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A lot of questions! Let me see if I can answer them all without missing one. First off, thank you for the compliment on the simplicity and the roominess. A lot of the things that I believe you think I’m missing is what gives the van that open feeling and makes it feel spacious. I see a lot of van builds and they just tried to put everything in the van. Being a minimalist, I try to stay with only what I need and when I do add something to the van it’s nice when it can serve multiple purposes, that’s always a plus. Now to answer some of your questions. Only a microwave, no that’s not quite right. In one of the drawers beside the fridge there’s a butane stove skillet with lid, a pot and other cooking utensils. You were interested in there being only two drawers for clothes. I go two weeks between doing laundry. In those two drawers, there’s 14 pairs of socks, 14 pairs of underwear, 14 T-shirts, short pants and long pants. Hard to believe but neatly folded there’s room to spare. As a matter fact, there’s enough room to spare that you had mentioned toiletries. I am a guy. I don’t need a lot of toiletries. A toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, disposable razor, and deodorant. That’s about all I need and it doesn’t take up a lot of space.lol. Larger items like towels and swimsuits, and various coats are kept in the back. You ask about food in a pantry. I’m carnivore, everything I eat fits in the freezer or the refrigerator. I don’t work so I don’t need a computer but I do have a iPhone and iPad and they are very sufficient! You mentioned something about indoor hobbies, all of my hobbies are outside, so I’m not sure what you meant when you said indoor hobbies. Maybe you could clarify? Also, at the very end you use the comment, “my van”, do you own a van? If so, I’d like to hear about how you solve all these things that your considering problems. I can see from your picture that your a woman and obviously women can’t live as simply as men, not my problem though. If this hasn’t answered all your questions send another comment. 😊

The air conditioner is a Frigidaire 5000 BTU. They make two different 5000 BTU air conditioners and it’s very important to get the one that’s the energy star model. One has digital controls, which is the one you want and the other has regular knobs. on the energy star model, it can reduce its speed and even turn off once the temperature reaches a setpoint and it also has soft start, both of those are very important running off of batteries. On insulation I use various types depending on the location and what I could get the most value out of. In some areas there was only a thickness that would allow me to use reflectic. In some areas of the wall, I was able to get fiberglass insulation as thick as 6+ inches. In some areas of the van foam board worked the best. I didn’t limit myself to one particular type of insulation, instead, I use what was best for the area that I was working with to get as much insulation as possible. That’s probably one of the most important things about a van built is the insulation. People a lot of times will focus on things that have little effect and probably are not worth the cost, but don’t spare any expense when it comes to insulation!

This air conditioner doesn’t have your traditional drain plug that you would find them most air conditioners. I do not know this for a fact, and I did not find it in the instructions, but I am assuming that it evaporates the condensation and removes it through the exhaust.I’ve never seen any water come out of this air conditioner. Trust me that concerned me too.

@@Robertsramblings thank you for answering

Thank you for your reply and questions and the answer is yes to all three. First off I do have previous building experiences. I’ve owned a subcontracting company most of my life and I’ve also been a homebuilder. Yes, I did all the work myself. The sad part about that is is I know that I could have done better but was in a rush to get it done and didn’t.😢 The approximate cost was of course the van and that can very greatly dependent on the year that you buy the van. Is it new or is it used. The second cost to be incurred would be labor. I think you’re going fine that labor is a lot more expensive than most people think. I would not think $50 an hour would be in anyway unreasonable, I would like to insert here that I certainly don’t value my time at $50 an hour, my time is worth exceedingly more. That being said I didn’t track the hours that I had in the van. However, if you were being charged to build a van in the same manner that I built this van I wouldn’t expect it to be less than $20,000 in labor. The third major cost would be materials, again that can very greatly! It really depends on the quality of the materials that you use and also the size of the systems. Keep in mind in this van built there’s 500 W solar, at today’s cost around $600 if you include the taxes. You’ll see a lot of van bills that you won’t see any difference visually but they may only have a couple of hundred watts of solar which would be half the cost. Again, this van has 800 amp hours of lithium batteries, that’s an extreme expense. That expenses is going to very greatly upon who made the batteries. Are you going to have 200 amp hours, 400 amp hours or 800 amp hours I do. So you can see easily that these cost can very wildly. That being said I probably have $20,000 in materials. Since I bought the van new and got a really great deal on it, shopped and got the best prices possible on the materials and did all of my own work. If I estimate the cost of the work at $50 an hour I probably have $80,000 in this van

