$1900 Casita REBORN: An UNBELIEVABLE Trailer Transformation

there was also a middle period where it's was like oh my goodness this is just painstaking and am I ever going to finish hi everyone welcome back to my next video today we're going to meet Thomas hi Thomas hey good morning and Thomas has got a beautiful Cita and a nice Toyota Tacoma pickup as the tow vehicle and man that is a beauty you've got there yeah it's been a labor of love and it was more work than I expected but uh I'm happy to have it done so uh when you picked it up it was uh took more work than you thought well I knew I was buying a used unit it was it was priced out at uh $1,900 and I thought well I can afford that and it it had been redone by the previous owner she towed it up from Louisiana with a Subaru and I thought all right it's lightweight I can tow it I never owned a cedo before and I thought I'll put my finishing touches on it and I'm ready to go but when I got it home I found that there was moisture underneath the fiberglass floor which meant that any wood that was sort of structural was was rotted and I saw black liquid when I put my weight bearing down on the floor and I didn't know that and if I had known that I wouldn't have done it um but as a result it meant taking the egg off the frame and redoing and and so it became that which took me about four Summers on and off of work I was working full-time I just retired in May of last year and so over the summer when I had time I'd work on it and and so that's what you see there but I did all the work myself on under a 10x 20 tent in my driveway so but now you know exactly what's in there yeah and the thing skyrocketed in value yeah they're supposed to be lightweight and the and they don't have the seams that some of the traditional campers have the wood frame built uh so the idea is you can get less water gets in but if any water does get in it doesn't get out easily that's why the frame uh the the floor roted out needed a new axle too that's why uh the woman was generous enough to give me a few dollars you know she gave me another 400 off because the axle on these um the rubber in them fatigues over time you have to replace the axle supposedly every 10 years but yeah taking the egg off I didn't anticipate getting into all that yeah uh but having done that no it's really I did a comprehensive job it's like brand new in a way there were times when I really enjoyed it I mean I like fabricating things I I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of you know doing things myself uh but there was also a middle period where it's was like oh my goodness this is just painstaking and am I ever going to finish uh and you're towing it with a Toyota Tacoma and how does that work it's a it's the six-cylinder with the 4 ler and I would say it's it's not great but it's adequate it's good I came from New York out here and once you uh it's great on the flats but once you get into terrain where you're CL climbing elevation it gets a little doggy you got a downshift okay can we go ahead and take a look inside absolutely see what you've done yeah let's do that let's do it so here we are inside and it is completely custom because you geted it yeah it was completely down to the bare fiberglass uh I had to it originally the the woman that redid it had like this 3/4 inch foam over everything which created an insulation layer and I thought that's really good I I really liked that and it had a very simple build kept it lightweight with a little cooler in one side a little sink that went through the floor uh I like the Simplicity of it when the floor was rotted I I had to you know actually cut out the top layer of fiberglass to reveal the wet floor underneath it and then of course raise the egg see what happened these cassetas come with fiberglass cabinets they make them in the factory and then the way they attach them to the hull is they drill holes and they rivet them to the to the hole well when you take the cabinets out if you don't do a proper job of repairing those holes then you like they had just puted the holes and cocked them and so water got into this and of course it's like a fishbowl it didn't didn't leave and so it made its way into the floor and that's what rotted out the floor the main structural elements are these um Pine boards that I got from my friend Tracy they're 100-year-old Pine board s and he milled them down and then I had to Contour them to to fit the the profile of the hull but those provide sort of the I call them the the ribs of the whale you know those are the structural elements that help keep the the roof from deflecting so I have these vertical elements and the countertop is lagged in with brackets and screws it's up there tight like when these go in it they really fit tight like a glove but there's no screw holes in the the roof and even the solar panels I use the U the AM Solar uh tilting solar mounts with the the VHB tape which I I was reluctant but I called the company and they said that they've never had a problem yeah so when I get to Camp I just open up these cabinets and then I have no um condensation building up in here because the the warm air gets in there it doesn't trap the cold air and I made some simple drawers initially I had plastic drawers but I I made some wooden drawers I've been through a couple iterations I've had to modify them over time because this is a piece of plywood and it was deflecting if you see this it was doing that a lot more and what was happening is this catch mechanism because this was this was lowering all these things were falling on the floor so I couldn't have that so I took the Shelf out and I used a router to Route out a little Groove and I put this piece of Steel on here and so now it's much better but then I added these little custom bungees and that's like now it doesn't come come loose at all couple eyelets and these custom bungees and what's so nice about these custom bungees is you can buy the cord and these terminal ends this terminal end slides onto the bungee and then these little Pinchers go into the cord material and then this solidifies the union and these do not come loose I use them all over this camper so you're uh retired is are you full-time no uh well I'm retired full-time but uh but no this is my my my first uh time out west here and it's the longest I've traveled and it's the longest I've been out so uh but when I was building this camper I built it specifically for boondocking it's really it's every every system I've built has really worked out well the 200 watts of solar on the roof I have 200 Watts underneath here that I can deploy outside this is a whole other storage cabinet in here telescoping ladder um 200 Watts I built my own 200 these are actual 100 watt reny panels but I put hinges on them and and um some legs and then I have a table here that I built with um these legs unfold and these go in the front so I can turn my dinette into like another bunk initially I didn't have any holes in in this cabinet uh and then I realized I needed more warm air to get back in there because you have to think about condensation when when you build you need to think about airf flow this was