The ACTUAL Build Cost of my DIY Camper Van Conversion

a few months ago I finished building a used cargo van into a off-grid camper [Music] and I made a YouTube video of the process which like 17 million people watched which is absolutely wild and I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that left a kind comment or a like it so I thought I'd do a follow-up and answer the most asked question which is of course how much did the build cost now I can just tell you a number but that's going to be completely meaningless without any context so what I'll do is I'll break everything down into categories talk a little bit about each and then maybe you could see where you could save money or perhaps spend even more money so starting with the van itself I bought a 2012 Volkswagen crafter with 220 000 kilometers on the clock and it's a medium wheelbase High roof model which means it basically fits in a regular car park and I can stand up inside it without hitting my head I paid 23 000 New Zealand dollars for it which is about 13 000 US Dollars and for a mechanically sound but older van that's a price pretty typical of the market here also obviously I am based in New Zealand but for the sake of catering to a global audience I'll read everything out from now on in US Dollars and put currency conversions on screen for you as well okay so getting into the actual build firstly was the Vans exterior I wanted to keep things pretty low-key so I only added a single window in the side and roof rails to mount the solar panels to I also put a max air fan in as well so that I can control the airflow in the band so all together that was seven hundred and forty dollars moving inside the van now for insulation thankfully the climate in New Zealand is pretty mild so I didn't have to go too extreme but even still I did insulate the floors walls ceilings and every cavity I could find using sheep's wool insulation it's naturally moisture resistant and breathable with a decent r value so it's perfect for this kind of application all up including some sound deadening mat that I also used that came to 360 dollars next up is all the wood I used for the floors the walls the ceilings and the cabinets I mostly used Pine plywood ranging and thickness from three quarter inch down to about a quarter inch and while I was able to save a bit of cash by using recycled timber for the bench top so we'll say any money that I saved there was definitely overshadowed by the time I had to spend it pulling the nails out so totaled up the would cost six hundred and thirty dollars but that's kind of only half the story because you're also going to need a whole range of fasteners like screws and nails and all the hardware like drawer slides hinges brackets latches and while they're pretty cheap individually by the time you add them all up they did end up costing more than I thought at 715 dollars so that's actually more than the wood cost for the appliances I chose to go with a portable gas stove as my cooking setup so I really only have one major appliance and that's my 12 volt fridge freezer I do have a kettle for hot water though so I'll include that as well so all together that came to 330 dollars okay let's look at the plumbing I wanted to have a simple setup so I just have two 25 liter water containers one is for holding fresh water and the other is for catching the drain from the sink the fresh water is pumped up to the tap with an electric pump and also out to a spray hose for washing things or people with even with this relatively minimal system by the time you add up all the little fixtures and fittings the tap and the huge sink yeah it ended up costing quite a bit at 650 now in my van build I don't have a fully lined wet room bathroom space I do of course have a portable toilet but I decided against the strip costs complexity and maintenance of having a permanent hot water shower system inside the van something I couldn't do without though is an off-grid electrical system I didn't need anything crazy just something that would keep my camera and laptop charged and run the few appliances so what I've got is 400 watts of solar panels on the roof a DC to DC charger for charging off the van's engine an inverter to run AC appliances and 100 amp hours of lithium battery to store that power I do have space for extra batteries but everything charges up so fast with the solar panels and the DC to DC charger that I just haven't really needed to add more because of availability here in New Zealand I didn't have as much choice in Brands as I would have liked so I went with mostly victron components which seem to have a good reputation but I'd say I probably on the pricier end for the components and actually the thing I hadn't really accounted for in building the system was just a sheer amount of different size cables wires and lugs that I ended up using and I mean individually those things aren't really the that cheap and then when you add them all up yeah it gets expensive real quick so all together my system cost 3120 but that number doesn't include the lighting which I've kept separate just because there is no way any normal person would go to this much effort with the lights I mean because here's the thing I knew I was filming it for YouTube and I feel like you've got to do things a little different sometimes just to keep things interesting so for all the LED strips and special dimming light switches I ended up spending another 130 okay so the cost of paint and finishes was something I had completely overlooked but after spending all that time cutting and assembling cabinets and walls and