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.

Thursday, 2 July 2020

Heater Installation

So after much deliberation we decided that the best water heater/room heater combo would be the Truma Combi 4e. Its by far the most efficient and modern heater on the market and can be controlled via your phone using "i-net" to warm up the van before you get back from a walk or the pub.

The heater will be installed in the bottom of our utility cupboard.

A bit of planning and prep was required prior to final installation. Holes for the rear of the heater and ducting outlets were cut in the cupboard along with a gas drop vent in the floor.

The heater has 4 hot air outlets, of which we will use 3 with one blanked off using Trumas blanking kit.

The 2 outlets on the left will supply hot air to the front cab area of the van, and to the area just in front of the kitchen units. The other air outlet runs along under the units and behind the drawers and exits in the middle of the van at floor level.

To make the heater run as quietly as possible we used a section of acoustic felt ducting from MV heating in each of the air outlets. This should make a big difference to any noise being transmitted from the heater to the blown air outlets.

The flexible alloy ducting is joined to the acoustic ducting using a section of stainless tube internally and is clamped by a stainless band mounted to a bracket on the floor.