The Best SELF-BUILD VAN CONVERSION // SOLO FEMALE Builds STEALTH CAMPER in 6 MONTHS ⚒️ 🚐

i started this build last year in 2019 i had been working at sea for 10 years i just wasn't fulfilled i think catalyzed with the broken heart i just needed to reinvent my life i kind of took stock of what i wanted in life and it wasn't working on mega yachts anymore so i wanted to pursue my passion of surfing and photography and art and i thought a van would be the perfect tool to facilitate a life like that the concept was a really ergonomic spacious comfortable and beautiful van to live in and to work from i spent the winter rain and snow and no heating and no shade to work in and converting this thing and it's turned out better than i could have imagined my name is dietz and this is the home i've created [Music] so i've added two small vent windows one at the back of the van and one on the other side of the van and the shower and then also a sliding window on the sliding door all the windows open they've all got mossy nets on them from the outside the only other thing you can see on the other side of the van i'll show you in a moment is the imas instantaneous gas water heater and on the back i've got a seven rung ladder which gives you access to the max air fan and three 100 watt renergie solar panels i also changed the tires out for all-terrain tires a big problem with camper vans especially panel vans like this that are refit they're not made for constant loads all the time so what happens is the back leaf springs can flatten out so i've replaced the back leaf springs which were just single leaf springs with triple leaf springs it's definitely higher at the back with the triple leaf spring so that's going to give me a lot more support especially because i've got the bed in the back and a big water tank so i think that was definitely an essential investment to make yeah and from the outside that's basically it superstars and you can see i've added some extra locks as well on the sliding door on the back door heavy duty locks so here on the roof you can see i have three 100 watt free energy solar panels and it's more than enough for everything that i need batteries always top down they feed into a 220 amp hour battery and then i'm still connected to the alternator via split charge relay i'm constantly topped up and it's more than enough for my lights to heat my water to keep my drinks cold to charge my camera and my batteries and everything you could put another panel here there's space for it but i quite like the space to come up to take photos from to fly your drone from but you just kind of catch some sunlight if you wanted to and it's also a good space if you did have to do some repairs on the solar panels on the maxey fan you could have your tools here and you can actually work up here so it's not crammed it's not difficult to move around i was really lucky i had a friend who's an electrician helped me with the solar system and all the electrics inside the van that was obviously the most daunting for me never having done that before but i'm really at peace now knowing that everything's done correctly and in a safe way solar system absolutely perfect more than enough for what i need if i want to run a coffee machine or you know anything extra there's more than enough juice to be able to do that so absolutely perfect this is the single most expensive bit of kit i've put into the van and it's an instantaneous gas water heater so it's totally tankless it runs off propane gas it's just a box 32 centimeters by 32 centimeters it looks really nice it's really sleek and it gives you hot water until your water reservoir is gone basically or until you run out of gas you want to save on space if you want hot showers you know if you're surfing cold water and you just want to have a nice hot shower and this is definitely the way to go [Music] one of the most important things for me when designing this van it's the reason for buying the extra high roof was to have a raised floor the idea came from working at sea in a boat you would call it a bilge the whole floor has storage inside i designed the van on paper like 100 million times and finally decided that i would need the extra high roof to still have the headroom and have all the underfloor storage so the entire floor of this van has 15 centimetres of storage and even with the raised floor you've still got loads of hedges got two access hatches one up front and one at the back just got towels in here and bags and toilet paper and there's loads of space so like basically all of this you reach in and it's all storage space so absolutely great bit of bit of storage there i've got a really nice little mechanism as well that i put onto little hatches so this is kind of like a folding mechanism that kind of goes away and goes flush and it just looks really nice it's just really thick marine ply hardwood ply which i cut to shape and then i just put like a vinyl fake floor on down here is my other hatch basically i've just got dried food and stores in here yeah just canned food and some more towels cocoa powder quinoa cans of tuna yeah i can't even like reach the end of it yeah really good this over here is my gas locker it's just a sliding door which opens up and inside i've got my safety bottle super secure not going anywhere i've got a 12 volt gas detector down there as well and a drop bit kind of my safety precautions for the gap the only thing that the gas feeds is my cooker and my water heater so the water heater also has drop veins on the other side in case there's a leak over there [Music] this is my kitchen got my two gas rings over there and i don't have loads of work surface left over here but with this ikea chopping board table i've got more than enough space to prepare a meal this drawer i actually sold myself a skip and modified a little bit