Wheelchair accessible campervan with full bathroom and self levelling van! |VANLIFE|

hey everyone so I have a special guest with me today my friend Margaret uh she just got her very own accessible camper van built out and I've heard a lot about it for the past few years but I've only seen pictures and today I get to actually take a tour of it and we've been I guess friends now for probably two seasons two years yeah um you reached out to me back in 2021 I think start of 21 and that's kind of how we started going back and forth yeah so yeah and then what we've hung out a couple times since then I brought my van to your place you're also a snowbird you're a Canadian but yeah we have a home in Palm Desert California okay a little bit about your history do you what's your level of spinal cord injury and how long have you been you so I've been in a chair for 33 years this coming April I am a C6 C7 incomplete quad I'm functionally complete though I have a a little bit of hand function in my right hand that I probably shouldn't have have going back to your van what were some of the mus haves that you wanted in the van three things it had to be a bed that was at the level I could get on and off without too much difficulty I wanted a toilet and I wanted a shower um mostly I call this the hotel on Wheels I've just been so tired of traveling and getting to a hotel that is not as build or going to family and friends homes and either hobbling along or not able to stay very long and having to turn around and go home um or having to rely on people family or my husband to give me a hand yeah then equals Independence when it's built properly for you y absolutely get that put on a v 10,000 km since I got it in June at the end end in June first of July was first trip yeah so and you before van life you did Teardrop trailer right I had a teardrop trailer that I pulled behind my little van um and I uh got tired of hitching and unhitching a trailer I don't enjoy it it's not that hard if you're able bodied if you're getting in and out in and out in and out and on my old vehicle I had a little tiny like magnetic camera for a while it didn't no van life much absolutely way easier to set up like we're here I had the level the van that's about it once in okay so you brought that up I am so excited to see because you told me about this self-leveling thing that you're getting it's uh I'm so excited to see how it works I was super excited about it as well and I'm still excited that it's it's automatic but it's not as automatic as I do yeah we'll take a look at that in the Tour all right right zo tour time I'm excited for this I haven't seen it in person so let's do it yay [Music] so you have the super arm lift which is what I also have on my van this one is um older so the controls are a little less refined maybe than what you have on yours uh this is a bar find which I got for 600 bucks I I remember seeing it online for sale and I told my friend who was looking for one and he called the day after you bought it and he was so upset that he missed out on that deal um yeah so we had to do a little bit of um we had to sand blast and powder coat it again and redo the wiring but uh that was all relatively easy and put a new pendant on and then we put a switch on the post so that when I'm down I can use that to get in and out or get the lift in and out right so then you can let your let the lift out for yourself to come on in keep going I'm actually impressed that both of us fit in the entrance so we're kind of right adjacent to the we can't move but we're we can pass each other can so we can change positions in the van okay so on the left I see a fridge here it looks like it's raised probably just to get easier access to it for me it's hard to um bend down and reach and grasp it's easier for me to go straight ahead or up so I know it may seem oddd that I have a lot of stuff that's up but um that's that's that's worked well for me um and then there's other stuff because I travel with my husband a little bit some of the storage is for his stuff and then for things that I wouldn't need to get out all the time toilet paper like soap stuff cleaning supplies that I don't get out every single day um medical supplies that kind of stuff okay and then on the right here my right M um I wanted a flip down so this countertop actually flips down out of the way alt together and I have an induction cook top on the top sometimes you got to hit one and then hit the other and then hit the other again there you go nice yeah that opens it actually does offer a fair bit of extra space is that a grabber a Reacher I got a couple of Grabbers just strategically placed around the van yeah yeah this one's got like a locking Claw on it so that's good for that kind of stuff mostly for picking up crap off the floor and then I have this is the Brilliance of my my husband that in order to get these cupboards to come down out of my way believe it or not you can buy something called the snake hook I do not use it to hook snakes it actually has just the perfect size little um thing on the end and we had them put little holes on the outside edge of each door so that because I just don't have arms that are long enough right oh yeah oh nice so clean and simple yeah I just hung strings on the inside of mine and I pull a string down I want to do that too and like no we're going to do something else yeah okay whatever I mean you kind of have to tuck the string in and Fiddle with it if you don't want it hanging out and I have that in on a bunch of things in my um Teardrop trailer too so it was a bit of a like get it in and close it kind of thing so so yeah this has actually been handy for a lot of things yeah from there we've got more overhead storage um I have got my plates cooking vessels and cooking um eating