I was just wondering if anyone had some buying advice regarding electric’s in the rear. I used to have a vito that I spent a season in the Alps in (bloody cold). I remember coming up against problems with putting electric’s in the back. Are there any vans or advice on which one to get with electric’s already done in the back?

What electrics do you want in the back ?

It’s all pretty straightforward to do yourself if you are reasonably practical and buy the right kit

I want to be able to charge a leisure battery off the main alternator and have a 240v invertor in the back. I also want some lights (LED I guess) and a fridge. Then theres the ps4 and 60″ flat screen plus sound system……no maybe thats going a little far. The idea is for around a weeks wild camping with facilities to cope. I’m aiming for a heater as well but I think a propane one would be better and more economical.

Your notion of “wild camping” is obviously some way removed from mine 🙂

I just put a couple of 12v sockets and a nice, bright LED spotlamp in the back of my van. The bulbs in the original rooflights were changed for LEDs and I added an additional rooflight over the rear door. No leisure battery, no invertor, no fridge. I guess the latter would only really be a problem at certain times of year or if abroad somewhere and if not driving somewhere most days to “re-charge” a 12v-cooled coolbox.

Well not really wild but you know what I mean, no hook up from a camping site. Seems like I want something a little more sophisticated than that. I’ve been looking at some old RAC vans, do they tend to have an inverter?

I was put off t4/t5s by the price, and ended up with a lt35 similar to steelsreals.
I’ve no electric hook up, but use a split relay charger to a leisure battery. This runs several led lights, water pump, three 12v plugs and my electric fridge. The battery lasts 2/3 days, 6/7 if I don’t use the fridge.

Kits can be bought with battery, invertor, switches etc.
Check eBay or t4 forum

I have two 160ah lesure batteries and LED lights plus a fridge (Waeco CR40 compressor) and various 12v charging things.

With the fridge on I can easily run for about 4 days, without the fridge..ages. Current plan is to add a 100w ish solar panel on the roof which xshould help eek that out a bit. Will cost about £400 fitted from http://www.travelvolts.co.uk

What is the invertor for? Laptop or ipad? If so you are inverting 12v to 240 to then be inbverted back by the PSU, so maybe look for a 12v charger or usb charger..

Old Play stations are 12v, as are many little LCD tvs…if you keep everyhing DC life will be simpler…

I know that my requirements are unusual, but my perfect van would be:

Wide enough to sleep widthways
Big enough so that I could leave the bed made up (hence the widthways thing)
Big enough to put bikes inside
Fairly simple layout – none of that trying to look like a house stuff.
High quality fridge
Made of metal
4×4

The problem comes when I want this for 4 people when there are no vans with 4 seats up front

I saw something that would fit the bill based on a MWB Sprinter 4×4 (on Dutch plates) parked up where I live a few weeks back. Love my T4 as a daily driver but I’ll admit to an attack of van envy. This one had crew cab style seating which was moveable and a “mezzanine” sleeping platform in the back with storage units / kitchen stuff below