an odd shaped cabinet so ended up this is the best thing for it I've got my cast iron pan Which I use this all the time and a cutting board I can lock that in with my little trusty lock here's another set of cabinets initially I had a blue Eddy and the blue Eddy was here a blue Eddy eb150 and I went to um uh two lithium batteries and a 2200 amp hour inverter because now I can I can use this little air fryer this was another odd shaped cabinet now here's my my way my4 in by 20 Rod that keeps it from opening I lift that and this opens and this says is my garbage can this is a chair I got on the side of the road it's an old um student desk chair but I can sit and play guitar and there's no arms on it so that's really handy and I bring it outside see behind here is my Dickinson heater that's the Dickinson p9000 ,000 they make a P1 12,000 the beautiful thing about that is it really sips the power it's a low BTU heater it runs let's see I think it's 3,000 BTU or 3200 BTU on low and 4500 BTU on high and it has it employs a a computer fan which is really quiet and very oh yeah that's very quiet very quiet and that's on high right now it really is just a a heater box but that that air allows the it forces air around the heater box and it blows it out here and this these all come out of the Boating world right uh you can run them on you can buy the one for diesel or you can buy the solid fuel which runs on coal compressed wood or wood that you cut up and I love that idea I love the idea of a flame but I'm processing wood or I'm buying coal which I'm not crazy about or compressed wood and my friend convinced me just go with the propane it's easier you're on vacation a lot of times um a lot of places which have RVs have propane so oh yeah it's easy to get very easy well this is my dinette with a lagoon table and I'm in travel mode right now I have one of those custom bungees on here holding it in place have a little eyelid under there and um so this does swivel around and um oh nice yeah I probably wouldn't go any bigger with the Lagoon table it's it it's just a little floppy just based on the design how that works so this is my DIY composting toilet and it's a 5 gallon bucket with a luggable l and a urine diverter and I got the urine diverter on eBay it just you have to cut out a little portion of the uh bucket so to have it receive it and then I use PEX Plumbing to um to make connections into a I have a 1gallon container so that I can it won't freeze on me and then I have a series of valves where because I plan to put a 10 gallon tank underneath and that would be just for just for liquids the solids you know go into the bucket but when I'm in bunk house mode of course then I can't use that but the way I designed it is this will lift right out and I can I can make an outdoor toilet and there's a u i can't remember who makes it but there's a rubber ring that that sets into which just gets lagged to the floor and it's it's like a rubber compound and and it makes it easy to lift in and out and it's stable doesn't move on the other side I have just a garage I use this as as a garage just a couple of uh mil crates I Tri I cut this down on the table saw and then I uh made a some wood trim and put that over the top cuz they they were these edges were very sharp yeah so beautiful I mean did you have any background in carpentry and uh well I I worked with my buddy Tracy as a carpenter's helper years ago and then I I just have worked on houses myself I've done a couple kitchens and each kitchen that I look at has gotten you know better but over time uh I've just learned to Value you know being thorough and not being in a hurry like this was a challenge getting this right and I didn't want to have a closed cabinet I wanted the air to be able to get in there and then I needed something to hang these window coverings so that's what that's where the Shelf kind of came in what am I going to do to hang this window covering I researched fan with a light and I found that Max fan makes makes a vent with a light so that's pretty handy and and it's got a fan inside yeah so I have storage underneath here and the way I get to that is through these doors here these are the U lithium batteries I put in this is my uh uh this is how I heat the batteries up if I need to mhm um it's a little tight in there but um and like my inverter and my victron shunt I mounted those to a board I cut the piece of plywood and then I drew it all out in CAD software where things would go I mounted it to the board and then I installed it because it's such a tight area I have a 30 amp um AC charger if I need to and these are two hqs lithium batteries this is just all storage in here I use a couple milk crates yeah some just some general storage that I don't need to use very often here's another instance where I use those custom bungees I have a guitar here and so those custom bungees hang that guitar up very easily I use them here for storage of clothing of course I have more storage underneath here this cabinet here though this is the one this stores all my pots and pans these cabinets came about because I have my um uh propane lines coming up here well if you put a slide in you can't put it all the way to the side so I created these little cupboards and so now I've got a couple of pieces of vertical wood and they can store cutting boards and this is the big one if I want to cook bacon or something on there so I use a uh a clam tent for the shower structure and then I built a couple things here that make the showering easy so this will go on I'll hang this up and then this is um a wire I made from an old extension cord I plug this into the 12vt I have a 12vt auxiliary power outlet here so this is a high quality um Jerry can for water and then this Arrangement which I a guy on YouTube shows how to make this this is a simple little water pump and and then the wire comes up to power the pump and then the pump draws the water in and carries it through that hose and so as long as the pump is submerged you're going to get delivery of water heat up some water you pour it in here then you add enough cold water so that you get to the um comfort of water that you like you plug this in for power source you plug this in here and then the idea is you bring this into the shower with you and again the conservation of water is is key so this will be outdoor this is indoor the tent inside the tent and then that's nice flow yeah it's nice yeah and you can adjust it however you like that's actually probably better so I do have the ability to plug in um I can plug in my generator I do have a gas powered generator or if I'm at an RV park this is my solar in so I can ground deploy the 200 wats of solar here well Thomas thank you so much for sharing your home with this a plethora of really really good ideas I really appreciate it so folks I'm sure you got some great ideas here if you did like us on YouTube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now now

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 77,292

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: Z1nBZtaKNcg

Length: 17min 25sec (1045 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2024