DESIGNING OUR DREAM VAN (Van build step 1)
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
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Today, we start our newest adventure! We begin by introducing our van and designing our dream layout together.
The van modeling software we use in this video: go.schoandjo.c...
Check out our van build dashboard for all the nitty gritty details: schoandjo.com/...
Thanks for watching!
Cheers,
Jennifer and Elliot
#vanbuild #diyvanbuild #sprinter
🎥 Episode 421 | Filmed in June, 2024
🚐 Van Build Series | Florida
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Vanspace 3D
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✏️ Van modeling software we use in this video
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ABOUT US
Hi! We are high school sweethearts from Atlanta, Georgia who decided to take a year off to travel around the world. Together we decided to create vlogs for our journey as a fun way to remember it. On September 15, 2019, we left Atlanta with 3 bags, 2 one-way tickets, and 1 goal of traveling for a whole year. Little did we know, 6 months later we would find ourselves in a nationwide lockdown in India. After spending 5 months in India, we came back to the United States and decided to purchase a 34’ Trawler, dive headfirst into boat life, and kick-off America’s Great Loop.
The good, the bad, the ugly - and most importantly, the real and real funny. We’re not here to tell you “how it’s done.”, just how we’ve done it. And that whatever it is that’s calling you - the way you’ll do it is much more attainable than it may seem.
Thank you for following us along our journey!
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✏ Van modeling software we use in this video: go.schoandjo.com/s/vanspace-3D
🪚 Check our out Build Here: schoandjo.com/van-build
💌 Want to keep up with us in real-time? Sign up for our weekly email to be filled in our current adventures. schoandjo.com/sunday-summary
Thank you for watching!
Hi guys. It's your friendly Canadian boater. Who was also a long distance trucker who lived in cramped areas for most of his life.
Your plans for the van is awesome. But remember in the boat, You had decks to get outside and relax. If you don't have that, claustrophobia will get to you. In my truck, at truck stops I would go in to socialize just to get out of my truck.
Get a roll up awning that is 12' long stays on the van over the side with middle doors. You can get them with screened in sides that attached. When stopped for any length of time, your inside protected living area is over double the size. Plus views all around and bugs that want to enjoy you as their meal can't get at you.
You can get stainless or plastic or steel ( stainless is the best that hook on to trailer hitches at your back bumper. A fair sized storage box for outdoor furniture. I say the trailer hitch type because you can remove it if needed to easily.
Anyhow, just a couple of suggestions. Good luck with your project
Great suggestions!
I am on the Illinois river behind Pivot right now. Such a great vessel
One thing that many people who convert vans do not figure is the weight that they are adding to the van. It’s definitely worth doing at least a rough calculation of all the weights that you will be adding to your specific van. Check out the actual weight for your specific van and the gross vehicle weight rating, and then add all of your conversion materials, the weights for you guys and your dog, and see where it looks like you will end up. Lightweight construction techniques will contribute to keeping you legal should their ever be an accident. It will reduce your fuel and maintenance costs, and keep the van’s center of gravity and overall weight lower, contributing greatly to overall handling and off-road capabilities. It’s just a suggestion but the weight being added to your van does really add up quickly. Cheers, Rog
Great tips! Yes we have a weight spreadsheet that we are constantly updating when we pick a new component. We are good so far, but with wood and all the little things, it will be tighter than we would like. We plan to weigh the van as soon as we're done to see where we stand. We are trying to be very thoughtful about the construction and not over-engineer or weigh down things unnecessarily! Thanks, Rog!
Forget the settee area…..Base your work being done from the swivel “helm chairs”…Enlarge head and storage closet…Eliminate propane
We aren't doing propane, all electric in this build out! We will probably have swivel seats but don't want that for our work area because this is our full time home. Living and driving all those hours in car seats is not what we are looking for :) Cheers!
how about "To Pivot"? Sorry to see the boat adventure end, but looks like your next step is shaping up nicely.
