Is Building A Van Hard?
Yep!
Building a van is really really hard.
But it’s worth it.
The whole process of van building can be overwhelming.
The road is bumpy with setbacks and obstacles and it tests your resilience at every turn.
sometimes It feels like nothing is easy.
A lot of effort gets invested for no real return.
All this equates to slow progress or, sometimes, zero progress.
Which is the antithesis of motivation.
Suddenly, three months have gone by with nothing to show for it.
this isn’t meant to Discourage other van builders.
There’s a lot of glamour around van life.
But it’s not all hikes, smoothies, and sunsets.
We want to make sure to share all the sides to our van build story.
Particularly the moments that have driven us a little bit insane.
Because we know that other van builders are probably feeling overwhelmed, sad, and frustrated too.
And we can relate.
We’ve been on the verge of quitting too many times to count.
But we keep coming back.
So there must be something in it.
Hopefully ranting about our problems helps other people feel better about their own builds — and how to learn from our mistakes.
The struggle is real.
for us, we HAD A few big problems in our build.
Whilst these problems are specific to our situation, it’s almost inevitable that things won’t go as planned in a van build.
Sh*t happens and it can sap the energy from the whole project.
You might start to say things like ‘Should we sell the van?’ and ‘I think we should just sell the van’.
And question your skills, if you’ll ever finish, and why you even started a “stupid” van build in the first place.
The voice of reason is sometimes barely loud enough in these moments.
While we aren’t necessarily suggesting a cure, there must be some kind of solidarity in sharing these sh*tty experiences.
Let’s get into ours.
Problem 1: Converting our passenger seat
When we bought the van almost a year ago, we were under the assumption it would be simple to change out the passenger bench seat for a single passenger seat.
We wanted to be able to easily walk between the cabin and the cargo area.
Easy peasy, right?
Little did we know how wrong that was.
For months, we called different companies, waiting to hear back whilst they checked with this person or another to see if it could be done. There are strict laws about seat conversions, and any change must be approved by VicRoads.
Our contact list to find someone who would meet the criteria was long, and included Renault, Tech Safe Seating, VicRoads, a myriad of seating companies, car companies, wreckers, and other businesses both locally and interstate.
It felt like we called everyone in Australia, trying to find a reasonable solution for this seat.
After it all, it seemed like it wasn’t going to be financially feasible.
We would just have to continue to ungracefully clamber through from the front to the back of the van.
[Although, it is actually pretty fun to watch PB get his two metre body through the small gap between the front seats.]
So it just ended up being a game of sitting and waiting.
Our problem chair — the middle seat!
Problem 2: Finding An Electrician
The second problem was finding an electrician.
After struggling for months to find an autoelectrician that installed Victron, we finally had a meeting with someone we thought was a great match.
Afterwards, we were feeling over the moon with excitement.
In the days and weeks that followed, we waited patiently for a quote, sending in the meantime all the documents and plans he had requested.
But it got to one month later, then two, then three. Still, no quote. We called and emailed and called again, and nothing.
Months came and went.
We got the promise ‘It’s at the top of the list’, but heard nothing more.
It was understandable there was a backlog, particularly because of after COVID-19. But six months after our appointment, we still hadn’t got a single document or even heard a word from the electrician.
We were back at square one.
From so high to so low, it was hard to wrap our heads around it.
Sketches from our meeting — thought we were onto something!
Problem 3: getting The Right Insulation
The third big problem was a frustrating one: insulation.
We’d done a lot of research into insulation.
In fact, it was the first thing we started researching back on Day 1 of the build.
As we want to make our van as ecofriendly and self-sufficient as possible, we were trying to find pure wool insulation for our van. Which is harder to source than you would think.
20 years ago, it was the go-to for houses and buildings. But nowadays, it’s just too expensive to manufacture in Australia compared to the other alternatives like fibreglass or glass wool.
When we discovered no one in Australia sells pure wool insulation anymore, we even looked overseas to New Zealand and America. But no one would ship to Aus, and Australia has some pretty strict insulation laws anyways.
We found a local alternative insulation that was a combination of recycled wool and polyester. It got our hopes up, but the suppliers kept pushing back the arrival date of new stock and didn’t really seem interested in customer service.
After months of waiting, we put it into the ‘too hard basket’.
Waiting for insulation.
After these problems kept piling up, it seemed like we would never be done.
Amongst work and life, we’d tried to do as much as possible to make things happen.
But we just couldn’t get any traction and our problems kept compounding.
We felt like throwing in the towel too many times to count.
the good vibes were no longer good.
So, Why didn’t we give up?
We’ve asked ourselves this question a lot.
Because despite all the problems we’ve encountered in this build, we keep coming back for more.
While building a van is hard, it’s also rewarding.
No matter how long it takes or how small the progress is.
And we just keep thinking about the first real trip we’ll get in the van when everything is done.
And all the trips after that.
The struggle feels worthwhile.
We also found that stepping away from the build helped a lot.
After making no progress on these problems, we took a trip (not in the van).
Weirdly, we got more things done in those few weeks than we had in the previous three months.
Perhaps we needed the distance.
Perhaps we needed a break.
Or perhaps we needed to stop stressing and pushing for things that were out of our control.
Whilst the trip didn’t necessarily fix out problems, things did start to line up again.
It gave us some clarity and, importantly, a few solutions:
We finally got the seat conversion (although this is a whole other story).
We found an amazing electrician and got an electrical system up and running.
We sourced and installed 100% sheep wool insulation in the van!
We also got another foster dog, and puppy cuddles always help!
We’ve learnt a lot of important lessons.
The motivation is back and everything feels possible again.
Of course, we’d do everything differently next time.
But it’s a nice break through the clouds.
So, Is It easy Converting A Van?
Absolutely not.
Did we think we would be sitting here, almost a year later, with so little progress on the van?
Nope.
But Are we going to keep going regardless?
Heck yes.
And don’t worry, we have no plans to sell the van.
