Box Truck vs Van TOUR - Which Rig Would You Like?

what's going on everybody we got a really cool video with you guys today because we've got aaron from renegade vans and he is a professional van builder like i said it was a special tour we have a box truck versus a van and we're going to kind of do quick tours on both of them and you guys can let me know in the comments below the verdict on which one you guys think is better not so much these builds but what would you prefer a box truck or a van and these guys give their opinions and we're gonna talk a little bit about it so here we go you started renegade vans how long ago uh in 2017 started renegade vans doing vans since then until now and now i've been doing box trucks i got this big old box truck man people doing vans yeah what's that there's enough people doing fantastic enough people doing vans uh but you can pretty much build anything so what are we what are we sitting on right here what is this the e450 with the 7.3 diesel it's 2001. is this yours is this your personal i live in this one this is your personal suite what's the size of the box the box is uh 16 by eight it's like seven and a half inside at least what's the biggest difference i know i think i already know this answer but between building in a box and building in a van well it's square there's more usable space way less compromises in terms of what you can fit in it and what you can fit underneath you can fit all the gray water you want underneath and the propane just way more usable space and cheaper easier to get than vans right now oh man now we're gonna blow them up right now i know it's happening but i want people to know uh all right fair enough it's a good option and i guess uh nolan this is yours as well take me through it how do you get in this thing big doors i insulated like two inches of foam in these and uh and the box was already on you didn't have to you know to buy a box separately no the box was there it had a garage door that i ripped out framed out this back wall and put in these doors there's aluminum box aluminum studs every foot or so that i framed on top of and then spray foamed started building i got room for my tools 55 gallon water tank do you build on site because you have a lot of storage for tools well in the winter or last winter at least i went around and showed up at people's rigs and installed windows solar cabinets whatever but i was shopping alamosa where i where i built this where we're building now did you come out to got it yeah was that good you were out there i was doing this at gutted i was helping the diy people with their rigs i was just running around no one was helping me oh you were there too oh sweet fixing people's stuff people had problems are you competing in season two it might be okay it seems like i am oh man there's so much room in here that's why i like doing the box trucks because you get a ton of room and it's you can insulate the hell out of it like it's great and you can put a full-size shower like there's so much room dude before we even get all the way up there man like how big is your bed because look at all the room between the beds like i got a hallway you look legit it's a full-size bed it's eight inches memory foam yeah i came up with the idea i just figured i wanted my bed back there you know i could have done the lounge back there in the bed up here but i wanted this pass-through door so it kind of eliminates such a good idea uh now did you cut in the password or was that already there i cut it in there was a flimsy like cargo plastic that i basically ripped out and reframed and put the door in yeah and how long have you been full time in this for a year for a year got this last april finished it july you're going to kill me can we turn that fan off only because we got some sound and i want to make sure but that's a good point we got a fan up on the ceiling it looks like we get another fan up over the bed what's your solar array up on that seat up on that roof on this i have 300 watts and then 200 amp hour lithium battery seems like you have a lot more room for a lot more solar if you want good on that one we took advantage of it but on this one all my stuff's pretty low draw okay propane stove propane heat 12 volt fridge 12 volt fans and lights so you got propane stove propane heat yeah did you do your own propane heat no this is a general components it's actually a hybrid propane electric heater no that's a furnace and a water heater it's got like almost a three gallon tank i can choose the ratio of like ac power to propane usually i just run an all propane unless it's real sunny have you run into any like condensation issues uh no it's vented outside beautiful it's good there's your gutted flag that i just realized you go from greg savage to the sand yeah you gave it to me oh man yeah nice me and greg kick it you and greg still kick it to this day oh yeah i bring my old truck and i help him with his stuff for people that don't know greg was actually the the guys i guess place that we used yeah he had the property yeah he still does you're gonna have to remind me again what is the distance again from back to front uh about 15 feet so dude i don't think people understand how big this is right this is massive for sure compared to vans and everyone sorry to poo poo all over your van you know you build these for clients now i know this is going to fluctuate but what is your what is your low end price the high end price uh i mean generally i'm charging 85 an hour but to compare like this one it depends on the labor yes i put 12 in materials two months of labor so that'd be like 25 30 in labor it's pretty good that one it's a decent price i got a little overhead yeah low overhead yeah but i live in a truck yeah that one's like twice the materials it's like 25 ish materials there's a lot but it's got really nice stuff and yeah we'll get some b-roll over three months so that's gonna be more labor and by the way the reason we're not showing