Home

Start building an online income.  I started out paying $40/mo my cost and within a few short months had it built up to $2500/mo income, and my costs didn't increase.

To make a long story shorter, the service I'm selling cost me $20/mo total and I keep 100% of the profits, and I pay $20/month to an advertising service to promote it.  Made $65k last year with it.  Way more than my retirement income, and certainly more than enough to live on.

It's stupidly simple and anybody can do it.

I can post details if anybody's interested.

I'm not sure that he is retired.  You can check out his website at:

http://www.coachconversioncentral.com/fredhobe.htm

I'm considering getting a bus in north Florida that needs interior rehab and exterior paint. How do I find a competent builder that doesn't cost a fortune? There was a guy named Fred Hobe in the area but I hear he retired. Thanks.

On some vans there are metal buttons in the door and the door frame.  These are the electrical connections to the doors.  A piece of tape over them will disable the electrical connection to the door.

Greetings Bryan and welcome.

I too am from the states, and have spent the last 50 years building camper vans.

Here are a few things I've learned over the years.

Start with a window van and save big bucks on insulation.

Keep everything portable so it can be rearranged as needs change.

Don't skimp on the necessities, bed, toilet, shower, full kitchen, etc.

By keeping everything portable, it can be used both indoors and outdoors.

Campstoves make good heaters.  Double burner stoves are more stable.

If you charge your house battery while driving, you shouldn't need solar or a generator.

Use individual solar powered items, hot water, lanterns, flashlight, radio, etc.

Build to never require shore power.  Minn-kota makes a great power center to put your house battery in.  It has built in accessory outlets.

Ice chests are both cheap and foolproof.  Use big block ice and it will last a lot longer.

Plastic bins and drawers are lightweight yet durable.  One drawer can double as a sink.  If you add a sturdy shelf on top, they make good work areas.

House style metal framed futons make good sofas/beds.  Extend the legs to add more under bed storage.

You can get almost anything in 12v models.  Inverters waste power.

Cheap deep cycle batteries are every bit as good as the more expensive ones. 6v batteries only add cost, and take up more room.  They don't last longer.

TV Trays make good indoor outdoor portable tables.

Get the car cords for your electronics.

Add battery protectors to all batteries to prevent over discharge and prolong your batteries lifespans. You'll never have a battery too dead to start your vehicle.

If somebody starts talking about cargo vans and insulation, keep in mind you're talking about a lot of extra work and big money, to wind up with an inferior camper van that will get lower gas mileage, while being a lighter duty vehicle designed for in town use.  If you think that's what you want, there are tons of them for sale very cheap, and already built, because they're practically impossible to sell, and the previous owners have switched to window vans.  They usually sell far cheaper than an empty cargo van, and I've even seen them offered for free.

If you really want to try a cargo van, by all means buy a dirt cheap ready made one, so if you decide it's a mistake like most people do, you won't be out a lot of money.  Also keep in mind that there are people getting paid to promote expensive items for your build.  They're not your friends.  Thrift stores, yard sales, classifieds, and deep discount stores are your friends.  Building contractors throwing out scraps can be your friend.

It isn't about how much money you can spend, it's about how comfortable you can make yourself, and how maintenance free and breakdown free you can make your systems.

If you'd like I can provide you with example cost sheets.  I think you'll be amazed at how cheap it can be without compromising on comfort or reliability.

Good luck, and give a shout  if I can help.

[AND]

Wow, that's a whole lot cheaper than anything that was available to me.

And what got me was that the sellers-installers absolutely didn't care whether what they selling-installing worked or not, and when it didn't their answers always involved spending more money, and still didn't work.

Today, I'm perfectly happy just charging while driving, AND I don't have to park in the sun.   

How long do the batteries last in your systems?  Over here, mine would go through the batteries about once a year, and the batteries were $350-$500 each, and on the different systems I had anywhere between 4-6 batteries.

On one system, the $500 controller only lasted 6 months, then they offered me 10% off on a new one.

I am now using a single $20 battery out of a wrecking yard.