utensils in there got more my luxury item that I cannot travel without coffee maker and we put other big food items down here cuz it's a fairly deep um cover uh drawer and then moving back from that I've got a utensil drawer fairly good assortment of things that you might want or need um see it's a pretty itty bitty little sink it does the trick I get to wash all the things that I need to wash in there um one thing that I might have might do differently is it's pretty close in here when you're in here trying to do stuff so I really got to get I got to come at it at a different angle when I'm washing stuff right but you know what I get stuff done it's it's fine the crowning glory is my toilet and my whing shower so this van has actually got two subfloors so it's not as tall as one might think because there's the subfloor and then there's another floor above that so that we could drop a shower pan um and yeah so I transfer I trans when I'm having a shower I transfer onto this Beast and um it's not exactly as I wanted it to be but the issue is more that it's just a little bit too high-profile this is the transfer bit of a challenge right and they made it so snug tight to the toilet scene underneath that it's a real big challenge to pull off okay but I'll still show you anyways cuz this is what it's like to be on the road if you're me so why not see what it's all like so when I go back in the spring I'm going to get them to cut down the seat and to um make this a 1 in shower okay so wait you you have that in when you're showering shower yeah yeah in the shower just you pull the curtain around you so you transfer on to the bench you just pull the curtain around and does it contain the water really well or is it I guess it's not perfect it's it's pretty good but your flooring looks totally waterproof it's yeah yeah the biggest issue is that sometimes if I'm parked on a bit of a Hill Water Runs this way or that way but uh yeah no you know what it doesn't I I have a shower every other day or every 3 days so anyways so okay so it does flip up as well oh yeah I see flips up for cleaning primarily really um and I get it out of the way so I have more space um turning space on the on the floor um of the vanan this is the first accessible van build bathroom I've ever seen most people are just dirt bags like me that shower and use bathrooms that are public it's just I just don't have the function yeah to like I said I have like the TRX arms right I don't have great lift my transfers are not great I've only got maybe a 2 in up or down um range for transfers I'm not going over a gap uh it's got to be a nice tight snug spot for me to get get in and out of so this is the um dry flush toilet that I have is that tin foil in there no it's a it's a it's a b so this trim piece comes up and off this seat piece and inside I'm not going to lift it out cuz it's kind of installed and ready to go so there's another um receptacle inside that's octagonal and it's turn it's placed onto a key and there's a motor in the back and every time you flush it it also has a vacuum and pulls the whole bag down okay it twists the waist or deposit yeah and so there's like two or three different actions where it twist it sucks it sucks at it again yeah kind of like a really big Diaper Genie it's exactly like a Diaper Genie okay and it is legal to throw in landfill right um and it gives you a little warning when you have one more flush left oh neat it's it's got a like a red I call it the red line we hit the red line it's literally a red line in the bag um and it uh how heavy do you is it I don't let it get to the red line if I can help it right I you can see right now I have I typically put a piece of masking tape here and start marking off flushes there's supposed to be flushes yeah and okay and that's for one and two or yep yeah I tried somewhere that's easier to deal the stuff that I need to do either in a pinch in the middle of the night and then for my um number twos I do that in here cuz that's simple yeah so on this side and this was a request for my husband I wanted to make this as welcoming as possible for him to come and use with me he wanted some hanging storage so we have some hanging storage which I'll be honest with you I think it is a was space but he really likes it he really likes to have a place to hang nice clothes that are pressed he likes to get dressed up and go out and stuff so um and I'm able to store some coats in here that it would be hard to store otherwise get this p in there instead so these are my this is like all my clothes I live stuff in in live in bins so I have one bin for tops one for bottoms I've got a bin for kind of my toiletries and things that I would be using while I'm near the sink um I've got all of my like soaps lotions and Potions so under the bed do you have your water tank and is that your batteries an electrical under tank on this side heaters up here at the front and then other electrical is from their back cool and then the bed is actually a little wider than McQueen and just a smidge shorter if you are a tall person you could certainly just pop on it this way and sleep heads Tails but neither Paul and I are going to hit a gross spur at this point now he's about 53 and I'm 5'2 so this uh works out just fine for the two of us cuz I opted to have a bed that's low I gave up storage for sure thing that I had them do is make my bed platform so that the mattress overhangs by about 4 in so that when I butt up against the mattress with my wheelchair there's no gap between the corner of my cushion and the edge of the mattress so that it's one transfer without a gap that an air conditioner up at it the top I didn't think I needed one and Paul was like we're getting one y so we did get one I am glad I have it um being a quad that doesn't sweat I've