Vandwelling for fun and profit

Mai dearest friend said that she enjoyed reading about the castle history more than the dry wordy post about the particulars of construction. I will try to include a little of both as it is my hope that a few reading this may be inspired to do the same and find some of the details useful. So let’s get technical…????it’s actually really simple once you know what things are called.

Anyway, after borrowing my buddy’s power washer and thoroughly cleaning the van, I went to Lowe’s and picked up some premium 5/4” treated decking. There are nice sturdy steel ribs on 24” centers going down the walls and ceiling of the van. They stick out 1” from the outer aluminum body. I ripped down the 5/4” decking into strips (they call it 5/4” but it’s actually 1” thick after milling). I got three 1.75” cuts out of each deck board and fastened them to the steel ribs to make my “studs”. This gives me a solid anchor point for attaching things. I pre-drilled pilot holes and used heavy duty 1.5” self tapping lags screws to attach the treated studs.

This arrangement gave me a wall depth of exactly 2” to the inner nailing surface of the studs. Perfect for 2” thick foam board. As I mentioned earlier, condensation forming on cold metal can be a problem in a van. You need more than a good vapor barrier to keep the moisture in the air from condensing on the walls. My personal thoughts on this is to use solid foam board insulation, then filling every void, nook, and cranny with spray foam. Purchasing a foam gun for a project like this is a good idea. The straws in the disposable cans always get blocked up if you let them sit. A foam gun is more economical for a bigger project and gives you more control when dispensing the product. Plus you can let it sit between uses without any cleanup.

There are several different types of foam board at places like Lowe’s and Home Depot. The expensive foam, the more expensive foam, and the really expensive foam. I chose to use a moderately expensive 2” foam board with a Mylar reflective backing. It may be tempting to some to throw some cheaper fiberglass insulation in the walls. I have heard people claim that it works with a good vapor barrier in a van, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. If any moisture does penetrate the wall the fiberglass will wick it up like a sponge and cause mold problems. My philosophy is to fill the voids with solid foam either of the expensive type or the more expensive type and seal it off good.

As a side note, I decided to use treated lumber wherever the wood meets the metal surface of the van not only because the 1” thickness was convenient, but also because of its moisture resistance. In construction treated lumber is always used against concrete foundations before transitioning to white wood. This may be unnecessary in a van if you covered the metal with window wrap tape or tar paper before fastening white wood to it. Overkill?…you decide. I also left the treated lumber out in the sun for a bit to dry it out before installing it.

“If you will live like no one else now, later you can live and give like no one else.”

~ Dave Ramsey

In all honesty I have been thinking about how I would design my next step van for many years. When I was 19 I moved to California and bought my first step van. Rent was high in the bay area and living in a van was a great way for me to save money. The money I saved by not paying rent allowed me to travel to Hawaii, Japan, Thailand, and Myanmar.

When I was living in California I met a fun loving and energetic old hippie named Rumple. He had been living the mobile lifestyle in vans, buses, and boats for most of his life. He shared his enthusiasm and was very supportive of my creativity while I was putting my van together.

My first step van was an older one with a steel body and a 6 cylinder gas engine. It did not have dual rear wheels and though it did have standing head room it was not a high top. The van was called the Gray Whale as it sort of looked like a giant gray whale. The previous owner had a mural of whales and “Gray Whale Company” written on it, so I too called it the Gray Whale. And like Jonah, I lived in the belly of a great whale. But unlike Jonah I didn’t have much to say to the people about repentance at the time as my life was filled with riotous living.

