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Van Details: Temperature Regulation

(soft music) Yeah, so a big part of Van life is chasing the seasons. So when it's hot down south, you go up north and it's really nice. When it's cold up north, you come down south and it's a perfect, you know, winter weather here in Southern California. We're surfing all winter down here so. If you're gonna be able to chase the seasons like that, temperature regulation, you know, having AC, having heat, having a lot of windows and good ventilation fans and stuff might not be quite as important. That being said, there's no way that you could really comfortably live in a van like this without at least a fan, I would say. Fan is like the bare minimum and I have a Maxxair fan right here. I think it was 200 bucks and it's awesome. But with that fan, you're gonna need some kind of a window to pull air to circulate in the van. So like for me, I have one window. Literally only one window on this build but I have this window right here that actually cracks. So I'm spinning a dial back here a...

nd I'm cracking it up. And that creates kind of a cross breeze. So when I throw that up, and then turn this fan on, so that's actually, that fan is not pushing air in it's pulling air out. And so when I have all the doors shut, and this window open and that fan on pulling air out, it creates a breeze from the window, kind of a pathway of air from the window up to the fan and out of the van. So it just creates that circulation. That's pretty important. I also have two vents on the back doors. These vents are because I didn't want to put in more windows, 'cause the more windows you put in your van the more it doesn't look like an anonymous cargo van anymore. It looks kind of like a kitted out camper van. So that's a personal preference of mine. I try to keep the windows basically down to a minimum. I only do the windows that are crucial to my air ventilation. I know a lot of people that embrace windows and you see a lot of Sprinter vans or whatever and they have window on the door, a window on on the back panel and then all the back doors have windows. I don't know. Some vans have like six windows, mine has one. But I did want more ventilations so I put these push fence on the back doors and I can show you guys those later. But those vents are really cheap, easy to install, and when people see 'em they don't know what they are. It kind of almost looks like industrial. So, I've turned a lot of people onto these vents. They, they work really well. And I always position them right over the bed 'cause sometimes I'm trying to sleep in like 80 degree heat or something, and I won't open this window so I won't create a breeze up in this part of the van. And I'll just turn, I'll just flip the vents on in the back of the van, so that creates all the airflow movement over the bed instead of in this central area of the van. So you can kind of strategically open different vents or windows depending on where you are in the van. If you're sleeping, you do the ones over the bed. Yeah, so insulation is one of the most debated topics in van life, I'd say. All the rage right now is this wool insulation. It's kind of like a fiberglass insulation where it's it's soft and you can kind of rip it but it's supposed to have a higher R value so just insulated a little bit better. Downside is it's expensive. I've never actually used wool insulation. I think every time I've made a van, yeah, I've, I've used rigid foam board because I just walk into Lowe's and that's what I see. And it's pretty easy to shape and it stays that shape. So if there's like a, a panel that I'm trying to insulate because behind these walls, it's like it's not just this flat wall, it's it's different panels that you have to like shape the insulation into. I would just basically cut the rigid foam board, place it in there, tape it in there to keep it in there. And, and then in the cracks I would I would get some like denim insulation, so like soft insulation that I can just shove up into the cracks so that everything is insulated. And that's really what's worked for me. I also used the rigid foam board in the box van, but with the box van it was nice because there wasn't these different panels it was just a straight wall. So what I did in the box van is I used this rigid foam board as the actual wall. And on the foam board I just used spray glue and and I put spray glue on the actual insulation. And then I put spray glue on this fabric that I wanted for the texture of the walls and the walls in the, the box van are just straight up fabric on the actual insulation. And it works in the box van because it's just open panels flat here. It wouldn't work because it has these these metal beams that you have to work around. So, in a lot of ways the box van is really nice for that because I didn't have all these protruding angles and things like that. So that's a pro of the box van. It's really nice to insulate. And with the sprinter, it's just a considerable more it's a harder job to insulate a cargo van just because it's like problem solving the whole time, to fit, fitting different pieces into different places, and then