@@Robertsramblings That's about what I was thinking. Thank you

It’s a little complicated. The max air fan that’s on the back of the door is to remove the heat from that back utility and storage area. In that area is the air conditioner itself, which is not vented through the fan, but there’s also all of the electronics and the water heater. All these things build up a lot of heat and so it was necessary to find a way to vent that area. The max air fan works great. On the air conditioner itself, it is a 5000 BTU draws 418 watts. The back of the air conditioner, which would in a normal installation be the part on the outside of the house has two areas that you have to consider. The vent holes on the side of the air conditioner draw fresh air in, and then the back of the air conditioner has a coil, which has hot air blown over and has to be exhausted. The way that I accomplish these two things was to built a box around the back of the air conditioner that separates those two areas from each other. The vents on the side of the air conditioner is drawing air in and through that max air fan that you saw on the back door. This is where all the fresh air comes in. The exhaust that has to be taken out of the van is vented through the floor of the van. I used I think it was three-quarter inch holes and there’s probably about 12 to 15 of those. I chose to do that rather than one large hole that would accommodate all of the air. The reason I did that was to help maintain the strength of the metal which the hole was going through. So in summary what happens is the fresh air that the air conditioner needs is drawn in through that back utility room area, which uses the max air fan to let the air be drawn in rather than creating a vacuum and then that fresh air is blown across the heating coils in the back of the air conditioning unit itself and is exhausted out through the floor of the van.

The van say 2020 transit 150. 148 inch wheelbase, medium rooftop. No, I didn’t do any build videos. Maybe in hindsight I should have, there’s been an awful lot of people with a lot of questions from some of the other videos. Maybe next time, we’ll see.

@thefrugalwanderlustinglinguist , I am sorry you think I am overtalking him. Robert is a good friend of mine and I let him have free reign on his video. We were just having good conversation about his beautiful van build. One of the best builds I have ever toured. I love that you are enjoying Panama...Robert and I have mutual friends who just moved there for retirement. They are loving it 😀

Well, I don’t want to be rude, but the man did talk and it is about her! This is her and her husbands UA-cam channel and without it you wouldn’t be seeing this van built at all. By the way, it was me doing the talking and she certainly give me the leeway to say everything I wanted to say, and she did not edit anything thing out. I was really pleased With the way, the video turned out!!!

148

If I remember right, the shower is 24 x 30 and the bed is 6 foot 2” x 40”

Thank you 😊

I thought the same thing about the birds. Also feel like zoos are nothing more than animal prisons. Sad.

No, full again. We went back there in March. All the work is complete and it looks beautiful 😍

It is so much fun! I think this last time, about a month ago, with the Ranger led hike made our 3rd or 4th time. We learned a couple of new things going in with the Rangers. We love this cave also! :D

Yes! We did a Ranger led hike about a month ago, and they took us that way. We had always crawled over all of the breakdown rubble before 😁 Thanks for sharing. We might not have known.

@SL_BA you're welcome. I have been in there several times. I am taking some friends soon and was looking up videos. Thanks for sharing. My kids are going to see it for their first time and I wanted them to see what it looked like.

I love our jump start! It has saved us more than once in the van. And last fall I used it to finish out the mowing season. My mower needed a new battery, but I wanted to wait till Spring. It is a very underrated little piece of mind for sure :D

This Ohio State Park is amazing! I am so glad I ran across it on maps while looking for somewhere to explore Lake Erie. And yes, the campground tour is next. It is the only place to camp on the island. I am glad we got a site to enjoy the whole Island.

It is! This makes two floats with the RV for me. I am like a kid...excited every time. Lol

Glad it was helpful!

I cannot remember what brand I used, but it was a dry silicone so that it does not attract more dust and debris. I hope it works for you 😁

Scotty's favorite is the SR71 also :D Except he can spend all day talking about the C130's....as a jet engine mechanic, the C130 was his specialty.

Hey y'all! Yep, the sign said very first one :D I have been traveling a lot without Scotty, so I was happy he was along for the ride on this one. I will have to bring a yummy chocolate wine along if we ever get to meet! I am planning I10ish back to Quartzsite in January...we might can make that work :D Kelley's Island is amazing! A must see place for sure. Be safe, y'all!

Thank ya! I did not see that raod blooper. I fixed it. We loved the museum. I think we were in there about 3 hrs. So much history!

It is a great park! This was some older footage I found on an external hard drive...I am thinking 2021? So not much later than you were there. We were not as detailed then as we are now about campground videos. Lol Hopefully we can make one of these mutual campgrounds a meeting place. Safe travels, y'all! Think of me on at least one sip of wine as you are walking your Camino!

@@SL_BA someday we will meet up again! Cheers! 🥂

My friend, Donna! The monkeys were awesome at Silver Springs. I can just hear you laughing now :D I can't wait till we get to meet up again!!

Thank you, Nancy! We love making them to share :D