Off Grid Tiny Home Ambulance Conversion!

after living in this thing off and on for a year and a half it's time to sell it move on to bigger and better things so this is my 1990 ambulance tiny home let me give you a tour it started Life as a 1990 E350 ambulance it has a naturally aspirated 7.3 liter IDI engine made by International main battery cut off is here all right it starts right up pass-through door that leads into your your bathroom we'll get around to that in a minute the interior is a little well worn but all in all very very serviceable I've done a few things to the chassis to make it more reliable I have driven this uh all the way to Florida and back without any problems at all new belts and hoses uh changed all the fluids fuel filters new tires all the way around and the spare so they are all hand cook all-terrain heavy ply tires if you've ever ridden in one of these older ambulances they're they're sprung very softly for comfort so they don't handle a load very good when you load these down to max weight they tend to Sag in the rear so I have a Bluetooth air ride suspension this also allows you to load level so you can you can change each side I know it's hard to see but you can change each bag left and right to to balance yourself out if you get in a place that is is on uneven for sleep ing ambulance is a Industrial coating called durabac 16. the Navy uses this finish on like piers and docks it's extremely uh extremely tough and very low maintenance so you should have no problem with this finish at all it's kind of got sort of a bed liner appearance to it the headlamps have also been upgraded to a really nice high output LED high beam low beam daytime running light so that scene at night is no longer a problem around back here I have upgraded the rear tail lights with a modern low draw high output LEDs you also have a custom tow bar this is your 12 volt vent fan you can draw air in or out that is the a deck light off of a a yacht so you can open that up and that's that's in your shower and vent vent your shower out these windows here are original to the ambulance where both windows on both sides that I've added are double pane insulated RV windows this one slides right open for your kitchen of course the mini split heat pump this rear compartment I've also dedicated to uh tool and fluid storage you have extra belts fuel filters oils is one of your tallest cabinets I normally put like beach umbrellas or lounge chairs or you could store like a stand-up stand-up paddle board in here but this is just open storage it's also ventilated so if you had something damp it could eventually vent this is just a storage cabinet it's got a carpet in here right now it's just an empty storage cabinet it's got power in here so this is what I use around my Christmas lights and this is probably the most expensive and most important cabinet that I've built this is your power system these are your solar panels on the roof you have four solar panels 1340 watts of power and these are breakers for that and they come down and they feed into this blue solar charge controller this is a victron solar charge controller and the reason why we did victron was because these are two Tesla modules this is a heating blanket in between them to keep them warm Tesla modules are sensitive to temperature and being overcharged so I used victron because victron allows me to accurately adjust the charging profiles and temperature control so that these never freeze and I never charge them when they're frozen we have a main on off switch that kills the entire system this is also a smart battery protect shunt multiple fuses that also protect the system this is a step down converter now these batteries run at a little less than 24 volts but nothing in the cab runs on 24 volts so this converts 24 into 12. then this is your inverter this converts 24 volts DC into 120 volts ac this is a 3 000 watt multi-plus inverter 24 volts 3000 Watts 70 amps this will run everything you need it'll run the air conditioner it'll run the induction cooktop it'll run the microwave it'll run the air the fridge freezer I have yet to overload this thing it's a really good inverter smart inverter there is a GPS module hidden in this rig that tells me where this rig is within a few feet and it all comes from this victron inverter as you enter you'll notice to your immediate left you have a sight glass on your water tank you have 55 gallons of fresh water in this tank and another six in your hot water heater which is right there have a seven foot long inch and a half thick Butcher Block countertop stink then I have I have lights under cabinet lighting 12 volt charging you can charge yourself on I used to keep my cell phone like right here so that lights your under cabinet so you can see to come in you have storage here and all your Woodwork in here is three quarter inch oak ply and straight ahead I usually put like a garbage can or my laundry here but it's a nice little catch-all if you wanted to put a rack for shoes but there's this nice big sort of spot right there where you can put things you'll notice you have this main sort of power center now this is a really nice fridge freezer combo that is brand new the one that I had had a warranty issue and when they sent me a replacement I have yet to even turn it on now it's on 500 pound drawer sliders so it slides out effortlessly well almost there for listening as you can see it is still brand new the cover is still inside this is a very efficient 24 to 12 volt and 120 volt fridge freezer they're like 900.850 I am really pleased with the performance of this thing and the fact that's on these sliders and it tucks out of the way is really nice and that's a lock so it doesn't come out while you're driving and you have a microwave and let me let me mention that all of this electrical equipment all of it runs off the Tesla modules I don't have a generator I've never plugged this thing in it's it's all Standalone off the solar and the two Tesla batteries so just keep that in mind microwave this is your main power center there's your batteries DC power your inverter your solar charger AC loads and then this is uh AC power coming in we're not plugged in right now but this would show you how much power you have coming in