thing we did in the insulation process was laying down Reflectix on the floor. Now we get to install the rest of the floor! There are three main parts to a flooring installation for a van build: Insulation…
Installing a Vent Fan on Our High Top Conversion Van
The next step in our diy camper van build was installing a roof vent exhaust fan, which means cutting a hole in the roof. Fun! A vent fan is an essential part of creating a comfortable living environment inside of a van. It keeps the van cool by sucking out hot air and creating airflow,…
How We Mounted Solar Panels on a Fiberglass Van Roof
Every van is different, and throughout our van build we’ve found that ours poses some unique challenges with the shape and contours of its roof. Nothing is simple when you’re working with a curved surface, and mounting our solar panels was no different. Solar power is a must for van life. Electricity gives us the…
Insulating Our Conversion Van: Tips, Tricks and Step-by-Step
One very important thing to consider when preparing to live in a van is temperature control. And the biggest factor in controlling your van’s temperature is insulation. A well-insulated van will stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and it will be easier to maintain a comfortable temperature. When we were researching…
Gutting Our Conversion Van and Removing the Wheelchair Lift
The van we bought was a 1996 Chevy Express high top conversion van with a wheelchair lift. The good thing about buying a van like this is that many of them have some pretty nice amenities – leather seats, power windows and locks, etc. – and, of course, the high top. While we can’t fully…