Living In a Van With No Build For a Total Cost Of $1000 | Stealth Van Tour

on my travels throughout canada i meet all sorts of people living in all different kinds of rigs this guy's name is bruce and this one here is going to show you that you don't need big fancy and expensive to be out there enjoying van life he bought this thing for a thousand bucks and kept it super super simple [Music] hi my name is bruce ducette and this is my 2006 chevy express 2500 and it's been a trooper for the time i've owned it for sure come check it out awesome so everything is is it okay there everything on this van is completely bare bones basic as you see it is basically how i bought it a thousand dollars special off of marketplace some would say that's not a good idea i disagree it's got me from newfoundland to bc and back to alberta a couple well twice so yeah it's been pretty good everything opens except this door which is taped shut or ratchet strap shut i'm not too sure at this point it's a little bit of everything the transmission right there the motor has better days i think it's on its second one now but it's holding together when i seen you when you had your bare bones van it definitely inspired me because at the time i was living in a big 26 foot rv which had everything and i started looking at it like why do i need all of this space it's all empty how long are you in the rv for i was probably in the rv for again a year most of my vehicles ended up lasting lasting about a year this one i'm hoping to build it and keep it going to last longer depending on how much so what's what's it been like parking this van compared to having the rv oh a dream honestly i would literally pull up in random parking lots not even trying to sleep and people would come up to me and say oh you're not allowed to sleep in here tonight and it's like i'm just i'm just parking to grab a coffee like you know it was kind of annoying here it was just like an instant judgment yeah instant judgment with the van you don't get it so much unless someone kind of sees you peeking in from the back like jumping in in the back and in the front but other than that like it's completely stealth like i've actually slept in a tim hortons parking lot no one's bothered me you just again i take your advice sleep late wake up early no one's there to bother kind of keep it cool keep it calm so if this is my closest tub i usually grab it from the inside when you're changing before a shower just showering at the gas station truck stops and stuff like that for now and when i go just have the good old single burner frying pans and such all down here and in a great situation we have a good portable shower have you used the portable shower yet yeah we have actually back in newfoundland is where we got it and we started using it back there because there wasn't many truck stop gas stations with showers in them like at all so we ended up having to grab this thing and it's been it's been really good really good i have a little sink in here baseball gloves stuff like that i keep my food in the other tub underneath my tools i should actually switch that around it's not a smart idea i always have to keep lifting my tools but it's a learning process and it's quite enjoyable i can't see me ever living any other lifestyle so yeah this is my van everything in it has kind of a little story to it this used to be the bed that was across here because i had a temporary bed built like the one that you were describing and your beginning van build and it is now turned into a buck jump just because i had nothing else to do with the wood nice this chair is from an alleyway we picked up my girlfriend at the time seen it and absolutely loved it so it just kind of stuck around this is the wheel bearing i fixed last day yeah like three days ago i believe and the army caught came from my father actually for a birthday gift because he just knows i'm hippie and crazy and i always need a bed somewhere in random spots the chair underneath the folding chair came from my friend brendan in newfoundland and he said i just needed to take it so yeah it's been a good bed uh like i said my father gave it to me because i'm kind of a hippie and he always knew i needed to sleep in random spots and this is fold away easy pickup you can put it to the side if you need to clears my bike pretty good for now until i can figure out something else to do with it i have my clothes straight clothes tools miscellaneous and then food big old generator for when i get tools power tools again uh the fishing rods again are from my father when i went down to newfoundland to visit him and i didn't have a fishing rod at the time and fishing's big back there so he ended up hooking me up with a couple and they've been pretty good the mattress is from when the bed was here so i'm kind of just hanging on to it until i build another bed frame um the garbage can i literally bought because i've seen you talking about it and it is the best thing it is great i just kept knocking it off my wall slamming the doors uh the good old poop bucket again from one of your videos but that's the luggage balloon definitely a good recommendation at night there's not much open so it definitely comes in handy not that you want to use it but it comes did you did your lid break on it yet no not yet oh man i've been trying to keep it i broke two of them already did you oh yeah so i have a question so you've been in here for one full year with no insulation on