Exciting new project. Your layout looks great, but I am alarmed by the lack of windows. Add two at the head and foot of the bed for cross-ventilation and light, and at least one at the settee/work space. Living in a small space is hard enough, but living in a dark, small space is claustrophobic. Also. your plan looks like the settee may block access from the driving compartment into the back of the van -- is that the case? Be sure to try to use light-weight components where possible -- the Mercedes Sprinter van engine is a tad anemic for the size and weight it is pushing, so keeping weight down will help fuel mileage and performance.
Soooo excited to see the van come to life! 🎉🚐 Loving the plans so far!
🔥🔥🔥
On my first van build, ram Pro 159 extended. I have learned so much. I am 80% done and loving it. You will find you will make a lot of changes during your build. Plan on doing as many hours in research as actually working on the van. With Amazon prime I was able to save a fortune on shipping.
I love my propane, stove oven combo. it’s a must if you want to do a lot of Boondocking. oh, I also have alternator charging 800 watts of solar on the roof with 15 kW of lithium battery. I will follow you on your journey through your van built. Good luck.
Wow that sounds like an epic build! Good luck getting the last 20%! I think your hours research to hours working is turning very true :) we may be doing more research than building!! so much to learn...
So cool. You guys are awesome!
Here's an idea - put the bed on a platform with 4 tracks with a small motor that can be used to lower and raise the bed. Underneath you can out your kitchen table/workspaces
Interesting idea, thanks for sharing!
Glad you have started RUclips videos for the build. Looking forward to all the future videos as well. Good luck with this project.
Thanks so much, Bob!
Into boats not RV’s but you guys are so good at what you do I’m going to give this pivot a chance…👍👍
It was great to see your plans for Pivot II! It looks like it is going to be amazing! Happy building!
Thanks Suzanne!
An exciting new adventure! Have fun with the build! Where will Ollie sleep?
It is!! Ollie will find the most comfortable place haha. But we will bring her bed, so she’ll have that atleast 😁
Hey - I enjoyed your Great Loop videos. Nicely done and congrats. Looking forward to your van build and travel explorations. I built a van a few years ago and have been using it quite a bit in the warmer months. Of course there will be things in your design that could be different, there always are. Things is my van that were worth the splurge: Rixens heat/hot water, Goal Zero (or similar) solar ‘generator’, air conditioning, awning . Creature comforts for sure but game changers all the same. Lots of other things I did right. Lots I did wrong. Also, Home Depot and 80/20 extrusions are not necessarily your friends
That's awesome! As were finding out it is not easy to build one, congrats on building yours!
Definitely a possibility to make the captain and passenger seats Pivot (swivel) 180 so you can use those as interior seating.
Absolutely!
Could you store the bikes on the back of the van to free up the space under the bed for other items? Thanks for mentioning the Lagun table system. We will look into that for our boat before embarking on our 2nd loop. Looking forward to watching the van build and your Pivot II land adventures.
Thanks yall! We may end up putting bikes on the back, but if we can fit them inside it’ll be really nice not to worry about moving them in and out of the van for safety!
Looking forward to following this adventure. Hope you have ordered the VANity licence plates 😉Lots of options ❤
Haha good one 😂 maybe!
Welcome to the world of RV'ing! Will you have a grey holding tank or are your plans to use portable totes? That's a major difference between RV's and boats...
For sure! We'll be under-mounting our grey holding tank!
Way to go, Jennifer and Elliot! You're off to a great start and we're excited to follow the process with you.
BTW, we saw Pivot as she cruised by us on the Oswego Canal just a few days ago. She looked good and it made us happy to see her in her happy place. 😎
Onward!
That's awesome! We're soo happy she's on the Loop again :)
You guys amazing I am with every whewe you can go Good luck Both of you Greting from Fethiye Turkey❤
Thanks so much 🙏
I highly recommend to look into “Montague” foldable Mountainbikes as they would cut the storage space you would need for it in half.
Great idea, thanks!
I hope you've gotten PIVOT2 tags for the van.
A couple thoughts: you will need some way to handle your gray water from the kitchen and shower. Also what about heat or ac? Maybe an ecoflow wave would be a good solution.
Going to have a gray tank under the van! And good suggestion for Ecoflow. We did a deep dive and looked into it for our build but it just didn’t quite work for us. A great system nonetheless!
