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@i_like_food Ha! It would have to be a contest involving who can spot my mistakes the quickest. My eldest is known as the 'sanity checker'.
I think my dream would be running some kind of community maker-space. That would be a cool thing to do.
@duncancallum missed your comment about drilling the drawers. I hadn't really thought about them needing air. I'll consult with the family expert to see whether it's a good idea.
I guess I'd wait until all the storage is in place - just to see if we use them as intended. One of the good things about taking my time over the build is that we keep changing things based on how we realise we use the van.
Cupboard on garage wall
Time to tackle this cupboard on the back wall:
Decided to use sliding doors - mainly because I've never made any before.
So first job was to create some nice tough ply beams that we could rout some grooves in to take the doors.
We made the top rails deeper in the middle to allow the doors to be taken out - hopefully this would prevent them rattling or jumping if we go over a bump while they are in their normal closed position
This is the top rail. Routing went pretty well.
Then created support from the side bed up. Made it in the same stained brown colour as the bed and kitchen frames, but I have to say I'm going off this colour. As it gets older it gets warmer coloured and is a bit too sickly for my tastes. Ah well.
Then fitted the frame in place - careful to get everything square
Then created a face panel. Once I'd roughly cut it to the curves of the van, I rebated 5mm on the back to make sanding it to fit the curve easier. Birch ply even at 6mm is surprisingly difficult to shape with sandpaper.
Then took it to the van to scribe and shape. The only way I know to get this right is to take it slowly and mark touching spots with pencil and sand. Every time I try to shortcut scribing, I get it wrong.
Overall length was a little short, so I made a patch piece to fit in the gap
Attached the top rail with glue
And then added blocks to screw through into the beams, wall, ceiling
On the left side is another cubby-hole for my eldest.
Once I fitted the doors, I realised that I'd allowed too much overlap and the doors didn't look balanced, so I took the front door back out and trimmed it. It's still not exactly halfway, but it looks fine. I might trim it more some day.
Before:
After:
Then I attached verticals inside with holes drilled for those shelf studs so I can have an adjustable shelf.
Job done!
Forgot to mention - 15mm birch play always seems a bit heavy for its strength in the van (which is why I've used 6mm so often), so on the cupboard shelf I used the hand held router to put some grooves in the back. It probably only saves 300g or so, but it just makes the shelf feel appropriately weighted rather than heavy.
Hand held with slots like this was a bit quicker than the CNC
Once again top work 👍
Mine’s birch ply too and after a visit to the weighbridge I decided to add some lightness.
This was originally a solid top.
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I’ve removed 10.5kg so far by cutting holes in things and cutting down the metal brackets holding in my bike drawer.
My one regret, which I can’t do anything about now, is using birch for the floor. There’s 3 sheets of 12mm underneath everything. I think 12 or 15mm poplar ply would have been a better choice. I used it as it holds screws so well but there’s actually very little of my build that relies on being screwed in to the floor.
@phil5556 Looks really neat!
10.5kg is nearly a bike 🙂
there’s actually very little of my build that relies on being screwed in to the floor.
Yes, I've found the same, mainly because we put battens under the obvious furniture places anyway. It feels nice and solid, but a friend has just used 9mm sheathing ply in his and to be honest, it feels solid enough - and that's without any furniture to brace it too.
As long as I don't go overweight, I'm happy with the 12mm, but it's always a dice roll.
So far, I think everything else is lightweight, but I haven't gone to the weighbridge since fitting the fridge/gas/water
It’s surprising how the weight adds up, I did have the weight in the back of my mind but probably didn’t build as light as I could have.
We ended up at 3950kg, empty but with full fuel tank. With us, the dog and water in there we have about 300kg to spare which really should be plenty.
I was hoping for under 3900 - just because it feels a better number.
I’m about to save about 30kg changing the batteries too.
@Phil - do you mean 2950kg? Or is your van plated heavy?
Got gas!
I was dreading this. the LPG tank install was one of the first things I did in the van, then it's just sat there for 2 years doing nothing.
I was dreading it so much that I decided at one point to get someone else to do it, but then covid happened and his was only taking bookings 7 months ahead!
In the end, I managed to find a local gas engineer that had the LPG ticket and was willing to do a check on my self-install.
