I’ve been reading on this forum for over a year. I finally am close to buying my sprinter . Its going to be a daily driver, but also a weekend camper. I have 2 kids, and want the passenger van with windows. I really want rear AC as I live in Colorado but will travel to Florida during the summers. I feel like rear air is a must but am afraid I will not be able to stand up in van after the conversion. Does anyone have a conversion with rear air? Would you order it if you were ordering a new van?
General comments -
(1) I am not able to visualize the build that you are considering. "Passenger van with windows...daily driver... weekend camper". You might get more targeted responses if you provide more design details on how those features would all work together. How many windows? Where? Seats distributed among camper van infrastructure where and how?
(2) DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the heat burden that you are going to have in Florida. I predict that standing up (height clearance) will be the least of your worries. You may have to stoop a little bit as you pass under your roof a/c unit, yes. The alternative would be baking to death. On an average summer day in Houston, the interior of my Sprinter can easily reach 107 degrees even when I have all of my window reflectors in place, and my vent fan running. This is not a matter of comfort - it's a question of personal safety.
I live in southeast coastal Texas, which is comparable to Florida (actually worse, and plus you would have to drive through Texas and every other Gulf Coast state to get back and forth). There is NO WAY I would purchase a spec van build if your description = my target usage - I would either have it built, or I'd build it myself, paying extra attention to the issue of insulation:
(a) Search for Hein's products and the numerous threads herein on maximizing van insulation.
(b) Summer heat management in Sprinter vans has been discussed
ad nauseam before, both here and on other forums. About two years ago I hatched
this "declaring war on summer heat gain" thread on another forum (Airstream builds, but the thread was almost exclusively confined to Sprinters). You might want to glance over those 260+ replies to see if there are any ideas in there that would be of use to you in your application.
Meme'd van pic - someone had gotten understandably desperate and had wrapped their van 100% in solar reflecting sheets, and I thought it needed an embellishment: