Welcome

WELCOME

Welcome to the blog for our campervan build

This project began in May 2020 during the 'lockdown' in the UK due to COVID-19. We were supposed to be touring Europe in our existing camper conversion 'Movano The Van Hoe' but this obviously wasn't going to be possible... So after finishing a pretty ambitious Hot Tub Trailer build (see the blog here) we decided we needed another project to keep us occupied during however many weeks left of lockdown.

We put Movano The Van Hoe up for sale and bought a Renault Master which we will convert over the coming weeks/months.

We are fortunate in that Elliot has a fully equipped workshop with tools and space to work, and we're also fortunate in that this is Elliot's second camper conversion, so we're not totally winging it!

This is a blog of the full build and I make no apologies that it is very photo heavy. The primary purpose of the blog is to document this build both for our own records, and for anyone else who's interested.

We plan on touring around Scotland with our Trailer Hot Tub when travel restrictions are relaxed enough to allow this.

Disclaimer: This is NOT meant as a tutorial. Do not try this at home. Always seek professional expert advice.

Wednesday 13 May 2020

Insulation

I was tasked with measuring all the gaps in the body of the van in order to insert 50mm Celotex GA4050 insulation boards so the van stays nice and cozy for those winter trips. The gaps will be filled with expanding foam to insulate and secure.

There's pros and cons of different types of insulation and there's lots of information out there. We considered using all rockwool, but the Celotex has a better heat efficiency; or polyurethane spray foam, but we'd read some stuff about bad fumes coming from that. So we'll use primarily the Celotex but with some rock wool for the small spaces.

This is a messy job with the dust and fibres from this stuff getting EVERYWHERE. Definitely an outside job!

Update: I sneezed so much this day that I gave myself a mild case of whiplash and couldn't look right for 3 days!

Planning.

I hadn't quite anticipated how much planning goes into a campervan conversion. I reckon we will spend approximately 100x more time on the planning than the actual doing of the conversion.

I'm a fan of my spreadsheets, so naturally I created a colour-coded spreadsheet to try and deal with the budgeting side of things. There's also additional tabs for researching and comparing different fixtures and parts.

Also the physical planning, measuring every dimension of the van, marking out with tape where fixtures will be located, deciding where and how many windows to include. Where will a socket be? Where will the speakers be mounted? What size of TV should we get? Do we need dimmable mood lighting? What will the floor be made of? SO SO MANY QUESTIONS!

Here we've started to mark out where the bed and kitchen units will land, and the height of things.

Here we're planning the 'beside the bed' controls, including the lightswitch (dimmable), a USB and 12V charger, and a wireless charging pocket.