Vlog 1: DIY Van Shower
Hey guys! Welcome to our first YouTube video and accompanying blog post. We hope to post a blog post with every video uploaded in order to share some behind the scenes information, additional details, and anything else we feel is relevant. If you’ve already watched our first video then I hope you enjoyed it and if you haven’t then please be sure to check it out and let us know what you think! We’re new to YouTube and we would love to get your feedback and ideas.
In this video, we focused on our shower, 110v electrical system, and kitchen drawers. Our goal is to have the van ready for the first ski trip of the year the next weekend and we managed to complete most of what we set out to do. We’ve broken this blog down by each project below so we can go into a bit more detail for those who are interested and it makes it easy to skip for those who are not. By the end of this video we’re feeling confident that we have everything working well and ready to go but we are often overly optimistic. Check back in our next video to see how it all all performed and how the inaugural ski trip goes!
DIY Shower
In order to make our shower functional and useable we had to finish waterproofing the walls, plumb up our shower head and mixer, and install the shower door. Our shower walls are constructed using 3/4” plywood so we need to be absolutely certain they are waterproof. We went out on a limb and decided to paint our shower walls with Flex Seal to create a durable and waterproof coating. Flex Seal is nothing more than a liquid rubber and while it went on thick and seemed to create a waterproof barrier we have our doubts when it comes to durability. Oh, and it stinks in liquid form. After applying a coat we would be forced to retreat from the van for a couple hours while it began the curing process. The smell goes away eventually but it isn’t fun in the meantime. We’ll report back on the long term durability of the Flex Seal once we’ve had a chance to live with it for some time.
Our shower pan (the bit you stand on when showering) was also a bit of an experiment. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken so many risks when building our shower but we are always open to trying something new and if doesn’t work then we’ll just fix it down the road (yay, more projects)! To construct our shower pan we started with a butcher block countertop that was 1.5” thick and we then proceeded to cut, chisel, and route out the middle portion to create a basin that is 0.75” deep to help contain the shower water and direct it down the drain. Once we installed the shower pan in place using an adhesive, we the coated it with layer upon layer of varnish to build up a waterproof coating.
With the shower pan in place, walls painted, and all the seams and gaps caulked we then installed our Nautilus shower door. The Nautilus door is a retractable door that rolls up on itself and squeegees itself clean as it does so. We really like the space saving of this door and it allows us to leave it open all of the time without taking up room in the bathroom or hallway, this is key because it allows us to step into the shower to allow the other person more room to pass by one another in the hallway. The door is intended to be installed with adhesive strips alone but we drilled some additional holes in the frame and screwed it into place for added security.
The last thing to check off the list was the plumbing on both the fresh water and grey water side. When we installed our Rixen heating system and plumbed up the domestic water system we left connections for the shower so it was simple enough to drill two holes in the shower wall and feed in hot and cold water to the shower mixer. Speaking of shower mixers, we actually chose a bidet sprayer for our shower head and mixer. Bidet sprayers are smaller than shower mixers, require a smaller hole to be drilled for mounting, and have a button on the sprayer head for turning them on and off which is perfect for conserving water. The grey water side is still a work in progress as we figure out our grey water tank and how to best secure it under the van. For now, the shower is set to drain directly out the bottom of the van so we have to be aware of where we’re parked when we use it and that we only use biodegradable and environmental friendly soaps.
With all of that done we felt confident-ish that we were good to go for the weekend and everything would work like it should! Our goal is to not knock anyone out when we stripped out of our ski jackets at lunchtime and to not come home smelling like we spent a week in the woods. We still have some work to do to call this project complete but at least we have a working shower for the time being and we can put the finishing touches in place down the road.
110v Electrical System
We our determined to get out 110v electrical system all wired up so we can power our induction cooktop this coming weekend. We’ve only ever cooked with propane in the past but we’re excited by the idea of only having a single fuel source in the van and not being dependent on finding propane all the time. From what we’re heard, induction can be a big power draw so we’re hoping that our 200 amp hour lithium battery is up to the task. Our biggest concern is that there won’t be much sun during the day which could lead to us slowly draining our battery over the course of the weekend without any means of recharging it aside from idling the van.
Hooking up the 110v system was fairly straight-forward after we modified our breaker box to accommodate all the necessary wires. We ran our shore power coming in through a 30amp breaker and then it feeds into our Victron Multiplus inverter charger combo before feeding back out and through smaller BlueSea breakers before going out to all the individual circuits. Currently we have the outlets in the couch wired up on one circuit, the 110v outlets in the kitchen and back of the van are on another, and the electric heating element in our Rixen heating system is in a third circuit. Getting everything wired up was fairly simple after some time spent studying the various wiring diagrams and all of the wires had already been run back before we installed the various wall panels and cabinets in the van. All of the wire is Ancor marine grade wire with a protective sleeve. Our quick test of the system indicated that everything is working properly so we’re optimistic that we’ll have hot food this coming weekend!
Kitchen Drawers
We may be a bit obsessed with organization but it honestly makes life easier and organized storage is especially key for sanity when you’re in a small space like a van. We’ve been excited to have kitchen drawers for quite some time and after debating over materials and size for quite some time we decided to move forward and at least build something quick and easy so we can stop hauling our cooking gear around in a tote on the floor all the time. We built these drawers a little bit ago and the “temporary” drawers are quickly becoming a permanent feature so we figured we would dress them up a bit with a couple coats of paint. Maggie tackled this project while I (Riley) was knocking out the electrical system and she did an excellent job picking out the paint color to match the cabinets and making our hastily made drawers look much more finished. Now we just have to make drawer faces and decide on latches but at least for now we’re all moved in to our new kitchen and we’re happy for the additional organizational opportunities they afford us.
Owl Van Sherpa Panel
Recently we received our Sherpa panel from Owl Vans and we’ve been eager to get it mounted so we can start putting it to use! Our intent is to switch out different modules depending on what we’re getting into and while we have a ski rack on order it doesn’t look like it will be here in time for our first ski weekend coming up. The installation of the panel was fairly easy after watching the videos available online a couple of times and we only made two mistakes during the instal process. For anyone looking to install their own panel I would certainly recommend using the anti-seize provided with the kit, we overlooked it and it resulted in the bolt that passes through the door seizing up on us. The upside to the bolt seizing up was that I (Riley) got to put my new sawzall to the test and then drag Maggie along on another Lowe’s trip for the weekend! We’re excited to put this panel to the test and maybe down the road we can pickup some boxes and other accessories for it that make life on the road that much easier. We’ll be sure to do a long term review of this after we have had a chance to live with it for awhile and figure out what we do and don’t like about it. This was a tough decision for us since it required drilling a hole in the door and now that we have done so it does feel like a bit of a commitment. Hopefully we’ll end up happy with our decision and there won’t be any hole patching in our future!
Written by: Riley