I did run into one guy that told me if you wanted a working system over here you had to build it yourself.  All of mine were installed by shops.

I'm pretty happy with my current system, nothing needed except to drive maybe 20 miles every couple of weeks, and I typically drive more than that anyway.  I'm currently over 10 miles to town, and go shopping once a week, so that i enough to keep my battery charged.

Well I've used 3 x 80 watt solar panels for a few years now (and they're certainly not expensive over here). Two on the roof (160 watts total) will fully charge up a flat 12V battery in about 4 hours which is easily more than enough for my needs including powering the laptop for a full nights use.

I certainly don't want to be using a noisy petrol powered generator. I'm into this lifestyle for the simplicity and trying my best to be kind to the environment. The less petrol powered engines the better.

Obviously your rig by our standards over here is probably massive. Hence why you need a gas powered genny to get everything fired up on all cylinders but for the smalls vans over here the solar option is more than adequate for most people and it's the cheapest option too.

They're really expensive here, a minimal system like yours would run $1,000 or more.  There must also be a difference in the systems.  We have a lot of people bragging on them over here, but it's either people trying to sell them to you, or people trying to justify all of the money they spent on them.  Both types are still running generators many hours per day.

I'm currently parked up near a large motorhome that has a $22,000 solar system, and he is still running his generator for 6-8 hours per day, while bragging about how much money that solar system is saving him.

Since charging my house battery while driving,  I haven't needed to use my generator at all in a very long time now.  I keep it for a backup plan though.

Keep everything portable so it can be used both indoors and out.

Individual solar powered and hand crank items like lanterns, radios, etc. can save you money on batteries, and be easily moved to where you would like to use them.

Inverters waste power, almost everything is available in 12v models.

Screens for your windows and a solar powered bug zapper can make your life better.

Being prepared beats being miserable.

Hi Ya HP. Welcome to the Forum, I've just converted a Transit minibus RWD, all windows. Love it.

Cool!  Window vans make such great campers.  I have a 1982 Dodge 3500 full window van with the high top.  It was an ex 15 passenger shuttle van, and has full standing height inside. 

I just removed the seats, and moved my furniture in.  I keep everything portable so it can be switched between various vans easily, and everything from my bed to my kitchen & bathroom can be used either indoors or out.  Nothing beats versatility.

I have it set up to never require shore power, and I camp for free both in towns on the streets, or out in the back woods or deserts.  I only pay for campsites if I'm attending a gathering.

If I don't like the view or my neighbors, I can have new ones in short order.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

It has one side and one back window. Its a 2003 LDV Convoy.

I'm going to use cladding on the inside, just don't know whats best to put between the cladding and van walls. Also I dont know whats best to put under the boarding on the floor. Heard polystyrene is the best solution but squeaking could become very annoying.

Insulating a camper van is very tricky.  On a factory passenger van, they use a heavy fiber material between the carpet and the metal floor.  This allows for the whole works to breathe so that moisture can't build up.  The walls and ceilings usually incorporate a ventilated air space for the same reason.

Through condensation moisture will form on the interior van skin, even though there are no leaks present.  If this moisture becomes trapped, it will lead to mold & rust.  Because of this we don't want to use any sort of a vapor barrier.

So what we need to do is either ventilate the interior skin, or wick the moisture to the interior where it can be dealt with through interior ventilation.

The ribs in your van should have holes in them, this is to prevent moisture build up inside a sealed rib.  You don't want to try and fill these holes.

Put firring strips across the ribs, leaving air space for those holes, and put nothing in the space between the firring strips and the outer skin.  You can then add your insulation and paneling onto the firring strips, leaving a one inch gap both top and bottom to promote the air flow behind.  Convection will move the air through the space with no power required.

For the ceilings I use open cell foam, and then glue either a velour or a perforated vinyl to it, again so it can breathe.