ceiling panels I didn't want to cheap out on the final paint surface so I went with quality paint That's moisture and mold resistant designed to be used in kitchens and bathrooms which all together cost me 230 dollars for the flooring I had seen that a lot of people had had trouble with the durability of the wood look laminate type floors inside vans so I thought I'd tip the scale in the other direction and go with black Industrial Rubber only turns out that was a terrible idea well I'm sure the durability would have been pretty good in the long term it looked awful and smelt worse so I scrapped that idea and went with a middle ground of a nice thick commercial vinyl which I was able to get from a local recycling store so not including my failed attempt the flooring cost me forty dollars now on to bedding if you've never bought phone before let me just tell you it's probably more expensive than you think especially good quality foam that's actually dense enough to sleep on and because my cushions needed to be custom sized I decided to knuckle down and figure out how to make my own using a borrowed sewing machine so my mattress cushions cost 230 dollars tools are a difficult category to put a number on because it's really going to depend on your skill level and what you have access to but personally I built up a decent collection over the years so I already had pretty much everything I needed though I did end up buying a track saw and some crimping pliers to make my life easier and so if I include them that came to about 200 and while it's technically not a van build cost it's probably smart to include a little something in your budget for some tools so now we're at our final category and that's all the consumables so things like sandpaper tape cutting blades all that good stuff that you end up using but isn't actually in the van itself and that was 255 dollars which brings us to a total build cost for the van of drum roll please seven thousand six hundred and thirty dollars and if you include the van in that as well that's twenty thousand six hundred and thirty dollars but there is one important factor that I haven't included in that and that is how much of my own time went into this over the course of six months I probably spent around 500 hours working on this um so if you multiply that by whatever hourly rate you'd work for say like 500 times 20 an hour that's like ten thousand dollars right there I'm not gonna include it because I did it for myself but obviously something you'd want to keep in mind so what do you think about the total cost is that more expensive than you thought it was going to be is it cheaper than you thought it was going to be for me it did end up being more expensive than I thought both in time and money I thought it was going to take me about four months to do and I budgeted six thousand dollars for the build so a little bit over um and I think the two things that caught me out were how expensive the electrical system was and how quickly all the little things add up because you can kind of budget out the big ticket items pretty easily but it's just all the little things that you don't realize you're going to need until you actually get to them all the little fixtures and fasteners and doodads yeah they they really add it up hey but before I wrap things up I just thought I'd give a more General van update for those of you who are interested in how it's been holding up and there has been a couple of things I've changed since the last video one of them you might have already spotted and that's the desk area I rebuilt that into a more simple usable space as opposed to the the clunky complicated mess that I had before so that's a lot better now the second thing you won't be able to spot as easily but makes a huge difference is I added Springs to my 3D printed draw latches because originally they were just friction fit so what would happen after several hours of driving is the pins would slowly work themselves loose and then I'd go around the corner and just hear bang as one of the drawers would slide open so adding Springs to the mechanism now has fixed all of that and I can go down dirt roads and twisty corners and things and nothing comes loose so that's that's all good um but yeah apart from that everything else has been sweet nothing's broken leaked fall in half touch wood so I don't jinx myself it's just been a lot of fun now I don't live in the van full time I just use it to travel around places that I want to visit and I haven't really been filming a lot because this channel is more about building stuff than it is travel Vlogs and all I'd love to do a mix of the two I don't feel like my production quality is quite there yet so this will probably be the last video of the van you'll see before I get started on my next project so I hope seeing the the cost breakdown and all the numbers and things has satisfied your curiosity if you have any questions let me know below of course thank you for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Further Fabrication

Views: 369,307

Keywords: van conversion timelapse, time lapse, Van build, vanlife, van tour, diy van, diy campervan, sprinter van conversion, sprinter van, tiny house, living in a van, camper, how to build a van, how to build a camper, stealth campervan, low budget diy van, ford transit, solo vanlife, bus conversion, building time lapse, van life build timelapse, camper van build timelapse, full van build timelapse, camper van full build, campervan build timelapse, van build series, #vanlife

Id: 6-Ld6wfq788

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022