The most exciting design feature of that van was the rock castle I built to separate the drivers compartment from the back of the van. I made it with real rocks gathered from a river and some leftover paving stone. I treasure the memory of that time because of the freedom I felt. There were no limits imposed on my creativity.  My friend Rumple encouraged me to stretch the boundaries of normal and practical with my artistic ideas. The rock castle symbolized that. It was fun, totally bizarre, and completely impractical. It added a ton of weight to the van as well as stress to the engine and chassis. But it was a sight to behold! While I was working on it at the beach one day in San Francisco a guy told me I should take it to Burning Man. I remembered Rumple telling me about burning man too, so I went. Words can not describe all that I experienced there. But I will say, they were having a parade one day and I gave a ride to an entire marching band in the back of my van, tuba and everything. Seeing all the art cars and mutant vehicles there was unlike anything I had ever seen before!

Eventually, the steep roads in San Fransisco and weight of the rock castle caused the engine to blow in that tired old van. But the memories have never left me.

For years I have dreamed of a newer aluminum boxed step van with dual wheels that could handle more weight. One with a higher roof that could better accommodate a loft for a bed. And it occurred to me that if I carved the castle wall out of foam it would be both lighter and add some insulation…

The seed of a dearly held old dream has now sprouted and broken through to the surface.

The step van had some sheet aluminum riveted onto the metal ribs along the walls and ceiling. The first order of business is to gut and power wash the inside and the outside of the van. There was a bit of old insulation behind the walls as well as a plywood divider between the drivers compartment and the rear of the van.

It was all taken out. I added the aluminum sheeting pulled from the van to a little aluminum pile I had been saving. I got about $60 for it when I recycled it at the scrap yard $$

Condensation on the metal walls and ceiling can be a problem in a van. Once I pulled off the riveted paneling I could see some mold behind the walls. I mixed a spray bottle with 50% bleach 50% water and sprayed all the mold. After letting it sit for awhile I power washed the entire van inside and out. I am going to glue 2” foam sheets to the walls and seal it up real good with spray foam to prevent condensation on the inside of the van.

It’s time to go beyond thoughts and philosophy. I have purchased a new step van project. I found a 1993 Freightliner M35 with a four cylinder Cummins diesel engine on craigslist for $3000. This was a lighter duty bread truck owned and fleet maintained by Sara Lee. It has a four-speed manual transmission and is SO MUCH fun to drive! It came with a folder of the maintenance records going back 20 years. At the end of its service life with Sara Lee this van was purchased by the fleet mechanic who had taken care of it all those years. He had planned to turn it into a toy hauler motorhome but never got around to it. The van has high miles (345,000). Commercial vehicles are a little different though. I have heard of well maintained diesel engines going up to a million miles. But I suspect there may be a costly engine replacement sometime in the future for this van and I am mentally prepared for that. Many of the step vans that I have looked at up to this point with diesel engines have been over $10,000. Someday down the road I may be into it for that much when I go to replace the engine. But it is running and driving good right now. The transmission has been rebuilt and the truck starts right up every time without hesitation. The tires seem to still have plenty of tread on them although there are some cracks in the side walls. Other problems include the sending unit in the fuel tank is not working so I cannot tell how much fuel is in the tank. The seller provided me with a new sending unit however. Lastly, This van has a rollup rear garage door which is something that I never wanted in a step van. Roll up doors take up interior space, so I am planning on removing it and framing it in.

Disclaimer: Getting into a project like this is not for the timid. I am well qualified for a task like this because I do home construction and remodeling. A young person may want to employ the help of their father or grandfather to do some of the things I’m about to do. It’s best to keep things simple and not over complicate the task. Though a tiny home or a van remodel is a much smaller project compared to building a regular house, it still takes some effort. Don’t complicate things so much that you get overwhelmed and can’t see it through to completion!

Living below your means is the beginning to financial freedom. No matter how big a lake is, it will eventually run dry if its outflow is greater than its inflow. It is the same with an individuals spending habits.  Most people live at or above their means, giving little thought of the future, and their only source of income is their personal labor. They live in the moment spending for comfort in proportion to what they earn. When they stop working so does the inflow of cash. At that point, any puddle of savings they may have managed to accumulate dries up pretty quickly. How do we sidestep this disastrous pitfall?

Having additional streams of passive income flowing into a personal financial reservoir is the best insurance against illness or injury. It is also the way to travel in freedom and comfort as your funds are continually replenished even while vacationing. So how do we set up rivers of passive income? There are many ways to do this but I am going to focus primarily on just one in this post. First, the old saying that “it takes money to make money” is actually true to some extent especially when it comes to passive income. Before you can invest you have to develop the habit of living on less and start saving some money.

In an earlier post, I wrote that the money the average person spends on rent each month could go toward owning a comfortable van to live in, and paying it off in a year. After the year is up it would be very tempting to just go travel around the country as a debt free gypsy but it’s not time to totally let go of the reins yet. Continuing to work, live frugally, and saving money that would have gone toward rent is your ticket to true long term freedom. The earlier a person does this the better. This is a way to really kick start your economic engine! You will have established good credit history after paying off your van, and in many areas of the country what you could save in one year would be enough for a down payment on a house!

(I realized this is a condensed fast paced post. I will be talking about these topics more and in greater detail but this is sort of a summarized plan of attack for the savvy young person.)

Now when looking for a house, the goal isn’t to look for our ultimate dream home. We are doing our best to get on the other side of renting as soon as possible. If we save up our money for a down payment we could actually become the landlord. (There are many good books written about this). What I’m suggesting may mean putting off some of your personal comforts. But if the goal is to buy a house and use it as a rental, some sacrifices will have to be made.  If you can find a duplex you could rent one side and live in the other, but if you want to get ahead as fast as possible, it would probably be best to continue living in the van and rent all the available space in the house out. Taking the time to study and discern a good deal will save you a world of hurt. The rent you receive from the property should more than cover the mortgage.

I know it is easier said than done but it really is that simple. This formula can be replicated until the stream of passive income  is sufficient to support your lifestyle.

Wuwei is the Taoist concept of actionless doing or bringing about results without effort. Wuwei literally means “doing nothing” in Chinese. It sounds simple but it’s actually presented as one of the highest virtues in Taoism. To most of us this seems either like laziness or some sort of spiritual kung fu. On the surface non action seems to go against all that we have been taught about striving toward our goals. We’ve been conditioned to try and if at first we don’t succeed to try try again. Wuwei asks us to consider if all this hard “trying” on our part is actually contributing to the problem. It is not thoughtless inaction or laziness, Wuwei is in fact enlightened inaction. It is a decision to refrain from doing that which ultimately works against us.

For example:

In striving for “the good life’ many march out and buy a big comfortable house, lease a fancy car, and fill the house with furniture paid for on credit. They then become so indebted in pursuit of “the good life” that it actually makes them miserable for years to come. How much of their physical labor will be spent paying interest on borrowed money? How much of this precious time has gone into paying for fancy cars, that once paid for have already begun to rust? Did we buy the car so that we could get to work, so that we could make money we needed to pay for the car………? Are we actually getting anywhere with all our activity or are we just going in circles and spinning our wheels?  I think that while in the pursuit of a good and contented life we have sometimes lost sight of what that actually means. Are all our efforts really adding value to our lives or just contributing to the stress and discomfort? I suspect most of us have been in too big of a hurry to stop and think about it.

Once we determined what’s really important in life, we should try to conserve our energy and reach the goal in as few steps as possible. All unnecessary complexity and extravagance should be eliminated. These things not only waste energy and postpone the attainment of our goals, they can ultimately lead to missing the mark completely. Wuwei does not mean ceasing all action, it means ceasing all unnecessary action. Instead of asking ourselves what we can do, (which leads to a widening of complexity and confusion), we instead ask ourselves what we can not do, (which leads to a narrowing down and focussing of our efforts). In saying yes to everything and everyone we become diluted and lose ourselves. But by clearly defining all that we are saying no too, we simultaneously define the clear and narrow path that we are saying yes too, and thus move with much less effort toward our goal.