the walls no insulation where did you spend the winter well when i bought the van it was winter so i'm coming up on my second winter there now um yeah it was -40 in calgary when i bought it the van didn't start actually had to get it towed to a friend's work on it before i can get it started and then start living in it so it was like yeah it was pretty tight situation but once i got it started i knew -40 no insulation there's no way you're going to survive i'd have to i had to idle the van for like three days straight just to keep the heat in and see i had no heater no heater just a van heater just kind of and a propane tank heater but that emits so much moisture that we had that's the reason the wood's up here because we had so much moisture dropping on our heads we'd wake up and it was like a shower yeah because it's a propane heater and once we put this up it kind of blocked all the drips it might still drip but i'll get to that during the yeah what was the condensation like on the walls it was not bad but it wasn't good either i think the roof was worse on the roof yeah i usually kept the windows down a boot so much even at minus 40 so you had to really crank it and the side doors the reason the second side door doesn't open is because the hinge is so bad that if i open it it might just fall off so i got it ratchet strapped in and i had to tape up the gap because it was such a big gap in between the door and minus 40 i tell you the heat wanted to escape from there and it was like ice all down that whole that whole gabor door it was pretty bad so we just decided you know what can't do this we gotta go to bc so we went to bc and we spent the most of our winter there until it started to warm up a bit and then we traveled down to newfoundland and spent about three or four months down there with my father and decided you know what we just we love alberta bc area so much that we got to come back and decided we're driving back up so with a thousand dollar van the only maintenance mind you is spark plugs and an oil change we made it all that distance and i am still kicking it to this day you're building the van out though yes i am definitely building it this summer well just with the rest of the summer i have i'm gonna try to jam in insulation a bed the cabinets and stuff might come during the winter but as i want to get insulated at least a heater in this thing for the winter i'm not doing -40 again i don't blame you yeah so with having your van build be so simple how many times did you rearrange your van over that last year oh my god everything has been every different up like way right now i have access to the back because it's easier to get the bike out and when i go to build i'm going to be putting plywood underneath the bed to store it for now but for now this is the rear access i'm hoping to have the bed kind of like what you have on yours and then kind of make it into a couch i have a full drying plan thing but it eventually will come it'll come in time not everything comes overnight we all don't have ten thousand dollars for a sprinter van so we do the bare basics and do what we can and i think the sign on the dash basically says it all for my life so your former bed aka the bike ramp that was crossways before yes it was just i had the tubs actually underneath my bed and you can still see the whole big holes from the screws that held up the main frame because it was kind of like a floating bed there was no holes it was just straight into the wall from one side to the other so the great big van life debate bed crossways in the back or bed lengthwise which do you prefer now that you've had both i gotta say i l i like sideways because it's so much easier to it's just easier so much more room i mean with the cot i can kind of put it either way i just have it this way to get the access for the bike but preferred bed style i gotta say definitely sideways leaves way more room for building side to side in the back definitely yeah it leaves way more room for building at the inside that's the same problem i had because when i started with my mountain bike i had an issue with trying to get it in there so i tried the bed this way and i didn't like it that way yeah because i yeah cause like like you said when you put the bed this way you lose living space you like move ability definitely like most times during the day i'll unfold my bed and just put it up against the wall just so i can get in and out a lot easier if i need to cook inside if i'm in like a really busy neighborhood or something then it just gives me access for that don't like to do it but it happens it's not just van life so do you want to give us a walk through on where you plan on building cabinets what you plan on doing in this build coming up do you have an idea i kind of do yeah just kind of basically a little bit of the setup of yours but more of i want to couch back here because since i've had the rear access i really like in sitting here and just enjoying views of calgary or up in the mountains and whatnot so i think having the back access like a couch would be really nice a lot of people do the couch inside i don't really spend a lot of time like in the van back here unless i'm sleeping so opening the doors and just having a fresh air is nice so all my van build since i've lived in it now having it every way like i mean i've literally slept up here this way every which way you can think about sleeping in a van on the floor on an air mattress i've done