Now that its July, we are having days that with the heat index, the afternoon high temps are 100°+ along wirh some heavy rains. Good luck in dealing with the heat, humidity and the rains. My only question is, what kind of provisions are you making for Ollie? Best of luck with the build.
Yea its soooo hot!! We'll definitely make sure Ollie has her comfortable spots for both driving and lounging. Just like the boat, she'll find and claim the best spot around :)
Suggestion to put hooks down where your bikes are to hang seasonal wear.
Great idea!
I have a question about your "Pivot" era. For your solar panels on Pivot, you chose flexible panels. Though hard panels are supposed to be 15% more efficient. Why did you choose flexible panels?
I'm deciding what style of panels to put on my trawler.
We chose flexible because we mounted to our biminy which had some sway to it! If we chose a more fixed location to mount them, like the jungle gym then we would have used hard panels. For the van we're doing marine grade walkable panels built for decks. That could be interesting depending on the type of boat you have!
@@SchoandJo Thank you very much for the info. I think flexible panels will work better for me. For the same reason you used them.
Good luck in your van living adventures! 😁
Is it possible to customize the front seats to "pivot" 180° so they can face backward????????
Yes! We are planning that for one, and maybe the other depending on budget 😁
Just curious: Why not carry the bicycles on a lockable external bike rack? Also, I have a folding bicycle that takes 1/3 of the space of a full size bicycle. I carry it in the truck of my car. Just throwing that out there.
We plan to do some serious bikepacking trips out of the van, so foldable bikes won't quite work. We may end up putting them externally to the van, but its one more thing to worry about while camping or leaving the van for an extended time. Keeping them inside will be ideal, but we will see if we have enough space for it. Cheers!
Will you be building in any automation into the van?
Some for sure, but we'll see how budget and time works! Any suggestions?
@@SchoandJo Home Assistant will likely integrate with anything you buy and allow automation across ecosystems. Plus, it has a built in energy monitoring which is a great way to keep tabs on power usage
@@uSlackr Nice! Will take a look. We do have a Cerbo GX so perhaps I can integrate into there!
@@SchoandJo There is a community store integration with the GX.
Have you sold your boat yet? If not, I’d be interested in buying it.
Yes, we sold Pivot and she’s back on the Loop. Currently up in Canada!
I’d be very interested in a detailed weight analysis if you guys are looking for content. It’s hard to find real numbers from somebody who has done it. I can’t find any honest data on loaded gvwr and axle weights.
Keep up the good work!
Sounds good! We are projecting weights now, and when we complete the build we'll get the entire van weighed. Thanks for watching!
Check out Trent & Allie van build and life on the road They had an oven in their van They also had a company Mountain Made Vans creating similar vans tp custom order Good ideas
We’ve seen many of their videos, one of the first van tours we ever saw! Thanks for the recommendation 😁
How about 2 foldable elec bikes. Also 2 blow up kayaks.
We'd love to be able to fit some kayaks in! We'll see :) We plan to do some bike packing like Ragbrai so we'll probably need fixed bikes instead of foldable ones, although the space saving would be awesome!
Curious which model compost toilet that it ?
Right now we’re looking at the OGO Composting Toilet
This is way smaller than Pivot, eh? :)
Haha, yes a tiny-er home 😁
The boat is way cooler
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Sorry but I miss the boat.......
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Why not just buy an RV?
An RV isn't really what we're looking for next for a few reasons. The great thing about the van is its maneuverable to where we can park in a parking spot anywhere! It also gets really great mileage! Plus this way we get to design our home exactly the way we want it!
Guys no! Not a Mercedes pos
We wrote a blog post about why we got a Mercedes but we're very happy with it so far!
Sad you’re not doing boat life. Seams like a down grade “van life”
It seems like an upgrade to us! We are very excited for this next chapter, where we had the sea now we get the mountains! All great experiences :)
I liked pivot but I am unsubbling I don’t care about you guys sleeping in a van … I got my own life
This isn’t an airport you don’t need to announce your departure. Thanks for following while you did!