put some runners on it and yeah it's got my basic cutlery plates bowls and cups in there everything i need more than enough actually and up here i've just got a magnetic strip for some of the knives i would use more regularly scissors a torch and of course the most important tool bottle opener over there little storage nooks i've got one little shelf up here just with salt and pepper and a few bits and pieces and i've got another little light here i wanted another light over the cooking area so that solved that problem and then i've got one plug over here my camera battery charger but this is connected to the inverter over here i've got my 12 volt fridge and it's not very big it's very small but it's enough for me just to keep my fresh produce underneath this i've got a hidden void and in that hidden void i've got a safe which is bolted down to the floor of the van so really quite difficult to get to and i don't think anybody would really think of looking there and even if you got there you couldn't do anything with it because it's totally bolted down so secret hiding spots then i've just got some pots and pans over here this thing which is just a flower pot actually for onions and garlic and stuff like that so that just goes over there and that's it that's my kitchen basically [Music] everybody that watched my youtube channel knows that my shower took a really really long time and it was really ambitious but it's worked out so well so what i did was first of all i bought my shower tray and i knew i wanted a big shower because i'd be surfing a lot i just want to have a nice comfortable hot shower when you get out the water so it's a big rectangular shower tray and then i built the walls around it with marine fly and i really maximize the space of the curvature of the van make sure that this kind of opens up which it does then i treated the marine ply with a tanking membrane and on top of that i put a flexible tile adhesive and then i finished it off with a rubberized swimming pool paint so it's super waterproof everything marries well together all the products work well together and it's all flexible so when you're driving it's not going to crack that took a lot of research a lot of thinking a lot of tasting but in the end it worked out really really well it feels like a solid concrete shower it doesn't feel like a plasticky kind of van shower there's a lot of people doubting me but worked out in the end so yeah definitely proud of my shower the toilet is just a thetford chemical toilet it's not an expensive composting toilet we've also got two fixed shelves over there just to store stuff and i made some railings with bamboo my shower raining actually is also made of bamboo so that looks really nice the light in the shower is just on a switch out here so that's independent whereas all the rest of the ceiling lights in the van are touch sensitive so this is the only one that's on a switch so i've got two shower heads the main one up here and then i've just got another little handheld one and then i've just got my mixer tap over there this is my little window which i installed this was surprisingly so much work not installing the window but making the window frame with these beautiful curved windows i didn't want to just build a square frame for it i had to round it off so i spent weeks building this up and using a fiberglass filler filling at sounding and filling and sanding it filling and sanding to get a beautiful curvature did the same process as for the rest of the shower kind of like another little shelf you can put stuff up there [Music] for all my cupboards and doors i made a little monkey fist just as the doorknobs and i think that looks really nice and then just for the doors that can swing open i've got little latches on there just so that nothing rattles while you're driving this is kind of like a continuation of the kitchen this is my sink and i went for a nice solid porcelain sink although in retrospect i probably should have gone for something lighter this countertop as well is actually one piece or was one piece with the countertop i used in the rest of the kitchen this wall is the wall that's sharing with the shower and because it's all closed in now i wanted to make sure that the plumbing that's inside was still accessible so what i did was i made a couple of inspection hatches so one up here another little inspection hatch just over there so you can see if anything's leaking and it would still be a little bit of a mission to open it up and sort it out but at least you'd know if there was a leak and you could access it to sort it out this is just a little cheap shelf from b and q which i secured over there a really simple tea profile plastic tea profile that i've just secured up here two tracks of it and then the wine glasses just slide in perfectly and it's quite tight so they shouldn't really rattle around too much under the sink i've got all my plumbing obviously for the sink everything under here on this side of the van is technical space my plumbing my electrics the energy flow of the van and everything that needs to be fixed and maintained is kind of in this space the gas water heater is there my pumps are there my plumbing my diesel heater the battery everything's down there and everything's accessible i've got all my panels and sensors over here so this is just the remote control for the maxi fan this gives me information on my solar panels what they're drawing and how my battery is doing this is for the imas gas water heater any faults will come up over there then this is just a level indicator for my grey and my fresh water tank so i've got sensors in both of those and this is the controller for the chinese diesel heater and this is the controller for my inverter so if i want to use any of the sockets that are connected to the inverter to charge my laptop