after the insulation you gotta put another layer to make it look clean. I think 90% of the people that I know really feel the need to have insulation but, some of my friends you know they put like an inch and a half of insulation on the floor. I didn't put any insulation on the floor. I put insulation on the walls and on the ceiling. But I skimped on some of like the inside of the cabinets and things like that. So, I mean, it's just a personal preference, it's like some people really really feel the need to insulate as much as possible and for me it's like, I, I feel the need to insulate on the bare walls, but under the, under the garage I don't insulate much. On the floor I don't insulate at all. And I'm not really sure why I made that choice. It just kind of seemed like the right idea at the, at the time, I didn't wanna lose more head space by putting more insulation on the ground. So yeah, I mean, insulation is very debatable, like how much and what to use and if you should even insulate at all. But it makes a lot of sense when you get a cargo van like this because you're gonna have to put walls over those beams. And so there's gonna be a space between where you have the wall and where the outside of the van is. So it only makes sense to put some insulation in that little gap so that it's working for you. I mean, that's just my mentality on, on insulating the cargo van. And then with the box van, it was just I liked the idea of the insulation being the wall cuz the insulation also is kind of a nice soft texture. So it added like a, a soft, like coziness to the walls. And for that reason they told me the box van was insulated when I when I picked it up from the lot, but it was only like three quarters inch thick so It just didn't feel like it was insulated to me. I felt the need to add a little bit more in there but you kind of just go with what feels right. There's definitely some people out there that don't insulate their van and they just kind of embrace when it gets hot outside it gets hot in their van, or if it gets cold outside it gets cold in their van and they kind of like embrace the fact that they're kind of almost living outside. Like they don't need that temperature regulation quite as much. Yeah, so the, the cheapest heat option I would say is the Mr. Buddy heater, get them at like Walmart or, or anywhere. They're about a hundred bucks and they run off propane. So like those Coleman propane tanks, you just screw in. And I think it's just got like one speed and it's either blasting you with heat or completely off. So that, that can heat you up in a pinch for sure. Especially, you know, if you're in Wyoming in the winter and it's like literally freezing in your van. But a step up from that is definitely like a, a diesel or even they have gas powered, like if you have a gas powered van they have like just little heating units, they're about this big, and you install them like on the base, on the floor of your van and they tap into the auxiliary fuel tank. So run a, run a tube from the unit into the gas tank. So as long as you have gas in your tank, you can turn on the heater and it runs off of the fuel in your tank. Surprisingly, it doesn't drain your fuel tank as much as you'd think. I didn't even notice much of a difference in my gas mileage when I measured it. So they're really efficient. The biggest downside to that is maybe they're they're about a thousand bucks or so on average. And it's a, it's a bit of a confusing install. I've installed three of 'em and every time it really takes quite a bit of troubleshooting to figure it out. And you need to allocate a space in your van to put that unit. With sprinter vans most people put it under the, the passenger seat. That's where mine is and I have an outlet right under the passenger seat. And I went with the nicer nicer Espar heater that has like scheduling. So I can, in the winter I can say every day I want it to turn on at 8:00 PM. I want it to warm up my van to 70 degrees and I want it to turn off at 8:00 AM so I don't even have to touch the dial. And that really does make it feel like a nice home in the wintertime when it's freezing cold outside you step in your van and it's nice and toasty. So I think it's a really nice upgrade to have just a heating unit that runs off of your fuel tank. I have a few friends that have done like Chinese knockoffs of these cause these, these are made in like Germany or something like that but China sells 'em for like a 10th the price. I don't know, it just seems a little bit sketchy to me. Like maybe it would spontaneously combust or something. I, I haven't ever heard of it happening but it is weird when you're searching through different heaters to buy and and some of 'em are a 10th the price of, of the, the other ones. Another kind of fun option that I've seen at least on Instagram is like to put a wood burning stove in your van that has this smoke snacks, smoke stack that goes out the van. It's kind of nice cuz it looks like a a little fireplace in your van. It's got a nice like glow aesthetic to it. Obviously wouldn't be nearly as like temperature regulated as the, the heating unit that I have but it's got a nice feel to it.