had a couple of occasions this summer where it's been really really useful to have and then um I am also in post menopause and I have hot flashes and as a quadriplegic I call them I get hot and angry I know just get hot and sweat because I don't sweat so it takes a long time for heat to dissipate so having that has actually been kind of a Gods end this last um um six months or so that we've used it so yeah I had the mount a dump button for my gray water tanks just on the left hand side of the Dog House in the van so that allows me to dump the gray water without having to get out of my van now the time has come that I have to actually prove I can do this yeah so backstory she was explaining this what do you call it a curtain par divider curtain to me and I just could not understand how she was able to work with her arms up above like that without having core trunk control but she's proven me wrong right now and it's actually kind of amazing how much uh heat you lose and gain from the front y of the vehicle I did have them put extra magnets in so that as I'm rolling it up it stays put for me and uh what I most often do is just um if it's not like blisteringly hot or really really cold I don't pull the Zips down but there are there are zippers oh okay to make it all one section to make it all one big section um and are do these have a name a brand name yes this is is bmade here I think they're out of Oregon and do you put this down every night or when you're no not necessarily um I probably will because we're facing right a road and people yeah of I'll often just put the middle part in yeah just block the most of the okay yeah you got it yes come on where I needed to be this that one and then come on mother e yeah this is the part where I could not I was just like this is going to be hard oh no I have done it and that's the other thing I'm going to go back to the upholstery place the magnets they put in are not strong enough it did turn into a bit of a struggle for Margaret to get both of the side pieces up it was just very difficult to hold the fabric while it's wound up and then clip the magnet so that I would hold it securely one of the biggest challenges when doing van life with a disability is to identify and try to eliminate these challenging tasks something as simple as rolling up this divider can really cause a lot of frustration and take more time and energy I'm sure in no time Margaret will have figured out a way to roll up these dividers at works for her because if anything living with a disability really helps sharpen our problem solving skills which comes in handy for all parts of [Music] [Music] life so I got this Auto leveling system so that when I was in sites that were quite uneven I could get the van very quickly set up so that I wasn't rolling all over the place and having a hard time transferring or you know hang on to my chair with one hand and grabbing a bowl and that sort of thing so the way it works in theory is you turn the power on and as the you see all these little lights on this panel flashing around it's calibrating and feeling out where everything is and there are four hydraulic jacks underneath the van uh two in the front and the front suspension and two at the very back of the van not under the the dues and the problems that I've had are that it doesn't have enough travel in the back Two Jacks so in order to level I had to have extra little plastic leveling Lego blocks put on the back feet and that's been a meh experience other than it allows me to level it but they just plink off like like paint chips um at the front it lifts the whole thing right off the ground so most of the time what I end up doing which is still fairly automatic as I get out I have a small level that's just magnetically attached to the base of my lift and I manually use the buttons to raise the the four wheels in or four wheels four jacks independently however I need to it's weird the sound comes from the back yeah it does doesn't all right so you've lifted probably two or three inches and now the B's Lev the princess can sleep no peas under under your band and then at the end when you're done with whether it's in auto level or manual level mode you just hit the retract button and it all goes away um and also the drive train is disengaged at it whenever there's any one of them down so I can't just drive away with the jacks on or try to drive away with jacks on so that's the Bigfoot Leveling System my review of the Bigfoot automatic leveling system is a it's not automatic B the actuators don't travel far enough and see this panel is not intuitive I want to give a huge thank you to Margaret for allowing me to film her accessible camper van I know when I was designing mine I could not find many resources on how to make your van accessible or little tips and tricks and I think it's really important to share information and maybe we can help somebody else along in their van life dreams if you have any questions for Margaret feel fre fre to pop them in the comments and she might answer them on her own or I'll ask and I'll answer them in the comments for you I have a video coming out uh with my van and all the accessible features and I actually break down the cost that was the added cost to make my van accessible so if that interests you at all please make sure you subscribe to my channel it'll be coming out very shortly so we'll see you in the next video and until then make sure everyone's keeping it wheel

Channel: KeepinitWheel306

Views: 17,305

Keywords: Vanlife, wheelchair, homeonwheels, disability, disabled travel, solofemalevanlife, solofemaletraveler, travel, wheelchair travel, accessibility, accessible travel, adventure, offered, snowbird

Id: iAmpp8BvYVQ

Length: 23min 4sec (1384 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2024