or cameras or anything like that then i would just have to turn this on and off from here i've gone with like a white wash effect so i painted everything right and then i sanded everything down to give kind of a weathered look it was really hard to get a nice tight tidy finish with the tongue and groove on the ceiling and the tongue and groove on the wall so that's just tidied everything up really nicely and uh that's the boat i was on that burned down i had to advance it yeah that was not a good day so same thing over here i've just got another slatted door i've made a little rakia for chopping board my plumbing comes down here and out through the van and then joins with the rest of the plumbing to go into the gray water tank safety features i've got in here as well i've just got a fire blanket and i've got a fire extinguisher and i've got a carbon monoxide alarm over there because my chinese diesel heater is in there the chinese diesel heater is actually connected directly to the vans fuel tank so i don't need storage for another fuel tank [Music] this is the outlet for my chinese diesel heater which is great because when you sit here and your feet are freezing you can get them nice and roasting hot on that and then in this corner i've just cut out a little hatch so this is like the main electrical shut off for absolutely everything so if ever there were a little spark or a smell or it's not you know something burning um the first thing you would do is just turn that off then along the floor i've just also done like a nice little skirting like i said before it's really in the details when you want to make something look good i think you just really have to pay attention to the little details ties everything together really nicely so this is under my seat in the technical space and there you can see that's the water heater there's my chinese diesel heater that's the water accumulator i've got my water pump over there that's the drop vent if there's a gas leak and then you can see that's my leisure battery over there very accessible there's still loads of space around here but i'd like to keep this clear so you can work in there if there's ever a fault [Music] the tracks apparently take 60 kilograms it fits nice and tightly so when you're driving it's not gonna go anywhere and then i've got two seats one on this side although this side is a lot bigger than that side so fatties sit here and uh if you're less fast you can sit on this side this over here is a full length closet the way that this evolved was actually because i needed permanent surfboard storage and i knew i wanted my surfboards inside with the fixed bed you've got all that garage space underneath but still i didn't have enough length for a surfboard to go so what i thought was well if i can fit the surfboard in through the length of the van and have it go under a seat then it's out the way about this far off the bottom there's a void that continues through the garage and the nose of my surfboard just fits through this is my bedroom and i love it i sleep so well here especially when it's raining and you can hear the tinkering of the rain on the roof again this was one of the really important design features i wanted a fixed bed i didn't want to be building a bed every day and i wanted the added bonus of having all that under bed storage in the garage space i managed to fit a small double mattress in here so yeah i've kind of set it up here to be like my bedroom but also like a little work station because i have my little lap tray and i can sit up in bed really comfortably with all my cushions and my laptop on here and i just do my work and the only shelf i really have in the whole van is the one i've got here above my bed this shelf was designed for my camera equipment so i've got the two sockets which are connected to my inverter and two sockets two usb chargers and i can charge everything up there my camera my laptop my gopro my drone everything is charged up here all my lights like i said before they're all touch sensitive lights so i just turn them on and off like that then i've also got some led strips running along either side of the bed and a little panel to control them over there so you can just turn them on and off and dim them and of course i've got another little window over here and i did the same thing with this window as i did in the shower and i made the corners round so it took a really long time the curvature of this window isn't as nice as i got it in the shower it's a little bit a little bit lopsided so my ocd is acting up a bit but it looks really nice and it's great to wake up with the view [Music] so a couple of things over here i've just got a little shelf i've got a reading light and i've got two usb ports over here these aren't connected to the inverter they're just 12 volt and then i've got my little control panel for my led lighting i kind of had to make like an ingress over here and on the other side so that the mattress would fit in i've also mounted a guitar over here i'm not very good with the guitar but i enjoy it nonetheless just for myself and yeah all around the van i've got like little hooks and little storage solutions i've just got a belt actually up here that i've used for kind of a railing so stuff doesn't go flying and then again the detail just you know using the rope to kind of finish off the edges put another beam to finish off the edge of the tongue and groove because that can look quite messy and yeah i just went for a really simple colour scheme just white gray and natural wooden colours [Music] this is my garage space and as you can see the bait sits about in the middle of the van again it's another benefit of having that extra high roof in my garage i've got a 250 litre water tank got my surfboards i've got camping chairs i've got two jerry cans all my surfing kit my