if you need it and this is your current battery state this is your main light switch it's kind of a weird little switch you just touch it you just go tap and turns the lights on all the way through the whole center of the cab and I love this Cedar ceiling and this these aluminum support brackets are for the structure that's another reason why I used an ambulance is the whole back cab is two by two aluminum uh tubing and it's actually designed to survive a rollover in case of an accident I don't know of any other RVs that are designed to survive a rollover or to have people actually occupy the back so the structure back here is very rigid and very tough these are also dimmable because there can be very very bright so you just push and hold you just tap and hold you'll notice they'll dim all the way down to almost nothing and then tap like this turn off and tap turn back on this main switch now I just drew these on with a paint pen you can take a acetone or like fingernail polish remover and take these off and put labels on if you want but this is rear driver passenger those are scene lights outside these are box lights little lights in those outside storage boxes this is the Heat there's an entire heater section here that runs your your hydronic heat system this is your water system turn this on and it turns on all of your plumbing under here turns on your pump your accumulator there's your storage tank water filter for our drinking water I wanted to be able to filter my drinking water hot and cold water that's the pump kicking on right now building up pressure last switch is your shower so in this door here there is a composting toilet and a two foot by two foot shower if you're composting toilet you have a rack for toiletries this is that outside deck light I was telling you about it opens up like that so you have a nice view while you're showering the shower has a nice grate in it oh this is more storage so it's just a storage box if you want to put towels it's about a foot and a half deep I have power in here if you want to charge up electric razor or anything and your shower curtain yeah kind of Billows out to give you room if you look at the shower head it's a low flow high efficiency uh telephone shot style of head you're thinking um is that a cold water only shower and the answer is no so I ran a mixing valve right here so you can dial in and set your ideal shower temperature right from here and then one feed line goes to the shower meaning that once you set it you never have to ever bother with it again as you can imagine storage is a super big thing and I lived in this for over a year by myself I did retain some of the doors out of the original ambulance themselves I like the finish of them I like I like the way they slide and they won't come open so I've mounted lights that's lit and this is lit this was my pantry primarily nice and deep pretty tall these two over here was primarily my clothes now this is also nice and deep I can have a hard time reaching the back very long and I could keep all my winter summer clothes in here I had a little cloth baskets I'd keep my underwear my socks and my shirts and then further on down this brings us around to the seating area now these are custom memory foam cushions made by my family and this is a very nice comfortable Booth you can seat a lot of people in here it's a very nice place to sit and look out the window or sit and eat and as far as storage is concerned if you pull the pads up out of the way there is Storage like these are all your manuals plus there's an atlas down there and then back behind this large you have two more storage bins I kept Linens under here or towels under this side over here I wanted to leave the bottom Notch because you could put shoes and boots and things you want to get in and out of easily the top also opens but I like that being open where do you sleep well that's actually what that's what this is for it's a really nice heavy duty pedestal marine grade pedestal just unlock it push it down now that it's down now the table drops intersects your your seating pull off your your two rear pads tuck them right in like that I'd usually lay a blanket and then a sheet two people can sleep in this no problem so up here you have these flexible lighting like like reading lights you can adjust the intensity by tapping the end there's also a USB plug in the end here for charging cell phones so if you want to charge your phone also a plug right here and 12 volt plug there if you want to charge your cell phone or plug in your laptop now moving on to the a mini split heat pump this is a true 9000 BTU mini split heat pump I'll turn it on now it's on it's set to 70 and yes this thing will run off the batteries now in the dead of Summer if I could park my rig where I got full Sunshine during the day I could run this pretty much all day and not deplete the batteries because the solar produce enough energy to outpace the draw so when the interior is cool and it's not running at full capacity like it's not really having to cool to pull the inside down from uh say it's 80 or 90 in here this thing idles at like 280 Watts less than 500 watts now when it's really cranking like if you go shopping you leave everything closed up and turned off you come in and it's like 100 in here it'll push a thousand Watts but with 1300 watts of solar as you can imagine I can I can watch TV I can cook a meal and run the air conditioner all day during the summer and not have a problem at all the other thing you can do is you can open the window during the day and save your save your mini split for night time so you can charge your batteries all day you can make hot water you can do all kinds of stuff with your solar and then at night you can run your mini split almost all night and like I said once it draws the temperature down in the in the room which is a small space it's 98 square feet uh it's it's it just idles to give you an idea right now right now we're pulling nine Watts that's just a fan the fan is running hear it it's pulling nine watts of power so the compressor isn't even on so just the fan by itself pulls very little let's see if I can drop the temperature down here to like 65 that should increase the the draw now you can watch now we're drawing 131 