Could you live full-time in a VW T5?
We are about to find out the answer to this question!
Full-time vanlife was never part of the plan. In fact, I never imagined our life with a campervan at all! However, experiences bring changes and we fell in love with vanlife on the journey. We have loved our experience of wild camping, but now we are prepared to take things to a whole new level as we embark on living in our van full-time! Two adults, two children and one Cockapoo!
Changing our campervan from a base that was used for long weekends or at most a fortnight at a time, to one that would enable us to live in it full-time required some changes and upgrades. Below, I have detailed the changes we have made and linked as many of the products as I can. The internal contents of the van and general packing remains the same. This blog post refers specifically to the upgrades we have made to make the van our full-time home.
‘Off Grid’
‘Off grid’ is a term that is used widely within the vanlife community. Essentially it means that your van can function without mains hook-up for a few days at a time. The length of time any van can be off grid for, varies widely. We wanted to set our van up, so we could be off grid indefinitely if needed.
We have two leisure batteries and a 200W solar panel that keeps the leisure batteries on our VW T5 topped up. This has proven to be very effective for us. On our adventures to date, we have always had sufficient power to run the fridge, water pump/tap, diesel heater, lights and to charge our telephones/tablets. But living in van full-time means that we will be slowing down the pace of travel and sometimes we will only drive short distances. We decided to install a B-to-B charger. This is an intelligent battery-to-battery charger, designed to automatically charge one 12V battery to another using the alternator. This works in a similar way to a split-charge-relay, but it magnifies the charge. Simply put, this means that as we drive we are able to charge our leisure batteries up to x6 times quicker, so we can travel less of a distance but get more charge back into our leisure batteries. We installed a 30A B-to-B charger, because we have two leisure batteries. If you only have one, then a 18A charger would suffice. Furthermore, we fitted a new inline circuit breaker to make it easier to isolate the B-to-B charger, in case of an emergency.
With the addition of the above, our campervan now has the potential to be off grid for as long as wanted/needed! However, only electrical items that require 12V could be used, for example - fridge, water pump/tap, diesel heater, lights, USB points. That meant, that we would be unable to charge our laptops, drone or cameras because they require more power at 230V. We needed to convert 12V DC to 230V AC, so fitted a small, lightweight inverter which will allow us to use and charge items that demand more power. We are now able to charge our laptops, drone, cameras, dog clippers and the girls’ game consoles when we are living full-time in our campervan.
‘Self contained’
The Covid pandemic forced us to make become self-contained in our campervan during the summer of 2020. In order to stay on campsites, we needed to have our own chemical toilet and wash facilities. However, having had our own toilet in the campervan for over a year now, it feels like an essential for all our trips, including day trips. I highly doubt we would ever travel anywhere without it! When using a portable toilet, it is important that dissolvable toilet tissue is used. This paper is much thinner than the ‘normal’ paper you’d use in your house and much less absorbent. However, it ensures the system doesn’t get blocked and allows easy emptying. Having toilet and shower facilities on board are essential in our quest to live full-time in our campervan. We will need to regularly access a chemical disposal point to empty waste, which can be found on the vast majority of campsites all over the UK.
Internet
The final major upgrade we have made to our campervan is the addition of the internet. While travelling around the UK, we need access to the internet to allow us to work on the road and for the girls’ homeschooling.