wetsuit stuff for barbecues i've got my shovel i've got my tools i've got an oil change over there i've got absolutely everything and again on this side of the van i've got all my electrics got two surfboards in here they kind of go all the way through under the seats under the closet literally the door just closes on the end of them so the energy flow in this van is really good what happens is i've got the solar panels on the roof the electricity comes down it goes into the solar charge controller which sits over there this kind of is the brains of the whole operation and from here it goes to my inverter to my battery to my split charge relay so the whole system is also connected to the alternator of the van and then it just feeds out to all the electrical appliances same with the water the water flow kind of starts over here and then it just goes forward so it's really nice and easy to diagnose a problem because you just start at one end and kind of work your way forward and again everything's accessible you can see everything you can get at everything and you can work at everything if it needs some maintenance so i'm kind of thinking of letting this go and starting again with the 4x4 in africa i think it's just the beginning of something else and maybe it's kind of poetic and it's there's a good lesson in there to sometimes put your heart and soul into something and be okay with the fact that it's not going to be yours forever and we need to learn to kind of let things go be it relationships people jobs camper vans whatever it is sometimes the joys in the journey and not in the object and at the end of the day it is just a van and i'm really proud of what i've created so that's basically my van it's been my life for the last six months just building and designing the key to this build was the extra high roof that's just opened up the space it probably seems absolutely crazy to spend so long and put all your heart and soul into something and then think about selling it but the way i see it is and i think this is what's wrong with the world is that everybody's just trying to take shortcuts to success and i could have built this van with the intention of selling it probably not put as much effort into it and that's really not good we tend to put more effort into something when it's for our own personal gain if the whole world shifted their mentality to just applying everything they have to every task to every relationship to every project to every job then the world would be a better place maybe i'm not going to be the one to enjoy this van maybe this was just a chapter for me and i learned so much and the joy really was in the journey building the van of dreaming about where i'm going next and what i'm doing next and it's really formative and at the end of the day van and its content are also just materialistic things what is my life about and what is your life about it should be about your passions and your dreams and the van is kind of like a tool it's just a vessel to facilitate that kind of life this is not a weekend camper van this is something that somebody can live in and work from i hope if i do end up selling the van that somebody like me sees it appreciates it and decides to live in it pursue a similar kind of path with photography or art or something like this that's what it's designed for and it's designed for europe and if i'm not staying in europe then this isn't the ban for me i'm really excited to kind of go down to africa and maybe start a 4x4 build which would be really awesome what i'm kind of thinking already is a hilux just a single cab and then getting like an aluminium shell for the back kitting that out like for sub-saharan africa touring like full-on probably just one solar panel and don't even like insulate it so heavily because you're in africa yeah just a more functional build not as luxurious not as comfortable as this more like or going out into the wilderness so anyway i've achieved what i wanted to achieve with this van so until somebody makes me an offer to buy this for like 100 million pounds i'm going to enjoy it and i'm going to use it a little bit and i'm sure there'll be a few little teething problems once i get on the road once i'm driving a bit more so i'll sort those out yeah just take it day by day and see how it goes i hope you enjoyed that content um if you hadn't noticed we do have an e-book that we sell and the link is just in the description uh it contains 160 pages crowned full of practical advice walkthrough information electronic schematics and part lists which will make your job a lot easier for doing a van conversion and it will save you time and money also we've created special videos for the ebook which enable you to see walkthroughs for how to do loads of things in a van conversion so that's for water systems through electrics for how to do simple woodwork joints that anyone can do i really believe that anyone regardless of their experience can make a half decent fan conversion thanks for watching we really appreciate you watching our content and we put a lot of effort to make it interesting informative and find those cool projects that feature on our channel consider subscribing leave a comment and we'll see you next week

Channel: Nate Murphy

Views: 1,678,544

Rating: 4.9311285 out of 5

Keywords: female van conversion, solo female vanlife, solo female van conversion, van conversion, sprinter conversion, #vanlife, vanlifediaries, van conversion electronics, van conversion gas, van conversion solar, off grid soar, off grid camper, van conversion electrics, van conversion heater, van conversion how to, how to van conversion, vanlife, van life, how to van life, digital nomad, selfbuild van, selfbuild camper, vw crafter conversion, campervan, camper shower

Id: x62FoXtUWx8

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020