I think it's recording. Good morning.
Good morning, welcome back to the channel. Yes, this week is very nice because it's
the continuation of last week's video about the 10 things we
loved about the van. This week is different, this week is
about 10 things that we hate about the van... note that we hate that,
things that we would modify that we would do better now that we know
what we want in the van, that we would optimize. Optimize. What a
great choice of word. That's a great choice of word darling.
Now you might think that some of the things that we would change is just us
being picky but after living full-time in the van for the last few months, we know what we want So there you go.
Yeah make sure you stay until number one because number one is an
absolute thing that you have to make sure you get right the first time
because otherwise you can't really live in your van. Yeah we actually changed
number one after just a few weeks, after a few months living in the van because
we just we just couldn't do it anymore. There you
go. But, before we move forward what happened with last week's poll? Alright, so last week we did a poll and we were asking you if you prefer, if you
prefer the light scheme or the dark scheme and who won for the next van? And you won, it was a close battle. well it was not a close battle. I won by 148
something yeah, So, you won and we decided we were, that we were seriously going to
send a box of pop-tarts to someone who voted dark scheme and we
picked at random and the winner her name is Claire Keefe. Claire Keefe
wrote dark scheme hashtag team Dom. Claire, love you.
So Claire, let us know in the comments below what flavor you want and we'll send
you a quick DM so we can have your address and ship you those pop-tarts.
Hopefully they get to you in one piece but I very much doubt it.
They break in half when you bring them from the grocery store to your kitchen so so I hope you enjoy your pieces of pop-tart and let's
go. Let's start. So number 10, so something that we don't
hate but something that we would change or do differently in the other van
rack shoe, shoe rack. This is our shoe rack it looks nothing like a rack every time
we come in the van one falls, there's dust, there's mud
there's... it's just a shit show so it's a... it's a shoe show. So, we need to
figure out a way to put shoes somewhere else. What we do now, see I have some here that are under the bench. What i usually do is i'm also going to put my sandals here, and then you have this space here under where I also put shoes but I feel like there is just shoes everywhere and these are the
things that we use like almost every day. I like wearing sandals when
i'm outside I like these little flippers here because they're easy if I want to get something on the back of the van and then if I
want to go hiking or if I want to go in the city, I
have my other shoes so we need to figure out a way to have
a rack for shoes. I know that some people have it here, but I feel like it's in the way. I'm just like, I feel like if we're coming in
we're always gonna like hit it or if you have any recommendations, please let us know. We're really trying to find something for the
shoes and I have no idea. That would be shoe-per nice. Akright another thing that we would
optimize is this area here. Wile we have a dinette
for us to work during the day, when Marie goes to bed at night and I have to finish stuff I always end up sitting over here with my laptop on my knees or on a pillow. If we just
did some slight tweaking here we could
swivel this seat around and do a little workstation on this side of the counter. We could move the cooktop that way and this could
become a secondary office for the late night hours that we
have to do right now. This area is okay because we often cut
some vegetables over here and we cook... However, this whole piece here is useless
and there's obviously enough space for knees and legs to go over here so
that would be very nice to be able to work from here at night
when the dinette system is not up so all we need, would be a swivel seat on this side move the cooktop a few inches
in order to put a laptop and some hard drives over here and that would be a very tiny micro office that I would use all the time. So, one other thing that we would
optimize is in the driving section of the van... is in the cockpit. The space
in between the two seats at the front is usually made for walking front and
back. When we drive for long hours, we end up with all the munchies, all the
drinks all the you know, napkins and everything
and we feel like everything is on the dash laying around putting chips in the
ventilation and everything. While we could easily build some kind of
tray or some kind of table here to optimize this thing
and to work and to drive efficiently with all the things that we need
for long hours during a road trip so right now it's good because we can walk
but half of the time this space is just messy it's useless
and we don't know what to do with it so in the next van, I would probably do some kind of box or some kind of table for us to
be more efficient here. Do you want some Fiesta Mix? Cheetos are the favorite thing in this These? Yes, they are the best, these are your favorite. Cheetos man. I love the ringolos, I love the rings. The rings are good. Number seven of the things that we would
change... unfortunately, this fridge. I love
this dometic fridge it wasn't cheap it was quite expensive but it's very low on
energy consumption so I love that. You can obviously set it to the
temperature you want. In the next van we are going to have a fridge that opens
in the front only because most of the time they come with a little freezer so
it's always nice to have a little bit of ice on a very hot day when you want to
put it in your cold water ''drinks'' love this fridge
because when you open it the bottom is still very very cold. Only hot air, only goes on top here but again
I feel like the other fridge opening from the front instead of the
top would be nice. We haven't really tried the other fridge
so we don't have anything to compare it with, we only had this one
so maybe if we try the other one we'll have like a great comparison, what do you think? Yeah we can put the vertical fridge in the second
van and then if we don't like it, we put the fridge like this again in the third
van. Yeah let's start with the second van
before thinking of... thinking of a third one, okay bud?
Okay. Thank you! Next is the counters. Although we do love
them, although they're very pretty, very light and very cheap, I feel like we're
gonna change these ones in the upcoming van only
because when you cut them, they give you a piece like this and it just keeps on
falling and breaking and this is something that annoys me. they do mark up quite easily. Again, I mean we're living in a van and there's a lot of sand and
dust so it is going to be marked but since Dom and I use
this a lot to work, we need like a very sturdy table like a very sturdy wood
so I think that just because of that, we're going to switch it
in the next van. So, very nice counters Ikea they're called ''Karlby'' they come in different colors, I think we're just going to try to find
something a little bit more solid than composite in the middle. Maybe we
can try to find like recycled wood I'd like that.
