Building A Home On Wheels
We thought it was about time we introduced you to our new project. It’s not so new owing to the fact we bought it over 6 months ago but we haven’t mentioned it on here before, so here it is…
Back in the first Covid lockdown in the UK in 2020 we decided that to progress our travelling and to feel more like we could go anywhere that we should sell the bay window that we’d recently finished and part exchange it with a VW T5. This van was the first camper van we built from scratch. The vast majority of the work to do the conversion was down to Jess as she was currently out of work and Dan was still working remotely full time. It took a couple of months to complete but it was something we were proud of as a lot of the skills used to build it were ones we either hadn’t used in a while or simply didn’t have. it was a steep learning curve.
The van was great, worked well for what we wanted it to but over time we realised that it was just that little bit too small for two adults, an 8 year old and a medium sized dog. If it had been a LWB then we might have been ok for longer, but it wasn’t (we don’t talk about this as it was me (Dan) who made a bit of a mistake here) and without it having a poptop the sleeping arrangement for Eliot Mae was just too awkward and felt clunky.
With that we made the decision to get it tidied up and sell it on to fund a bigger van conversion. With it being a T5 the market was strong but ultimately we sold it to a friend for below market value so we didn’t have to sit on it while it was advertised and allowed us to start looking for the bigger van straight away.
Choosing the right van.
Most people say that choosing the right van is difficult but for us it really wasn’t. That said, we did put hours of research into the varying sized of vans prior to deciding finally but with essentially our criteria was based on a few elements:
Internal space - It had to be able to accommodate all 4 of us comfortably while still giving living space and the ability to move around the van without bumping into each other. Another criteria that fits here is the internal height. Most vans come in different H values (H1, H2, H3) and these vary wildly between manufacturers. H1 being the lowest, normal height vans, H2 generally up to around 6’3” to the inside of the roof sub structure, H3 is anywhere up to 6’7”+ (Ford Transits are really good for this height).
Cost per sqm - Our budget was fairly fixed for the base van (around £6500) so buying a brand new van at this point was out of the question but we still used this as a metric for decision making. I’ll cover this in another entry at some point to clear up the reasoning but it’s all about basic value for money.
Styling - Exterior aesthetics are obviously subjective but we wanted a van that looked nice.
Weight - As much as we would’ve loved to have have bought an old Mercedes Vario 8XX series van (we’d considered all kinds of crazy Vario based Autotrail Apaches on eBay) without an HGV license (which in the UK costs around £1500) it wasn’t going to happen. So we needed to look for something in the 3.5t weight class to drive on a normal car licence.
Armed with those criteria and a spreadsheet to handle the internal space vs cost per sqm sizing we decided that the viable options were:
Ford Transit - L3H4
Mercedes Sprinter - L3H3
Peugeot Boxer/Fiat Ducato/Citreon Relay - L3H2
The reasons for this list are numerous but essentially because ALL VANS COME WITH A COMPROMISE! Let me explain: Ford Transits; Older ones are awful rot-boxes and extremely agricultural and very old fashioned feeling while newer ones are expensive to buy. Mercedes Sprinters; the sizing of them is very odd, the L2 is quite short which wouldn’t have allowed us the space we needed while the L3 is a big jump in length. Then the secondhand purchase cost is quite a jump compared to the others. Peugeot Boxer; The L3 sits firmly between the L2 and L3 Sprinter sizes and the H2 height is around 6’3”. The internal dimensions are also a significant increase in overall width compared to the other options as the framework isn’t quite as chunky. This obviously also ties in as weight saving too which allows for more conversion weight/payload.
So, we decided to go for the Peugeot Boxer. The next issue then was what year to go for. It’s a tough question as there are many different ways to look at this. Do you go older but low mileage meaning you’ll be buying a Euro 5 or Euro 4 engined vehicle, or newer with higher mileage meaning you have a Euro 6 engine**.
** This may not mean much to most people but with the inclusion of Ultra Low Emission Zones in a lot of countries and cities to reduce pollution anything below Euro6 with a diesel engine is going to be increasingly more expensive to venture into a city with.
We started searching for a van with good bodywork, minimal damage (most commercially used vans have damage somewhere on them) and as low mileage as possible. There was a styling change to the frontend in 2014 so we set that as our minimal manufacturing year so we gained the aesthetics tick mark.
The Right Van
What we quickly realised was that we were buying a commercial vehicle which, in the UK, means you’ll get charged VAT on top of the purchase price which as a VAT registered company you would offset but you obviously can’t do that as an individual and effectively adds 20% to the list price of a vehicle. This made our search significantly more difficult because we found that our £6500 budget was not going to get us the van that we wanted to use as a starting point.
There was only one sensible option, raise the initial purchase budget. This would have the effect of lowering how much we could spend on the physical build though. We weighed up whether it would be doable and while it would be tight we decided that we should do it so we have the solid foundations to begin with.
We ended up finding a 2017 model with very near perfect bodywork but slightly high mileage (160k) for a little over £10,000 and decided, having gone to give it a once over, that it would be a good base and decided to go for it.
We picked the van up a few days later on June 18th 2021. So here it is, our new home on wheels in the making.
In the next entry we’ll cover interior layout ideas and how they’re affected by the different sizes of the van options.
Thanks for reading, take care.
Dan & Jess.