 

The edge of perfection is a balancing act. The biggest and most comfortable mobile road dwelling would probably be a double decker bus. You’d have enough room for a hot tub, flush toilets, guest rooms, the works….but busses get 4 mpg and are more difficult to maneuver than a van. Then you’d have all the complications and hassle of maintaining the bus, hot tub, and pumping out your holding tanks. The bigger and more heavy duty the vehicle is the more expensive the parts are to fix it. The more complicated and time consuming things are to maintain, the less fun it is. The more expensive it is to run the more it becomes like a job rather than a stepping stone to freedom.

“There are two ways of becoming wealthy. One way is to make more money, the other is to want less, but the best way is to do both at the same time.”

One thing that I learned while long distance back packing is that less is more. (read about my A.T. thru-hike here). The less I carried on my back, the more comfortable my hiking experience was. Conversely however, carrying more items increased my comfort in camp. These two opposing forces pushed me to the cutting edge as far as gear selection. There was no room for “maybe I’ll use this at some point kind of thinking”. If a piece of gear wasn’t absolutely essential, I got rid of it. If I found something that worked better than what I had and it was lighter, I replaced it. Items had to have a lot of value for me to carry their gravitational burden on my back. The tiniest thing was scrutinized. By keeping my pack light I could comfortably hike more miles per day and I didn’t need to carry as much food to get me to the next resupply point. In that way, carrying less gave me a compounding sense of freedom.

This philosophy of traveling light can be applied to van dwelling and finances as well. A smaller vehicle will generally get more miles per gallon therefore costing you less and allowing you to stretch your travel budget further. With smaller overhead you can stay out longer between jobs and save more.

But you still want a big enough van to be able to create a cool and enjoyable mobile lifestyle. The goal is to make this comfortable enough to want to do it for a meaningful amount of time. In the example I gave in my post “Why live in a van?” we talked about buying a nice used van with a bank loan and using what would have been paid to the landlord in rent to pay back the bank. In this way I explained that if you lived in your van for one year it would be like getting the van for free. EXAMPLE: If you have been paying $800 a month in rent, you could buy an $9,600 used van and pay it off in one year. You now own a mobile one bedroom apartment!….Ok, on to selecting a vehicle!

First, I would suggest a stealthy windowless cargo van as the best option. The problem with RV’s and camper vans is that people can see light shining through the windows at night. That’s ok if you only plan on traveling in the country, but if you want to stealth camp in urban areas you need something more discrete. Camper vans look like the kind of van a hippie may be living in and people don’t always accept alternative lifestyles. In order to have the freedom to park anywhere you want, without people getting suspicious, you need something that fades into the background. In a windowless cargo van nobody can see the light of your computer screen while you are parked in front of their house and stealing their wifi. A cargo van doesn’t look like a live-aboard. People would be surprised if they knew you were in there watching Netflix in your pajamas!

Step Vans

My favorite and probably the roomiest option are step vans, such as “Fed Ex” type vans. I lived in one of these in the San Francisco Bay Area years ago and it was awesome! Just imagine how much rent free living space a vehicle this size offers you. In most cases you don’t have to own the ground underneath the tires to be able to park there. I guess even with van dwelling you still have to pay a registration and insurance fees but that pales in comparison to renting an apartment.  Step vans have nice straight walls which makes installing cabinets and paneling the interior easy. I prefer the “high top” vans with hinged rear doors rather than roll-up doors (roll-ups infringe on your living space). Another upside to step vans is that the bodies are made of aluminum and do not rust! A truly luxurious and long lasting van home can be built in a step van. The downside is that they often get about 10 mpg although diesel versions do better. There are many of these available on the used market and because they are aluminum even the older ones look pretty good!

Diesel powered vans get better gas mileage but purchase price and maintenance is often higher than with regular gas powered vans.