Number five: these back doors. They are not optimized. In the next van
we are going to add like a system, either a
pouch either storage, either a table. I
just feel like we're losing a lot of space but then when we close it
no... we have like this much space so we could have like, a little table. Oh, I could do like a stand-up office, or maybe we can put our portable shower here, so when we clean you just
like put it here and then we have like a... a string and then like a sheet so we can take our shower here
but I just feel like this is not optimized. See, I used optimization again.
Like this thing here is really nice but it's small, like what
do you want to put in there besides like a phone and like some tissue? So, I feel
like we could take this out and then do something nice here maybe
the shoes can go here too?! I think we're onto something.
You mean putting the shoe rack here? Yeah! Yeah! Oh but then when we're sleeping it would smell dirty feet in my face. In your face ,yeah it's your side of the bed, we're good. Yeah so I would just... in the next van, I
would try to find a way to optimize the back a bit more. I feel like we're losing space so I feel like we should put something there, what do you think? Yeah! That's a
good idea. That's a good example of optimization,
optimization. As you can see here, it was well built
however I have the feeling that we could optimize the space it takes by moving
stuff around, for example the solar charge controller in the middle could
easily be on one of the walls or at the back
over there while the inverter charger could move forward
that way so we we basically lost half a compartment over here by spreading out the electrical
component. It's okay, that's the first thing we installed
back in 2017, so if we would build another dinette system like this
one we would make the electrical unit way more compact in order to save some
space and maybe have a compartment here for
storage. So, this is obviously something we could
optimize in the next vans. The paddle boards. Now dom and I have two hard paddleboards on top of the van and we are big paddle boarders so we do
need the paddble boards and we've been paddle boarding for quite a while and we
know the difference between inflatable and hard and we prefer the
hards. Now what's complicated, although the rack is really sturdy and
the ladder is very nice, it's hard for me by myself to put it on top of the van so
say I want to go with friends it's very hard. Some people have side racks so it's like a big rack here and then the paddle
boards are here on the side... I feel like that is something that we
could do in a next van. My only concern with this is I feel like it's more easy to steal, I mean i'm sure we can lock them in place
but I feel it's... it's more easy to steal. This is very
hard, like you need to get on top of the van and stuff and I also wonder what it's like on the highway driving at 120 when the boards
are on the side? So, if you're an engineer let me know if
it's that bad. If you have seen or if you have a side
rack let me know what it looks like. So, this might be an option just because
it's easier to take them down and put them back up. Let's show them,
put the the camera, let's put the camera on the tripod and show them what we need to do to take them down. It's not that it's not easy, it's just
not that efficient. And I need you and I want to be a strong
independent woman and I don't want you helping me all the time. You are
already a strong independent woman. I know but you know it was just...(fart) I know, did you fart?! Although this battery setup is a very
efficient one, a very good one Marie and I use a lot of batteries
every day we work on laptops, I have a big laptop, I do video editing, the laptop
overheats so it drains a lot of batteries. We have cameras, drones, etc.,
that we have to plug in every day so I just feel like the batteries are
giving all that they can but most of the time I can run through their capacity
in a day... So, that being said I think we would go for a lithium battery bank in the next van just because they have a self-discharge that
is lower and they have better power efficiency
efficien... efficiency. So, I would go for lithium
batteries because they have better power efficiency. So, we talked with other builders in the United States and they tend to install lithium batteries for people with high energy consumption so I love those. They're perfect for phones, laptops, etc.,
but I need bigger and long lasting batteries. So, the number one thing... drum roll... Dounds more like a machine gun, so the
number one thing that we hate about this van is
the first cushions we bought to sleep on this bed. We actually bought cushions,
not mattresses, from the Cushion Source and we asked for a four
inch cushion and they said ''is it for seating or sleeping?'' and it was for
sleeping they were like ''yeah, okay well try it out'' $900 later, we tried them
out and they were not comfortable at all. So, my number one recommendation on
things you have to get right the first time would be: buy some real sleeping mattresses f you want to sleep well, otherwise your
life is going to be hell. You need a good night of sleep when you
travel in a van, otherwise your travels are going to be
very hard to do. Just to give you an example, this
is how it felt when we first started sleeping on cushions. So, you
think... you think the cushions are comfortable?
yeah yeah it's good. Are you sure, cause I can feel the... ? it's fine I think we're
good. Yeah, I don't want to be like a princess
but uh pretty sure these cushions are not made to sleep on... yeah I don't know
you're right I think they're crap. So, there you go, don't go cheap on what
you sleep on. From now on we only buy mattresses from
Matelas Dauphin (local store) and they're actually very good sleeping
mattresses and that's what you need. Are you... is it you or me? It's me. Okay. Alright so this is it guys, these were the 10
things that we would change, modify optimize in a next van....
optimize, optimize, optimize prime. Do you know that transformer Optimize prime? So,
this is it guys these are the th... (gibberish). We're having a lot of trouble with the ''th'' 10 things that.... These were the 10 things that we would change in a future van, things that we would
optimize, do differently and we always like to have ideas from people
on here because you have a lot of ideas that we never
thought we could have so... yeah you guys always have really good
things to say so, well, there you go. Next week... see you next week! Happy Sunday! Sappy Sunday! Sappy Sunday! Have a nice week,
have a nice weekend, have a nice Monday, a nice Tuesday, a nice Wednesday, a nice
Thursday, a nice Friday, a nice Saturday and we'll see you Sunday. And the Sunder after that.