Surprised to see you say pv troublesome ,be interesting to know what problems you have had with them,I survive power wise on mine,although I have found that the only way to keep up with the demand is to have large ie over 100watt size ones,I agree that small panels are not the answer,ok for keeping batts ticking over but no good for keeping a good state of charge when constantly used for our ever demanding electronic gadgets,
Be interesting to see your gas powered generator ,is that a home made conversion or a brought one,  RR

I paid a lot of money on several different rigs for solar setups.  None were successful.  Their solutions always involved throwing more money at the system, either adding more panels, or adding more batteries, a different controller, rewiring, etc. etc.

Still, no matter what I did, I would run out of power during the night.  I'm a night owl, and use my power mainly at night.  Well, to make a long story shorter, half a dozen systems through half a dozen different companies, and still no success.  I'm still needing to run a generator for 6-8 hours a day to charge my batteries.

One day a fellow van dweller told me I was using the wrong type of generator, and that my solar system and 6 battery bank were a joke.  So I switched to the type of system he was using successfully.  A single deep cycle battery, a battery protector, and a 12v DC gas generator.  (cheap gas engine + car alternator).

Instantly my problems were solved.  Now, I would have power for a week between chargings, and it only took half an hour or less of running this miracle generator once a week to give me all the power I need.

I used this generator for many years, then another van dweller told me to charge my house battery while driving, and showed me a stupidly simple way to do it.  Since then, I have rarely even used my generator.

I also added a battery protector to my starting battery. (These prevent the drain of a battery from getting too low to start a vehicle.)  So today, I can boondock for up to 2 weeks and still have plenty of power to start my rig.  Plus I still have that generator as a backup plan, which is also capable of both jump starting as well as fully charging all of my batteries.

I was told by the fellow that solved all of my power problems that the solar systems only provide a very shallow charge to the batteries, and you would need at least 70 amps of solar power to put a correct charge on the battery.  I don't know if that is totally correct, but I do know that my current system sure beats the heck out of any of the solar systems I ever had.

Welcome to the Forum HappyCamper! Its great to see yet another person so willing to offer advice and be helpful! It seems that Campervan living attracts the good types of people.

What are your views on the best insulation for floor and walls? Need to do mine soon and I've seen mixed comments around the internet.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I discovered early on that window vans make for the best camper vans.  The insides come finished, and the windows make them feel larger and offer the much needed ventilation.

Is yours a window van or a panel?  I guess that's the place to start...

If you can tell me the year, make, and model that might help too.

I'll do my best to help you figure out the best solutions.

Greetings One & All!

I am a retired US Camper Van builder and 50+ year veteran of mobile living in many different types of rigs.

I decided to start this thread so anybody from the US might find a friendly place to start.  Of course I'll be happy to hear from everybody, everywhere too.

I'm open to any and all questions and would love to help anywhere I can.  I just found this place, and am pretty new at the internet, but I'm pretty good at both mobile living and camper van builds.

As time and energy allows, if there is an interest, perhaps I could start some threads about all of the various phases of building camper vans.  With proper knowledge they can be both cheap and easy to build, and totally livable.

People have a tendency to over complicate many things in life.  Building camper vans is one of those things, and hopefully I can uncomplicate it as a way to give back to the mobile community which has supported me for my entire adult life.  Actually we have supported each other, because I have always tried to keep every customer I have ever had, happy with their purchases, and even though I am now retired, I still offer total support to every customer I've had in the past 50 years.  I still believe in "Service With A Smile", and that will remain my motto until the day I die.

Happy Camper

I will be powering led lights, fan, computer, mini amp, turntable, and charging other electronics.

Not a huge fan of solar panels.  I've wasted many thousands of dollars on them, and I've come to the conclusion that a home built 12v DC gas powered generator is superior in many ways.  If you combine that with charging while driving, you've got the best system available, with no sunshine required.

I've been living a mobile life for 50+ years now, in many different rigs.  Before retirement, I built and sold camper vans for a living.

Solar panels are just something for somebody to sell you.  They aren't the best answer, and they're certainly not the cheapest, or the most reliable.

I'm going to agree with CVT on this for in the USA.  Bus conversions make good sense.