Older full size cargo vans

There are lots of full size and full size extended cargo vans out there on the used market that will work too but the interior walls are curved which makes building the interior more difficult. Most don’t have standing headroom either. Pictured below is what I have at the moment,  it is a 2005 Ford Econoline E-250 extended cargo van with a 4.6 liter V8. I get about 13 mpg combined city/hwy with this van. You can find some of these with fiberglass high top roof extensions so that you can stand up tall on the inside. You can also buy high top roof extensions aftermarket but they are pricey.  I have also seen creative people add pop tops to these.

Sprinters

I was going to group the newer style of cargo vans all together with “Sprinter” vans as they seem to have all since adopted this body style and offer diesel options like the Sprinter. But, the Sprinter was the van that set the bar for this new generation of vans. These vans have a lot going for them. Some are offered with very efficient diesel engines and can get 25 mpg! You see a lot more of these produced with the high roof option. I guess the thing that I don’t like about them is that you don’t get a full 8′ width like you do with a step van. The width is more comparable to other full size vans. Sprinters have been around for awhile now and there are many on the used market, they seem a little pricey though and are often rusty. I think they may have used cheap thin coatings of paint on these vans that just doesn’t hold up.  Many used ones I’ve seen out there sell for $10,000+ but are rusty and already have 200,000 miles on them. “Sprinters” can be found with either a Mercedes, Dodge, or Freightliner logo on the grill.

New School cargo vans

The Sprinter has brought about a shift in the other manufacturers toward more fuel efficient cargo vans with similar angular front ends and diesel powerplants. Some of these newer vans are the Ford Transit, Dodge Promaster, and Nissan NV.

 

I’m not going to say much about these vans because they are so new that the purchase price on used ones is still quite high. The objective we are seeking here is to be thrifty. We want a good dependable vehicle but we don’t need to spend $30,000 or more to get that. The goal is to be able to pay it off with what we would have spent in rent in one year.

Other Vans

There are other options out there such as mini vans which get great gas mileage but are kinda small. The shear number of family vans out there on the used market means you can find them pretty cheap, but many have windows. Some people make blackout curtains to cover up windows, but I prefer starting out with a cargo van. You may certainly find something not listed here that could work well for you. My top pick however would be a diesel powered Step Van : D

The tiny house movement is in full swing right now. People are beginning to wise up en masse and see through the so called American dream. 30 years of debt slavery hidden behind a white picket fence doesn’t look so good anymore. As it turns out, the road to happiness cannot be found by stuffing as many materials possessions as possible into the biggest house you can afford.

“But tiny homes built on trailers also have drawbacks”

I agree with the philosophy behind tiny houses and keeping only as much stuff as you actually use. But while I’m supportive of the tiny house movement in general (they look cool), I think that building a tiny home inside of a vehicle is a more flexible option. A tiny home built on a trailer cannot be parked on the curb in a residential neighborhood without drawing a lot of attention and potentially getting ticketed. Cars, trucks, and vans are things people see on residential streets and in parking lots everyday. Vans are so common that they just fade into the background. A tiny trailer house will likely require the owner to buy land or rent a place to park it. Again, one of the reasons for downsizing is trying to get away from the expense of renting anything and both buying or renting land to park a tiny trailer home would reduce mobility and add expense.

If you own land and only plan to move your tiny home a couple times a year, something on a trailer may still be appealing. There are many nice factory built camper trailers available on the used market that can be had a lot cheaper than a “tiny home”.  Many pull behind campers in the $5-$10k range have slide outs and are really quite nice on the inside. They are also lighter than most custom built tiny homes of equivalent size and therefor easier on the tow vehicle. I guess one thing to consider however is that campers are not generally meant for cold weather. Campers have fairly thin walls to reduce weight so you best be towing that baby to Florida in the winter.

