Vauxhall Vivaro Self Build Camper Van Conversion Tour

Hello. It's been a while, hasn't it? It's been quite a few weeks. I feel like I've just vanished. I don't know, four or five weeks. It is because I have been working on this van and I'm going to give you a little tour of where I'm up to. It's pretty much finished to be honest now. There are just a few little bits and pieces like I need to do the splash back on the kitchen, the doors, you'll see that they still need sorting. But I think everything else is done and I absolutely love it. I do think actually though we might try and sell this van, make a bit of money off it and get another one for me. Not sure yet. Potentially that's the plan. But yeah, let me show you around. This is the view from where I'm sitting. It's a bit sunny, you can't really tell, but the van did have double passenger seats and I really wanted to get a single swivel. Just to open up the van a bit more, you know, these Vivaros, they're small vans and I figured if you had a single swivel up there, it would just give that little bit of extra space back here. But oh my goodness, sourcing a single seat has been really difficult and they are so, so expensive. So I think that we are just going to leave it as a double for now, depending on what happens. Like if we do sell the van, then you know, we'll sell it as is or if somebody wants to have a double swivel. The problem with double swivels, I think anyway, is it's not just this easy movement. You've got to like unscrew the things and it's not, I don't know, I just, I'm not a massive fan of the double swivel. But if we do sell it and someone wants one, we can fit one for them. If I do end up keeping the van, then I probably will just continue to look for a single swivel. Let me actually, we'll go outside and I'll show you like from when you walk in the van. So you can see that this door hasn't been, hasn't been done yet. It's just been insulated. I was originally going to put a window up here, but I changed my mind, wanted to be a bit more stealthy. We also did put a mains hook up. Again, I wasn't going to, but it was just so easy to do in the end, we thought we may as well whilst we were there. Up on the roof, I've got a 360 watt solar panel and then I've also got some internet, which has been brilliant having that, that comes down into this cupboard. Here we go. As you come into the van, this is kind of just a little overview of it. I love it. We've got the kitchen all on this one side. This is where you get access to water, to fill up your water. This pulls up as just an extra little bit of counter space, which is nice. So I've got a 12 volt fridge there, which I am shocked by how much power it's using to be honest. It's the first time I've used a 12 volt fridge. It's a fridge freezer and I'm shocked by how little you can fit in. So I don't know, I'm not a massive fan of it if I'm, if I'm being quite honest, but that's what we got. And then we've just got this unit here, which I love the kind of the rustic style of, of the wood and everything. And then this is the bed. It's kind of just a standard, you know, pull out bed. It goes from this sofa into, it pulls all the way out here. And then you just put the cushions on. I've got another cushion that I need to figure out where that can be stored when it's in a sofa mode, to be honest, because there's another one that length, that width that's at my house at the moment. And then underneath the bed, we've got a couple of drawers. There's one there and there's one here as well. My clothes in. And then down at the back here is the diesel heater. The diesel heater was, oh my goodness, what a issue. If I would have my time again, I would just put the diesel heater up at the front, but because we were going to do a swivel, a single swivel, we didn't think there was space for the, um, the diesel heater, but with a stationary double passenger seat, we could have just put it under there because it was an absolute pain doing it there. But anyway, there's, um, there is a, a diesel heater in there, which would be nice for the winter. And then as I sit on the sofa here, this is just covered. It's just got a bit of storage. It's got the internet and then it's got some bits and bobs of food up there. I went for an induction hob. I really, whilst yes, it does take a lot of power, electric power. Um, I really just didn't want to be faffing with gas and things. And I've used it a really, really love it. It's just like a single, single one there. The control panel for it is just up here. I really love that. I've also got just stored down there underneath the, um, what is that? A seat? Underneath the seat, I've got a little mini air fryer that I can plug in up here because we have got two 40 volts. Here's my lights. They're lovely. Don't want a dimmer. I love the fact that we made them dimmer. We've got six going, going across the, across the ceiling. I love this wood look, the cladding. It's really, really nice. I kind of like the rustic, the rusticness of it, like with the cladding and then with this type of wood, I really like it. And then here in the kitchen, I've got a sink. It's, I've just had my breakfast, so I've got some today pans in there, but it's a ridiculously deep sink, which is nice for this. I didn't want a tiny little crappy, you know, camping sink. I wanted something a bit more substantial, so it's really quite nice. And then in this cupboard is just, you