VAN TOUR | Ford E-350 Camper Van Conversion | Heavy Duty Insulation For Long-Term Winter Vanlife

[Music] how's it going guys my name is nate brown uh this is my 2006 ford e350 van conversion uh this is actually my third full conversion my very first van conversion my first one was a 1992 sick as hell uh e350 box truck with custom weld bumper tan black wood stove roof deck full nine yards uh second one was uh this past year during quarantine i built a uh a camper on the back of my toyota tacoma 1500 square feet of hand-laid fiberglass and lived out of that for a while and then i just built this one two months ago still in the process but almost done so when building this van i really like thought about renting them out to skiers and snowboarders i've spent a lot of time in the mountains especially in my van doing two weeks up there at a time waking up shoveling off the solar panels you know walking 100 feet to the lift and i really want to share that experience for other people so i started with a pretty heavy duty insulation of everything is mylar wrapped with polystyrofoam on the floors everything is spray foamed every nook and cranny is dialed from there i've got heating the heating sources are a reliable mr buddy propane heater super simple to use connected to a five pound propane tank as well as what will be a wood stove right here uh the key component with the wood stove and the wood that i chose for the entire build is i did cedar so it smells like a cabin all the time it also uh is resists moisture uh pretty well so basically in my box truck i always had my snowboard boots linked up to some bindings straight above my wood stove with everything drying off around it you know give it 30 minutes and you're good to go back on lift even on the wettest day when it comes to a layout i really just wanted to design something that was um really functional a lot of people build these like small vans and they put a full size mattress in and they got no room for movement they just have to lay out in bed and it you know totally sucks might be bigger for better for a bigger van but for something like this you're kind of limited on space so basically i wanted to make stuff that was removable so right here i have a removable toilet that is pretty simple it's got two latches on the side draw pull it out you just can do your business right there easy to slide back in also acts as a seat really really simple design and then the whole thing you can just lift up take out you know easy as that i also have my fridge over here which uh sits right in between the seats uh it's just a simple yeti i've used the dometics before and a lot of times being in the pacific northwest is not the most reliable electrical source with especially up at the mountain everything's very cold enough as it is and this thing is also removable in terms of water i just have a simple gray fresh water seven gallons each super simple with the foot pump system right here super reliable i have an electric one linked up to my camper right now and uh it's super loud and annoying so i prefer actually the footprint system uh right here is gonna be the wood stove with all your fresh cut wood right here easy access while just sitting down doing some work uh if you go over here pan over when you gotta go cook easy simple meal you got your stove that just slides out and you're able to cook right from your seat um the key to this is that you're able to cook inside or you can step outside cook easy slides away you got all your cooking necessities just throw them right down there got your touch panel lights they'll link up set the mood right you know for a nice quiet night over here you got a couple cabinets two right here for food storage mainly this for all your other cooking necessities when it comes to more storage for other things we got right here this flips open got your mr buddy stove that whips out links up right over here so this still remains flush yeah you're able to just bring it right on over it stands for that easy put away not so bad right here you got your main seat that we use uh what's nice about here is also you just take off that all this is storage behind that as well put that back up you got all storage right here i usually put my sleeping gear right here so you just stuff your sleeping bag or just a pillow whatever it is right here links up to the inverter so you just press that and then it hooks on your 120 volt right here i put that right here so you can able easily able to charge your laptop while working up at the mountain sweet and then right here is your bed that's a easy pull-out system so it goes all the way out here this bad boy flips out um takes about a minute it's not too hard all slides back nice and tight so you're able to go back into your simple living system uh the reason i chose a twin size bed is because you know it just saves so much room um i've seen it in a lot of vans and i've used it in my own my own vans before and it's just so much better than a queen size bed especially when you're being a weekend warrior the beauty of this also is it flips up into a couch so if you've got a nice day outside you can just throw it out there and lounge out just take off the sheet you're good to go so for ventilation i decided to do two fans because i have this in my camper right here is the max air fan uh what's great about this this one isn't the electric so you can't you have to just manually twist it open but you're able to keep it open all the time i've had fans before where you know it really sucks when it pours on you at night because there's no rain guard so this i can actually just leave on all the time always creates nice circulation in here it's got three modes uh just easy press on it's nice and cool in here really fast especially if you uh maybe overload the wood stove if you decide to switch angles and be sleeping with your head down there and your feet down here you also have a personal fan right here that rotates 360 degrees super nice quiet and efficient this is the back of my truck to do privacy i just made some some hippie curtains they just roll down on all four windows double sided quilt and just roll them up and then clip them back on you're good to go over here uh we got two different light switches one goes to my dresser right here check it out got all the clothes storage in there and then over here is the lights for back here the garage so right here i've got a splitter valve on the five pound tank that goes to the uh the cooking the two burner cooker as well as the mr buddy heater super efficient nothing will last you honestly weeks at a time over here is all of our battery system it's super simple the batteries are powered they're linked up to the the cars alternator which is just plenty of voltage especially coming from a diesel van as well as 100 volts of solar right up here we just have two deep cycle batteries they're linked up to the pretty simple inverter i kept one space open just in case someone wants to run some lights back here and string lights set a mood um over here just 12 volt panel and you're super simple solar setup so for the outside uh you know you can pretty much get everything off amazon relatively cheap you just have your side mounted ladder usually you put this on the back door but i prefer the side access it goes straight up on it's supported by four roof racks for also just have 12 foot cedar decking i have it wrapped evenly on other sides you can access the jewelry rack equally as well as layout on either side uh right up here is the 100 volt uh 100 watt solar panel yeah so i made extra room for it just in case you want to link up other solar panels you can put you know at least another two 100 watt solar panels up there if you really are trying to get off the grid even more but honestly there's plenty of power here already so overall this thing probably took me about a month and a half technically it's not done because the wood stove has been on backorder for two months but you know probably could bust it out all in within a month or so really grinding total cost ended up being around around 14 grand that included the van and everything um if i did it again i'd try to use motorcycle materials but i was kind of on a time crunch and pretty much the only thing i'd really change about the layout is i would reduce the height of this maybe by four inches or so um i love actually just the size of the bed as you know this is a dorm room size bed we've all you know shared that plenty of times i'm sure and it's not so bad but yeah besides that i honestly think it's a pretty dialed setup thanks for watching hopefully this helped you guys out for you guys future builds um this thing is actually up for sale to fund some future fun uh gonna build out another set up here pretty soon probably something a little bit bigger uh as well as i'm building a food truck called sweet as waffles it'll be open up in 2021 bellingham washington uh yeah you can hit me up at nate underscore and underscore nico on instagram if you need any help or if you're looking to buy this rig cheers and have a wonderful day guys [Music] you

Channel: Trail and Summit

Views: 358,146

Keywords: vanlife, van tour, camper van, van conversion, ford, e 350

Id: XSvM908a6JQ

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021