drodio
"Avalanche" • 2022 170" Ext Cargo 4x4
Here we go! Wanted to start a build thread and especially invite those with large families to contribute experiences and ideas to how to build a van out when there are more than four people that need to use it. Here's some detail on what I've experienced as a big hole in the market that I'm trying to fill for our family -- and I wonder how many others are too:
Problem #1: Almost all van conversions I've seen assume that only a max of four people will need to be strapped in safely for travel, and then for sleeping accomodations. That's not our situation at all. We have five adults and four children in our family. That might be a bit larger than other families (!!!) but I wonder how many other families have more than two kids.
Problem #2: When you have a big family, you also need a lot of modularity. Most of the time it's me and my brother-in-law taking the three older kids out for a weekend of camping or dirt biking. In those scenarios, we just need seating for five, along with the ability to go off the grid for a weekend. Other times, it's all nine of us taking a weekend, or sometimes week-long road-trip, maybe to Palm Desert. In those scenarios, we're typically traveling to a hotel or resort, but might all want to spend one night sleeping in the van to break a long trip up into two travel days.
Most vans are built out in a very static way. Kitchen, bed, etc. are set in a place in your van, and that's it; no moving those things around or in and out.
The Opportunity: I see a big opportunity for someone -- one of the van conversion companies, probably -- to create a much more modular approach to #VanLife living. With COVID, I bet we're going to see a lot more families purchasing vans instead of taking expensive family vacations. I really think we are at the beginning of an industry that's about to explode. I'm a tech entrepreneur, and in my circle, I already know two others that have purchased Sprinters w/ the intent of building them out. When you have Silicon Valley tech execs buying Sprinters to get into VanLife you know something is really changing, because these are people that you wouldn't usually associate with VanLife. And at least for me, I can't stand the RV industry's low build quality, so there's a real opportunity to raise the bar.
So, I'm going to try to do this myself by sourcing & assembling various components to create a modular outcome, but I'd love to just be able to buy this all in one place vs. hunting for it. In my ideal world, someone would come pick my van up, get some or all of the work done, and then drop it back off some number of days later. That way, I could keep using it with my family on weekends, and the van would keep getting more built out over time.
My thought process: The first thing I need for a modular van is a base platform that enables the flexibility I'm looking for. I'm imagining a van that almost works like Lego blocks -- reconfigurable based on whatever the use case is that I need for that weekend. Easy to add/remove/re-arrange seating. Easy to add/remove a kitchen. Etc.
What I think I've figured out so far -- feedback please!!!
The Base Platform that enables modularity: I'm going to go with the AMF Bruns SmartFloor as a starting point. This will allow me to configure seating in all sorts of ways (including doing a row of 3 and then a row of 4) and also serve as a base platform that I can use to attach various things. I've got a separate thread going on that -- I met Anders from RRE Global at the AdventureVan expo and he gave me a ton of great tips about the SmartFloor; I took a 10 minute video w/ some 411 on that: https://sprinter-source.com/forums/index.php?threads/89326/#post-923027 (one great tip that I didn't put into the video was that since the SmartFloor is aluminum, it's easy to Rivnut the floor, so you're not limited to where the L-track is for putting things. this makes the floor even more of an expandable base platform.
A few open questions about the SmartFloor:
Sleeping: Trying to sleep nine is a little crazy, I know. I just sold my 2018 144 4x4 high roof; in that one I had a MOAB bed up top, and I fabricated a platform on the bottom. Some pics attached. We slept two adults + our one year old up top, and the three older kids (all under age 7) down below. That worked well for six of us. I'll probably do some type of dual bed setup again in the 170, and see about creating a separate large sleeping area by folding down the two rows of seats. I've also seen some other creative options like these -- would love to know if anyone's tried these approaches:
We looked at doing flares, and we might still give that a shot, I saw a really ingenious cantilevered bed at the Expo that also can be used as a work desk (I put a video in that thread showing how the bed works). So maybe we try to engineer something like that -- a lower bed that can fold up to the sides of the van, and a Moab up top, or similar.
Another idea we're playing around with is two Moabs that are sandwiched together up top; and we drop the lower one down when we need it. I'd love to know if anyone's done anything like this.
Insulation: We're going to with Havelock wool. I know there are a lot of opinions about this. The people that have done it all seem to be really glad they did. I talked to the Havelock folks and they said across 6,000 customers they've never had a single mold issue. I'll update on our experience as we give it a shot.
Other items:
And here's my old 2018 144" dual bed setup:
Here's what the new 2020 170" 4x4 looks like today!
Problem #1: Almost all van conversions I've seen assume that only a max of four people will need to be strapped in safely for travel, and then for sleeping accomodations. That's not our situation at all. We have five adults and four children in our family. That might be a bit larger than other families (!!!) but I wonder how many other families have more than two kids.
Problem #2: When you have a big family, you also need a lot of modularity. Most of the time it's me and my brother-in-law taking the three older kids out for a weekend of camping or dirt biking. In those scenarios, we just need seating for five, along with the ability to go off the grid for a weekend. Other times, it's all nine of us taking a weekend, or sometimes week-long road-trip, maybe to Palm Desert. In those scenarios, we're typically traveling to a hotel or resort, but might all want to spend one night sleeping in the van to break a long trip up into two travel days.
Most vans are built out in a very static way. Kitchen, bed, etc. are set in a place in your van, and that's it; no moving those things around or in and out.