know, fresh water tank and grey water. I've got a little, uh, what is this called? Like a funnel so that if you are filling up from out there, I really wanted to be able to fill up with this thing in situ. So you can just take this, I'll show you, take this, open the door up, obviously unscrew that, stick that in and then just shove your water down through there, which is nice. This is just a little bit of extra storage down there. I actually store my flip-flops there usually. Got a standing knife there because I'm going to do some, some standing knife stuff later. Yeah, so that is, that's the sink area. It's got one of these, um, electric pumps, a 12-volt tap. I really wanted like a nice, seem like the copper, the copper pipe type of sinks. I really kind of wanted one of them, but in the end I just gave up on it and I've just got one of these that pump down there and turn it on. It's fine. It's good enough, I guess. And then behind here is where all the electrics are. We could probably do with adding a bit more storage on this, on this wall here, I think. So that might be something I take a look at today. In terms of the electrics, there is a 3,000 watt inverter, but a 200 amp hour battery, which to be honest, if I was doing this again, I would probably go higher on it. I would probably get a 360, 360 you can get, um, just because of having the induction hob. Like it doesn't take a load of power, but, uh, I don't know. I would just, I would just get a bigger battery. I think, I mean, I couldn't have afforded a bigger battery for this one in all honesty. This, yeah, it's cost a fortune. I'll tell you at the end how much this has cost me so far. Renovation. Um, like I say, we've got the mains hookup, which I'm really pleased that we did add. Um, it's all Victron stuff and it's brilliant because you can just go on the Victron app. I'll show you now, go on the Victron app and you can just see like how much charge you've got. You can just check the state of everything. We've got a DC to DC so that when I'm driving the, you know, the, the van battery will charge the leisure battery. Obviously the solar will charge as well. And then we've also got that mains hookup. So there's lots of options to get power into the van, which is really good. Also got on this wall, there's one there and there's one there. These are just little, uh, I can open it up. USB, there's two USBs, um, a USB C charger there for phones and things. So that's nice. And I think that's it. That's the van. That's what I've been up to these past, uh, these past few weeks. Like I say, the only things really to do now are the splashback and then just finishing the doors. I'm not quite sure why the doors have been left at last, if I'm quite honest, but that's what's happened. In terms of cost of doing this, I have been keeping like a really detailed breakdown of like a spreadsheet of everything that's, um, that I've been spending, but it's just, the electrical system was just a lot of money. I did want to go with Victron. Um, I know you obviously don't have to go with Victron, but I don't, I personally, I just think, you know, it's the best it's, I like the, the app and I don't know. I just, I went with Victron, like the inverter alone, the 3,000 watt inverter, I think was 1,100. Um, the battery was 650 and then all the other components, it was a lot of money. The electrical system overall, I've spent, I haven't done my final calculations, but it's around 5,000 pounds on this, uh, conversion. The van cost me 5,000. So I've put 10,000 into this van, which is crazy. Absolutely crazy. Like I said, I do think that we may try to sell it. I have, I have no real knowledge or, um, information on kind of what this van would be worth if I put it up for sale. Um, but, but I think that is the plan. We're going to, I'm going to get it finished hopefully today or tomorrow and then just stick it up and I'll just, I don't know, I have to do a little bit of research or if anyone has any ideas on potentially how much, um, could sell this for, but I'll do a little bit of research, stick it on the market, see if there's any interest and just put it up and I'll, I'll like use it whilst it's up on the market. Um, and then if we can manage to sell it and get a little bit of money from it, then I can get another van. There's a lot of lessons that I've learned from doing this van, um, things I would do slightly different maybe, but it's been such an enjoyable process of getting it done. And I'm so thankful for the person that's been helping me do this, uh, because I definitely couldn't have done this on my own whatsoever. The electrical system, I found that to be the most interesting part of it all, to be honest, and I feel like I've learned so much and I could probably do an electrical system myself in the van now. I feel like I know, I sort of, yeah, yeah, I think I could like, there's something like a diesel heater, I would never try and fit a diesel heater, just absolutely not. Um, but I feel like the electrical system, I think I've got a pretty good grasp of how that all works now. So it's been fun. It has been a really fun process. So hopefully now this van is done, I can get out on a few little adventures in it before it sells. If it does sell, I'll be sad to like let go of it really. But, um, yeah, I don't know. We're going to, I'm going to take Anyway, thank you so much for watching this video. I will hopefully see you soon. Goodbye.