“Camper trailers are lighter than “Tumbleweed” type trailer homes”

Tiny trailer homes framed with 2x4s are heavier than campers of equal size, they usually require the towing capacity of a one ton pickup truck (350 or 3500) to be able to move them around. Notice the big blue truck towing the tiny home squatting under the tongue weight of the trailer. If you owned one would that require a one ton pickup truck to be your primary vehicle? Or would you own two vehicles, one to move your house and the other to commute to work? Owning two vehicles doesn’t seem like the simplified minimalistic approach. Would you instead have to call someone else who has a big truck every time you want to move your tiny house? Sounds like a hassle.

“A better option”

A van based tiny home rather than a trailer based one is much more mobile and easier to park. A comfortable size van can park virtually anywhere. You don’t need to rent or buy any kind of special parking space. It also allows you much more freedom of movement. If you want to pull up stakes and drive to a different state its no big deal. Whereas with a Tumbleweed type trailer home you need to be thinking a lot more about how you’re going to get it there and where you’re going to put it once you get there. My final thought on this is that if you build your tiny house inside of a van a lot of the work has already been done for you. The van already has weatherproofed walls and a roof. You just have to customize the interior, which is a much simpler undertaking.

The average rent for a one bedroom apartment in the United States is currently over $900 a month or $10,800 a year (according to Google). That’s a lot of money, especially with a low paying job. How are young people supposed to get ahead with that kind of a drain on their monthly income? Landlords collect money every month and at the end of the lease the tenant has nothing to show for it. Granted the landlord takes responsibility for the building and incurs the mortgage and maintenance cost. But in the end the landlord keeps both the rent  and the apartment. Rentals have their place in certain situations. But if a young person with a low paying job was able to hold onto their hard earned rent money it could really help them to get ahead. With all that money a person would be able to quickly save a down payment to buy a house. Or you could pay off student loan debts and step off the hamster wheel of life and travel unencumbered by the stresses of constantly having to come up with next months rent.

“Less is More”

Is a $900 dollar a month studio apartment really that much more comfortable than sleeping in a well equipped van? How much space does your bed actually take up? After subtracting the hours of life that it takes you to come up with rent money every month, how does the freedom that van dwelling offers look to you now? What if you did something a little out of the ordinary to get ahead of the game and keep that hard earned money in YOUR pocket??? The freedom that living without a monthly rent payment could change your life,  (if you can be comfortable while doing it). Moving up from a car to a van isn’t that big of a step, most people own a vehicle anyway. But when you live in a van it can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line. Having less things and less bills to pay offers you more free time and money with which to enjoy it.

“Qualifying for a car loan is WAY easier than getting a home loan” 

It’s difficult to jump through all the required hoops to get a home mortgage loan, but banks will give automobile loans to just about anyone that has a job. This is especially important for young people who haven’t yet established much credit history. Depending on how expensive rent is in your area, you could be paying anywhere from $600-$900 a month or between $7,200-$10,800 a year for an apartment. There are MANY really nice dependable used vans that can be found in that price range and below.  But I would urge you not to be too cheap when looking for wheels unless you’re mechanically inclined and don’t mind fixing things. Why bother going really cheap when the bank will loan you the money for something nicer? You were going to throw all that money away in rent anyhow! If you live in the van for one year and pay the bank back what you would have given away to the landlord it is like getting the van for free! You could have an efficiency apartment on wheels paid off by the end of the year! Again most people own a car and are going to be paying for gas and insurance anyway, so by switching to a van you are hitting two birds with one stone.

Owning your own little house on wheels is the ultimate way to experience the travel lifestyle. Housing is the biggest single expense in most budgets. A mobile lifestyle can redirect that flow of income back into your bottom line and make traveling/saving that much easier.  I believe that building your tiny house inside of a van has many advantages over building your tiny house on a trailer, (which is all the hype these days).  I like the philosophy behind the “tiny house movement” but I believe that doing it in a van is a better way to go, I will explain why in my next post. Thanks for stopping in and please visit regularly, in addition to vandwelling and tiny house living this blog will also be discussing thriftiness,  minimalism, and thinking outside of the box. See you soon!