You can find one from the https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/
Then enter your town and then press the + sign and choose LPG then Caravans and 'find' again.
Not all resulting engineers will want to work on your van but it gives a good starting point.
So armed with the knowledge that I wasn't going to actually have to run it on gas myself until it was tested, I felt renewed confidence to give it shot myself.
Requirements (don't take these as fact - get them tested)
- Solid copper piping required throughout on the low pressure side.
- Rigidly held in place and protected from being knocked.
- Any pipe enclosed needs to be inspectable.
- Dropout vent required under each connection (I have all my connections in one space, but even then the engineers said I should have a second dropout at the other end of the same cabinet - so I've added one).
- Forced ventilation while cooking.
- Compression joints don't need any tape or paste, but threaded connections (like at the top and bottom of my manifold) require paste (you can't use PTFE tape, but there are gas-specific tapes I believe).
Tips
- No need to overtighten joints.
- 8mm pipe is quite easy to work with. Mine was rubber coated and came with the GasIt lpg kit. The engineer said it was thick walled and good quality. I bent it by hand no problem.
- While it's expensive, one of these amazing things takes all the pain out of pipe cutting:
https://www.ffx.co.uk/product/Get/Monument-1808O-5015375018081-Autocut-Pipe-Cutter-8Mm
In fact it made it fun!
- 8mm and 5/16ths are the same thing.
- Gas test isn't required by law unless you are renting your van, but this is my first ever bit of plumbing, so made sense.
So armed with all this knowledge, I planned out my system.
Heater
Changed our mind about the location of this. Originally it was going to go under the rear driver's side seat. But that's become a bit fuller than expected with electrics and it's nice having easy access.
The Water containers I bought fitted easily under the sink and left enough room for the heater to go under them there instead.
Finding somewhere where both 40mm holes for the intake/exhaust pipes didn't go into a chassis rail was slightly challenging - that and keeping my service channel clear. Anyway, it just fitted in exactly one location (about 5mm wiggle room haha).
For now the outlet is left as-is, but I'll put a short conduit on and a grill on the front when I put the cupboards in.
Because it was so tight underneath, I drilled a pilot hole up from the bottom before getting the hole-cutter out.
Silver is exhaust - you can see the dropout vent here too.
One difficulty with the heater location was that the exhaust can't come out under a window and I have windows all down that side until you get to the rear wheel and associated suspension complications.
So I had to buy an extended exhaust so that it could go to the opposite side of the van near the vehicle exhaust.
While I was ordering that, the Propex engineer pointed out that having the intake on a different side of the van might trigger a fault if there is a wind across the van making the pressures different between exhaust/inlet, so I bought an extended intake for that too. This can go under a window, so it's 500mm away from the exhaust on the same side.
Manifold
Because now, both appliances were in the kitchen, it made sense to put the manifold there too and keep all the gas connections in one place.
I decided to put it on the back wall, quite close to the heater to keep the pipe runs as short as possible. At the time, I thought I might want a BBQ point outside the van too, so I bought a tiny 3-way manifold.
I glued a block to the wall, so the two screws holding it on had enough to thread into.
Cooker
Location was already decided. Needed to trim out a bit more than I originally cut in order to gain easy access to the connection.
The cooker already had an 8mm pipe coming out of it, so I just needed a connector joint there.
Then I threaded the pipe in front of my heat shield and along the top until it was inline with the manifold and bend it downwards. I didn't use any tools to bend - just by hand felt fine.
Regulator
Bought a 500mm pigtail to go from the LPG tank to the regulator and directed it towards the manifold position and self-drilling screwed it to the chassis rail
The copper pipe from the regulator fits through a rubber grommet and comes out in my service channel, right under the manifold. It's short and hugs the chassis, so just one p-clip needed.
LPG fill point
We installed the LPG tank slightly left-of-center due to my seat positioning, which meant that the included fill hose wasn't quite long enough to reach its intended position.
Putting the filler in the side of the van was also one of the jobs I was dreading - there's hardly any room to thread it up the b-pillar let alone make the necessary connections. Not my kind of work.
Sooooooo
I decided to stick it on underneath - I just needed a bracket from GasIt and all the existing other bits fitted great. It's just 4 self-drilling screws into the chassis rail. Pleased with my decision.
