PRO VAN BUILDER'S 20th CONVERSION | Why he chose a BOX VAN OVER A SPRINTER for the PERFECT LAYOUT

hi i'm aaron and this is my box truck build it's a 2001 e450 with the 7.3 diesel engine in it it's got about 50 000 miles so it should be good to go for a while i build out camera vans professionally my company's renegade vans so i've done about 30 vans or so at this point so by the time i got to this i had a pretty good idea of what i wanted so it took me about two months i had some help from my girlfriend constance but other than that there's just me on it i pretty much knew what i wanted in there and what kind of layout i wanted i have seen what works and what doesn't work in advance with it being a box truck i already didn't have to make that many compromises because there's so much space in there [Music] so when i bought the box truck there was a garage door on the back like an overhead door type deal and i decided to rip that out and build some doors myself because it would have been too awkward to raise and lower that garage door all the time so these doors have like an inch and a half of foam board in the center and they're built on a half inch plywood mostly on the outsides so this is the garage area and it has room for most of my tools for when i go and do jobs mobley and here's a 55 gallon water tank uh underneath there's a 44 or 45 gallon water tank for the gray water so this is fresh water here's all my pumps and my plumbing back there is a water heater it heats the air and the water actually so it's both a furnace and a water heater and it runs off propane mostly but you can also run it off electric or a combination of the two this is just additional access to the storage under here so the bed i got a full-size bed in here um if the box truck you know has a lot of space in it so there's plenty of room for a big bed and clearing the strider out all these are for my clothes i put like a closet in here with the rod and hanging shirts and everything and a mirror another thing i liked about the box truck is that there was plenty of room to put a full-size shower in this is about i think it's three feet by two feet it might be 40 40 inches actually so a little over three feet let's pull the side shower i got an exhaust fan a place to store my soaps and everything and uh i was gonna put a composting toilet in here and if i if i end up getting a toilet in here i'll put it in the shower but i have a toilet at my shop where is where i mostly stay otherwise i just use the toilet at the gym so i haven't had it really had a need for it but a lot of people ask like the one question i have is where's your toilet and it's probably the only thing that's like missing with this build but i don't really need it for my lifestyle so i don't have one these are compressed air lines to blow out the water system there's just straighter valves going into this pecs let's all do that to winterize it uh so far i haven't had to do it living in it and keeping the heat on and everything it um stayed pretty warm i built some nooks here too for the kitchen storage get a magnetic little strip for knives that's more shelving up here for the kitchen i got a two burner propane stove just a 15 inch sink 15 by like 12 i think spray nozzle deal countertops acacia wood and i used some leftover countertop to do this window sill and then i trimmed it out with walnut and pine on the inside here and all the cabinetry is birch birch plywood a lot of storage there's four outlets all 120 volts so over here is the seating area and underneath is the battery bank and all the electrical components there's a 2000 watt inverter a 40 amp energy charge controller and then a 200 amp hour lithium battery and then the shore power converter box and all the breakers and wires that are in there over there just some storage for clothes i usually use it for dirty clothes and then this table swivels around switches for the water pump and then this is a heating pad in case the tanks ever start to freeze if it gets real cold and then this one's a heating pad for the battery so it can charge when it's really cold because lithium will cut out at a certain temperature and stop charging so that's i haven't had using use them yet but i kind of just put them in just in case this is a some aromatic cedar that smells pretty nice uh there's like six or seven different types of wood i used in here this is uh beetle kill pine this is aspen tonguing groove this is pine walnut for the trim and this is the pass through to the cab i made the door pretty heavy so it wouldn't rattle and so it'd also be pretty insulated but it's nice to have that to block out all the light and then to keep the heat in in the winter and then keep the heat out in the summer in the summer it gets really hot in the cab from all the windows i have two max air fans here they go both directions there's one over the kitchen and then one over the bed and then all these windows have screens keep the bugs out so overall i think the box truck is like my favorite platform now for myself at least to live in uh since i've built a lot of bands and i've lived in a couple of vans that i just kind of found that they're a bit too cramped and claustrophobic for me i didn't really have space to spread out so in the box truck i have a ton of space i didn't really have to make any compromises on like how i wanted to build it i kind of just pick a layout and go with it i didn't have to like work with any awkward angles or a weird uh dead space like you have in a van so it being a box is really nice uh if i were to do something different i'd make the floor not so light because it shows dirt really well i'd make it darker um but other than that i'm pretty happy with it this one controller for the heater you can put it on furnace mode or water heating mode or both at the same time and then you can set a timer so i usually set a timer in the morning so it'll come on like right before i want to wake up and then actually usually wakes me up and then by the time i get out of bed it's all warm in here and nice but i usually just run it for like an hour in the morning and like an hour at night and that keeps it warm in here i put the ducks for the heater down here there's four of them so lock these doors up let's have both latches at the top and the bottom and so it's pretty secure at that point there's also a latch on the outside if i want to just go out this way i can latch it from the outside too i can just lock it up from the outside here and not have to crawl through the cab to get out so this here is the uh actually the intake and the exhaust for the hot water heater this is just a 20 amp shore power inlet put all these windows in eventually i'll paint it but for now i like it's kind of industrial on the outside and beat up and on the inside it's really nice i like the contrast and also it makes a little more inconspicuous or you know it looks rough on the outside i feel like people aren't going to want to steal it or break into it but i could be wrong about that i did weld this pull-up bar and attached it to the rack i put on this vice grip for when i go do jobs mobley yeah it's pretty large it fits into like a parking space and a half maybe i guess it's almost like 20 feet long anyway that's the box truck i hope you enjoyed that video if you hadn't noticed we do sell an ebook for how to convert a van it has over 190 pages of detailed instructions and diagrams also 25 video tutorials which are specifically for the ebook buyer creating a van for many people is obviously a really intimidating project but i really believe and i've seen it time and time and time again that with the right information anyone can turn out with a pretty decent van conversion so check the link in the description subscribe to the channel if you are not already and drop us a comment if you like this video thanks for watching and we'll see you next week

Channel: Nate Murphy

Views: 66,435

Keywords: Nate Murphy, van conversion, how to convert a van, how to build a van, self-build campervan, van tour, tiny home tours, living big in a tiny house, tiny home, #vanlife, van conversion electronics, van conversion gas, van conversion solar, off grid solar, off grid camper, how to van conversion, van life, self build camper, travel, tiny house on wheels, living in a van, diy van build, diy camper van, box van conversion, luton van conversion, luton camper, box van campervan

Id: XoL5D3Wn06c

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022