it so i kind of got the idea of how i want my van build i definitely want the bed at the back and cooking possibly at one of the doors so i'm hoping the kitchen have the kitchen right about here as a counter so when i open the side door your kitchen's underneath all your spices and stuff the single burner and all of that and over here is mainly going to be for power and clothes and seasonal stuff for just storage under the bed i have a lot of tools into a tub and i plan on getting more so that's basically going to be the tool box is under the bed and eventually one day a roof rack to hold the mountain bike so i can get it out of here as much as i enjoy it so do you have any quick tips for anybody getting into van life right now uh honestly take a step-by-step guide from chrome and live in your van feel it out i thought that i would want my van built out completely different when i started now living in it so many different ways i have i have a straight vision on how i want to build it there's not going to be a four and five part build series it's just going to be one one and done i know what i want now it's definitely a great experience living in an open van so you can get the idea of what you want so if you were to build out the van originally when you bought it do you think you'd be still living in that same one now without living in it simple for a while and knowing your space better i gotta say no because i kind of did that with my rv and it wasn't what i wanted as soon as i was basically done building it and i ended up selling it for a restart so with this one i definitely wanted to feel it out make sure i'm building it the way i wanted it the first time so i don't have to keep redoing it so parking between the rv and this you said the van is clearly better oh different world different i can guarantee like even with all the stuff you have on your van it's definitely still a lot stealthier than a 26 foot rv yeah so i i just made a video the other day that's probably already come out by the time this van tour comes out saying that the van does need to look stealth you just need to be stealth in it so people shouldn't see you living in your van your van can say i live in my van all across the outside of it but if nobody sees you living in it that's my opinion on what stealth is i don't think a van used to look good on the outside absolutely absolutely the more the less they see you being an inconvenience in their parking lot the less they're going to bother you as well if they just think you're there parked you don't know they could you could be on the phone having a coffee waiting for a friend you never know i don't think too many people are gonna bother you but if you're out and you have your awning out on the side of the road they're definitely gonna come by and give you some help so now that uh you're in this thing how many knocks have you had on the side of your van i gotta say three from security guys but it was literally because i my fault i parked in the wrong spot i shouldn't have stayed there as long as i did the sign right in front of me three times said no parking from this hour to this hour should really get up on military time funny you say that i'm the same way i drive through intersections i'm like what does that mean yeah i pull over here to the parking side over there i'm like what time is that yeah i want to make it turn i'm not trying to do math switch out the signs right come on man that's hilarious you said that the first time i seen that was in manitoba yeah um do you have any social media they can follow you at uh i would like to say so but i keep forgetting passwords and i'm not very good with phones so if you see me you see me if not then well this is where you'll see me live in the van life awesome matt thanks for showing us your home um not very often i barge in on a uh on a van tour but while i was filming that shot he brought up the subject of a sink that the sinks are like cups and it's true most van life sinks are like a cup and he just said the best thing i've ever heard the best thing ever why would you put a cup in your van to wash a cup is that how you wear it yeah like you're kind of just washing your cup in a cup it's an unnecessary water pump when you get a hand one to just right like things go bad especially if you're dailying everything have it as basic as possible so nothing goes wrong i got real up windows i've never had an issue with my window going up and down see and i have a problem with my roll up window because people come to my passenger side they're like chrome chrome i'm like yeah let me reach you gotta reach over and do it yeah uh anyway man much appreciate it bro i appreciate it you bet [Music] [Music] all right now you don't even need to build it your van's kitted out that's like 10 horsepower wicked man looks good [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: VANCITY VANLIFE

Views: 143,848

Keywords: vancity vanlife, van life, vanlife, van life canada, solo van life, stealth van tour, van tour, van build, van life tour, living in a van, stealth van, tiny home, van life build, van build tour, stealth van build, van tour van life, stealth camper, stealth camping, van dwelling, tiny home on wheels, stealth van living, cargo van conversion, van life conversion, camper van conversion, diy van build, van stealth camping, stealth van life tour, stealth van life, campervan

Id: _kwP-qXX_k0

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 07 2022