147 188 we're not in full sun right now I'm in the shade so at the batteries were at 100 so as this load increased the the available power will also increase see we're we're really shaded right now foreign it's a very efficient mini split I am super pleased with it it's one of the best things I have ever done now this is a a heat pump so it will also produce heat while I don't recommend it to provide you heat in the dead of winter I like the diesel-fired heater better it is a really nice stop Gap like if you're going to go shopping and you want to you don't want to leave your diesel fireplace going you could put this at 55 or 60 and it will keep your cab nice and warm down to about I believe it works down to 12 degrees Fahrenheit so far below zero Celsius being warm in the winter and not having a floor that freezes that's vital so when I built this I ran pecs through the whole floor and that pecs runs into a tank so this and this are your two heating sources here's the chimney for your heater your fireplace [Music] the whole system which starts with this this is a diesel fired hot water heater it runs up into this now what you can't see is there is a six gallon aluminum tank a water tank right up here six gallons of water now it's not water it's actually RV antifreeze so what I'm doing is that that hot water heater that diesel water heater it Heats RV antifreeze and fills this tank from there this pump runs it through the floor so we have control of the floor we can turn that switch on and run all that hot water to the floor and the floor stays toasty warm even when it's negative 14 degrees outside your floor will not freeze also you take the output of this tank that hot RV antifreeze runs into a loop in here they don't mix so your drinking water and your cooking water are separate this is they typically do this on boats where the boat engine will heat the water but you pump that hot water through here and now you can make hot water you can make hot shower water from here there's also one more way to make hot water there is an electrical element in here now it is a big draw it's like 1700 Watts or 1500 watts so what I use that for is during the day once the solar has charged my batteries to 100 percent and I still have Sunshine left I will flip a switch under the sink and start harvesting sunshine to make hot water electrically and then I will store my nights shower water in here it's about six gallons during the day when the batteries are full and um everything is fine I will flip the switch and start making hot water and store that Sunshine via heat in my water tank you have that six gallon tank of hot antifreeze and it's great for warming the floors and it's great for making hot shower water but it wasn't doing anything to warm the air of the cab and I wanted to find a way to warm the air so I installed this uh it's it's actually a PC radiator with a very quiet fans behind it on a thermostat and by pumping that hot coolant through this radiator and have it on a thermostat let's go ahead and turn the heat on that turns the heat on here's how all this works this is the controller that came with that diesel-fired hot water heater and this runs that hot water heater this is a controller that is connected to the tank the actual six gallon tank this turns this on and off when I want it to not when they wanted to because they didn't have an actual thermostat built into this so this is basically a glorified thermostat that lets me turn that hot water heater on and off as icy fit now this so this is Celsius to match this now this is Fahrenheit now this is a thermostat for this this controls the temperature of the air in the cab and you can set how you can set how hot or cold you want the air in here and then this is a speed control that allows me to ramp up or down the fans so it's it's actually quite nice because you can sleep here at night you can have a lovely warm breeze blown across you so you're never you're never cold and then lastly this button here controls the fuel pump so this is a wonderful very very simple mechanical Newport diesel heater by Dickinson I love this heater now the Newport heater is your primary source of serious heat when you're cold and I love this because it's dead simple now yeah this is very complicated all this stuff up here to run your floor and run your forced uh heat forced air heat so I want to in case any of this goes down I wanted a dead simple and reliable heat source that I could rely on to keep me and my rig from freezing and dying in case it was super super cold let's see I think we've covered all our bases you are warm in the winter your floor is not frozen you have warm water to take a shower you are cool in the summertime when you have uh sunshine you have all the electricity you would ever need to cook and to Power Electronics and to run your heat pump your mini split heat pump um yeah I I lived in this full time for over a year and I really wanted for nothing my life was pretty much sort of sacrifice free sometimes you have to make sacrifices uh but this really wasn't I love the composting toilet it's one of my favorite features I love not having a black tank we have a gray tank but I use biodegradable soaps and so I try not to use the gray tank very much but we have a great tank so I like my sink in my shower just to run out as long as the soap they're using is appropriate yeah I I'm Gonna Miss This this rig I've I've really enjoyed it but as life progresses life goes on and I might build something a little bigger but the reason why I also did an ambulance is because it's tiny enough to fit inside most any parking spots where if you had like a bus or a big fifth wheel you can't drive a bus to go get groceries you can drive this to go get groceries so yeah uh this will be for sale I'm gonna list it locally and off Van life Trader so if you have any questions and you want to know more um let me know and of course if you're if you want to buy this I will run you through all the systems um probably over a weekend if you're if you're interested yeah I hope you enjoyed it thanks

Channel: Jason Hurst

Views: 173,463

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Id: 9FBLWJnqsbg

Length: 22min 54sec (1374 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022