Thermostat
I've just made a temporary panel on the front of the cabinet to house the thermostat and I also bought a wired gas alarm (it also does CO) to keep my wife happy 🙂
Boxing in
I need the water tanks to fit above the heater and need to protect the manifold and pipes from all that.
So I made some legs, pocket hole screwed them into the floor and back wall (glued those too) and then put some insert nuts in the face of each bit (close-up of a test I made just to see if it split and the holding power). That disk on the floor is the dropout vent - it has a grid cover.
Then made some panels to go on them. Used the bluetak method to transfer the bolt holes to the panels.
The base goes in first:
Then the back - leaving just enough room to turn the gas taps (the taps are slightly receded behind the ply)
Filling
Before taking it to be tested, I filled the tank with LPG - I had to travel 7 miles to find my nearest. It's a 20L tank, but they can only fill to 80% so it took about 16L for £10.
I watched a youtube vid of someone using the filler, so I wasn't surprised by anything and it went smoothly (the instructions are also on the filling pump). The pop/hiss on disconnection is the only real surprising thing that I'm glad I saw on youtube and was ready for.
Gas test
Drove my van to them and found the LPG to be a really calm, considered young man who went through the whole system and carried out the testing. Took 2 hours as each appliance needed testing for a while and each pressure test was 7mins (I had a small leak from the top and bottom of the manifold because I hadn't used the paste).
During the test was the first time I'd ever seen a flame on my cooker!
It was also great to hear how quiet the heater was (inside and out) and also how hot the air was. Can't wait to use it - which is good given this cold spell!
Cost £140 which is a bit painful, but I get a nice certificate to show my wife and insurance company (not that they asked). To be honest, the experience of having someone knowledgable look over my van was really good and I don't see it as expensive at all.
For anyone interested it was John Worth, Macclesfield. https://www.yell.com/biz/john-worth-ltd-macclesfield-2950979/
The feels like a real relief to get this done and behind me. I was so motivated, that I completed the water install the same day! (next post).
@Phil – do you mean 2950kg? Or is your van plated heavy?
Oops, yes I added a tonne to that!
2950kg. Van plated at 3,500kg.
@phil5556 I was going to say! 10Kg isn't going to get you far with a tonne to shed 🙂
I need to weigh mine tbh
250kg for us as a family
16kg gas
25kg water
90kg fuel
60kg bikes (no ebikes yet)
= 441kg
So we're going to hope it weighs 2.9tonnes max I think to leave about 160kg for canoe, clothes, food, bike kit, games, portaloo, etc.
Just back from holiday - another 4 nights in the van - total now 25 nights.
Pleased to report everything worked as it should (which is a good job considering the -3 degree overnight temps).
There was a bit of condensation on the still-exposed metal, so maybe I'll deal with that next. I've been putting off cladding the sliding door as the window blind complicates things (I don't really want to fit it on the inside of the cladding because it will encroach a bit).
Anyway - storage worked well. We might put some strips along the back cupboard shelves to stop things sliding forward - they were occasionally blocking the rearmost door from opening when they slid up to the nearmost door.
haven't read this thread for ages, great read and catch up. hope you're off all the time in it through the summer.
Just keeping this thread alive!
I will be posting updates soon.
I was a bit put off by the fact that the images weren't showing up for some people, but I guess I'll just plough on regardless.
That heater looks the same as ours. Does yours blow cold air for about ten minutes when you turn it off and make the van cold again? Aparently it's a thing it does to purge something or other. Can't remember exactly it's a long time since I read the instructions. Anyway, probably a bit naughty but you can stop it by cutting the power.
It does that for about 90 seconds. So far I've been able to put up with it, but I do understand the desire to kill it!
Sadly no pics for me, seem to see other pics that people are posting in the thread but none from the OP...
@NorthCountryBoy
Yeah - it's a pain. I think it's to do with the non-https (non-secure) links to my server embedded in an https (secure) site.
I've overridden it for this site in my own browser, but I only recommend doing that if you're already a subscriber and therefore don't get ads as I'm sure there's the odd malicious ad still getting through google.
Anyway - I've uploaded the full album to Google Photos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/W8AnBWzAZDwR4gsTA
Ooh now that images can be hosted by STW, I might start adding to this thread again