The Opportunity: I see a big opportunity for someone -- one of the van conversion companies, probably -- to create a much more modular approach to #VanLife living. With COVID, I bet we're going to see a lot more families purchasing vans instead of taking expensive family vacations. I really think we are at the beginning of an industry that's about to explode. I'm a tech entrepreneur, and in my circle, I already know two others that have purchased Sprinters w/ the intent of building them out. When you have Silicon Valley tech execs buying Sprinters to get into VanLife you know something is really changing, because these are people that you wouldn't usually associate with VanLife. And at least for me, I can't stand the RV industry's low build quality, so there's a real opportunity to raise the bar.
So, I'm going to try to do this myself by sourcing & assembling various components to create a modular outcome, but I'd love to just be able to buy this all in one place vs. hunting for it. In my ideal world, someone would come pick my van up, get some or all of the work done, and then drop it back off some number of days later. That way, I could keep using it with my family on weekends, and the van would keep getting more built out over time.
My thought process: The first thing I need for a modular van is a base platform that enables the flexibility I'm looking for. I'm imagining a van that almost works like Lego blocks -- reconfigurable based on whatever the use case is that I need for that weekend. Easy to add/remove/re-arrange seating. Easy to add/remove a kitchen. Etc.
What I think I've figured out so far -- feedback please!!!
The Base Platform that enables modularity: I'm going to go with the AMF Bruns SmartFloor as a starting point. This will allow me to configure seating in all sorts of ways (including doing a row of 3 and then a row of 4) and also serve as a base platform that I can use to attach various things. I've got a separate thread going on that -- I met Anders from RRE Global at the AdventureVan expo and he gave me a ton of great tips about the SmartFloor; I took a 10 minute video w/ some 411 on that: https://sprinter-source.com/forums/index.php?threads/89326/#post-923027 (one great tip that I didn't put into the video was that since the SmartFloor is aluminum, it's easy to Rivnut the floor, so you're not limited to where the L-track is for putting things. this makes the floor even more of an expandable base platform.
A few open questions about the SmartFloor:
- Travois also makes a floor that seems to be a competing standard; from what I heard at the AdventureVan expo, it is possible to do more than two sets of rails in that floor. I'd need four. I don't know if Travois can do four. If anyone knows, please LMK! I've also heard that they're pretty severely back-ordered (on the order of months) whereas I can get the SmartFloor installed inside of 3 weeks.
- Travois also makes a really nice swiveling seat. We tried it at AdventureVan Expo and really liked it. None of the AMF Bruns (SmartFloor manufacturer) seats swivel, although Andreas did say he's looking into it. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Travois seat works in the SmartFloor system; the track widths are different, which is a bummer. If anyone has any more 411 on how to get a swivel seat onto a SmartFloor please LMK. One thing I didn't realize before was that the AMF seats do fold down almost flat, which could make them a great platform for putting a mattress on top, across two rows.
- I'd also love to know if anyone has tips on the best material to cover the SmartFloor with. We're thinking a commercial-grade floor laminate.
Sleeping: Trying to sleep nine is a little crazy, I know. I just sold my 2018 144 4x4 high roof; in that one I had a MOAB bed up top, and I fabricated a platform on the bottom. Some pics attached. We slept two adults + our one year old up top, and the three older kids (all under age 7) down below. That worked well for six of us. I'll probably do some type of dual bed setup again in the 170, and see about creating a separate large sleeping area by folding down the two rows of seats. I've also seen some other creative options like these -- would love to know if anyone's tried these approaches:
- RB's folding platform bed
- the Van Hammock
- Creating two hammock beds by swiveling the front seats -- CabBunk in the UK has an offering for this -- does anyone know of any others like this?
We looked at doing flares, and we might still give that a shot, I saw a really ingenious cantilevered bed at the Expo that also can be used as a work desk (I put a video in that thread showing how the bed works). So maybe we try to engineer something like that -- a lower bed that can fold up to the sides of the van, and a Moab up top, or similar.
Another idea we're playing around with is two Moabs that are sandwiched together up top; and we drop the lower one down when we need it. I'd love to know if anyone's done anything like this.
Insulation: We're going to with Havelock wool. I know there are a lot of opinions about this. The people that have done it all seem to be really glad they did. I talked to the Havelock folks and they said across 6,000 customers they've never had a single mold issue. I'll update on our experience as we give it a shot.
Other items:
- We met Kristin of Van Wife Components. She has a great headliner shelf with an integrated curtain rod. Just ordered one. (She also has a four panel bed with a very creative use case of having one of the panels turn into an outside table between the two rear doors. Loved that. Sadly the bed is back-ordered by a few months.
- The Sprinter Store sells what appears to be a modified version of the Amp Research step that works for 2019+ Sprinters. Installing that.
- Getting KO2 tires on Arsenal rims -- but I'm going with 245/70/R17 as it matches the original 16" rim tire characteristics almost exactly (601 vs 602 revolutions per mile). I generally don't love the idea of moving far away from stock engineering specs on things like tire camber & sizing. So we'll see how that turns out.
- Installed RattleTrap
- Roof Rack: I'm thinking an Owl or RoamBuilt roof rack -- although the new Aluminess component solid roof rack is intriguing -- and *seems* like it would help reduce heat on the roof, because there's an air gap between the rack and the roof. I can't actually find it on their website yet; LMK if anyone's tried it and has any opinions on its sturdiness as compared to a solid one-piece rack. Note: They apparently also have a version now w/ an integrated LED light bar up-top.
- Electrical: In the spirit of modularity, I think we're going to go with a modular system, Yeti-style. I've seen this new Inergy 1500 Power station that's supposedly coming out in October. Anyone have an opinion on that?
- Water: I'd like to get 30-40 gallons of water onboard. Previously, I created the "Khitchen" which was great; might do something like that again. Wondering if anyone has played around with using onboard air to pressurize water tanks? Here's a thread on that topic.
And here's my old 2018 144" dual bed setup:
Here's what the new 2020 170" 4x4 looks like today!
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