that other truck off is because it's only about eighty percent complete it's like eighty percent there latches aren't on okay some outlets aren't hooked up but a lot of stuff the woodworking's done love the ceiling obviously i really do what material did you use up here in the wood here uh this is pine and behind it is three quarter inch ply it's ac and painted black can i ask you what's up with the the piping yeah so i keep all my pipes on the inside so i can keep it from freezing keep it warm in here in the winter and i got straighter valves on here to blow it all out okay so it's going to freeze and i'm not going to be in here okay i love the whole system it blows out the heater blows out everything open all the valves and uh for people that don't realize if he's in alamosa colorado colorado that gets cold it's like negative 20 at night and it'll get up to like 50 in the day that's in the winter that's in the winter big old shower looks like it's a residential shower dude custom builder did you uh did you just buy a shower stall i bought the pan and then i uh built the walls at frp and put in the fan so it wasn't like a kit and then i put in a little nook again so much freaking room here i mean we fit three of us in here without breaking a sweat you got a beautiful uh kitchen countertop um well done there sir thank you i love how you live out of this you didn't clean up for me this is real van life for me i love it this is i mean real van life's a little dirtier but i've been keeping cleaner for the show you obviously custom built your own cabinetry yeah for sure do it all on one piece of plywood so all the grain will run together and put in these nice little latches nothing flies up on your driveway it flies open toilet which is everybody's concern in van life where is my toilet so my toilet is in my shop when i live in this outside my shop i'm using that okay it's in the woods or is that the gym right if i'm on the road no it's at the gas station he's got a system i've seen him just on the on the road i feel like different people just have different priorities depending on how they travel and you know you haven't we both have an anytime fitness membership and you take showers there and and well you have a shower here but when you don't want to use that right i make it work sometimes i just rough it and i'm fine how many water uh waters yeah how many gallons of water yeah i got 55 waters 55 waters yeah i definitely set myself off for that one the fresh and then 45 grand that's what van life's all about is figuring it out yeah family is about workarounds and making it work and it's it's not a house you know yeah there's going to be trade-offs and compromises field outside my shop you live in the field outside literally just been parked in a field we've been working on this together yeah and they're doing it yeah the landlord's great uh you even i doubt you probably even you probably sit here to have your meals if that yeah this looks like a nice little just a nice little bench isn't that cute and everything close and stuff beautiful yeah pretty simple yeah basic basic box you want to show off the van you want to show the difference between a van and a box truck okay now it's my time i have my time in court all right let's go you know what different strokes for different folks all right so what do we what do we got before we go inside so this is a 2020 ford transit high roof extended cargo van okay that's a big van yes not as big as that box truck it's it's not as big as the box truck exactly so i'm from new york city and from the bronx and a part of my build i thought okay well when i visit family back home i can't really take a box truck i can't take a schooly i can't take something i mean this is the biggest thing that i can take even this you know my family is trying to reserve a parking spot like a few days before so i was actually going to bring that up to you earlier was it's a little bit harder to park your boxy than it is a vanity okay fit in one space i fit in one space and the reason why behind the rear wheels you got this big booty just the reason why this is great is because a lot of spots like in in the back of a parking lot you'll have an area where there's a curb and there's some grass i can back into it and this overhang allows me to fit into one spot no problem can you do that with your box you can do that too yeah right yeah we'll talk about it so yeah the way this came you know um was just a cargo van basically no windows um other than up here and um i'll just show you so is this technically a renegade van built i he got a lot of people to work in his van and i helped a lot of it yeah okay this one ordeal i would call this a massive collaboration of people from all walks of life my respective trades um i honestly didn't want to go with one company uh to convert my van and the reason for that i was i was honestly trying to save on cost um so i wanted to see what i could do myself and i wanted to see by hiring a lot of local workers in my community how having different workers from respective from their respective trades to how that could come together to build events so i hired people from local body shops local electricians uh plumbers the whole some were friends some were family so i really wanted to utilize as many people in my community and the reason why i met aaron is because in oklahoma i didn't find any van conversion companies when i searched van conversion renegade vans in colorado came up um and initially aaron actually consulted me on the phone i paid him for his time on the phone he would make lumber lists teach me how to cut holes and doors to install windows a lot of it was done over the phone until i met him in person and he built some stuff out i mean people are going to ask you right away what this is okay so this company is called dickinson marine this is a marine heater but there's a lot of overlap you know between marine life and the van life so this is a propane heater and what you do is you basically open this up and you take a lighter and you light the chamber in here you turn the gas on you light the chamber and then you put this switch and there's a fan it's a 12-volt uh fan i wanted to go for i don't know what kind of vibe it is kind of like a cabin it's almost like a yacht it's almost very yacht feely yeah so music i said i said i said yachty so yeah yeah yes same difference for this build music music was an integral part of this build so as you can see here oh my goodness i got a full you got a freaking keyboard okay where's your keyboard bro yeah i got a guitar huh i did see the guitar do you guys jam out with guitar and keyboard we jam out we jam it up so basically before i was living in a van i was gigging in new orleans full-time as a drummer and i was writing record music playing live and all the venues closed um i was trying to figure out what to do i got a van but i wanted to try to take the music with me um so i had this full 88 keyboard i actually framed uh my porthole windows with drums i see that so drum snare whatever they're called exactly yeah so um cut a drum in half and it was a 13 inch drum around a 12 inch there you go okay just jack it just yeah there you go i've drawn a 12-inch port hole and i got a little red drum head so yeah basically you're looking at um you got your keyboard fridge freezer slide out that's a dual zone oh by the way there was a fridge in yours i didn't point it out but there was a fridge there was a verse you know what there wasn't in his freezer yeah i saw i saw the fridge freezer here and i did only notice there was a fridge in yours well that's true my roof deck's bigger i don't know how do you like that conversion of the bed system i love it first of all this was one of the debates i had when i was building you know what kind of bed setup i'd want i had seen a couple in an instagram build that i i just really loved the layout of their build and they had this dinette bed um conversion deal so basically i modeled this build similar to varus except um on this side i wanted a full keyboard that works for me i like to host people and hang out you got a cool cool little cooktop there or oven i should say yeah this is um this is an oven range so this flips up yeah and it's a three burner uh you see it a lot in the van life world yeah rv world there's an oven i like to bake all kinds of breads so um that works for me i didn't want to sacrifice and i was going to be living in it full time and everyone has their different priorities and their different lifestyles so it's there's no right answer you know what you need it's just um what you want to take with you i just saw a little detail i wanted to see that thank you very nice oh another drum yeah another drum here got a sink cutting board fit in the sink very nice um and then this is my friend for whoever wants to name my friend uh he is yet to have been named i got cuscore okay and he's also an eagle he's also an eagle did you make it i didn't make it got it this amazing craftsman on on the river gorge a bridge over the the rio grande taos okay yeah it was yeah that'll do it yeah there you go that'll be awesome all right and then i got the wet bath here you got the wet bath with the uh yeah you got the wet bath with obviously the nature's head compost until it looks like yeah and uh obviously you can shower in your van too you don't need that plant yeah or remember gym membership no i don't i can shower in my van um i wanted a toilet in my van um do you guys have a shower at the shop or just use your showers yeah i just use the shower there the verdict what is better a van or a uh box truck i mean there's a reason you're building this other box truck with me right i feel like with all this there's no right answer what i will say is that you know if you're gonna do there's a right answer if you're gonna do a lot of traveling in cities too like i've i've camped in downtown philly you know at meters you can't really do that in a box truck in a meter you can't can't really park in in the city in new york i mean i guess you could but in areas where parking is harder to come by for me this is this is better if i had all the space and that wasn't as much of a concern um i would probably want a box truck you know i could fit more things i wouldn't have to sacrifice as much so any rebuttal and i just think for the money you're going to spend on a vehicle and the amount of space you're going to get and how well you're going to be insulated insulated in there and the amount of components you can fit into there like you're going to get more bang for your buck for the box truck okay and so maybe you can go less places yeah but it's gonna be way more capable for less money that's more comfortable well there it is there's a lot of a lot of opinions we could have opinions for days and then you got guests oh we're gonna argue guests i just i don't hate vans i don't want to build them okay that's fair he's just built so many done enough that he's vanned out i mean this is a guy i can't even count how much i don't want to curve any more curved walls well guys thank you so much i got renegade vans aaron at renegade vans and nolan do you have a oh boy i'm just nolan okay yeah you're just nolan i love it let's just keep that i love that uh thanks again guys for showing off and we're obviously the two which was awesome uh to kind of have in one video so thanks again we'll see you guys soon no problem [Music] my

Channel: Jarrod Tocci

Views: 99,420

Keywords: van life, van build, van conversion, diy van build, how to build a van, van build ideas, stealth van, stealth van living, city van build, living in a van, box truck build, box truck conversion, box truck camper, step van build, step van conversion, stealth step van, tiny living, small space design, box truck vs van build, van tour, box truck tour, step van tour, stealth box truck, stealth van life

Id: gCoOfcpLARM

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022