We purchased the showerbase yesterday. Over the years we have suffered, and we have heard lots of other stories of the flimsy caravan bases breaking. When a shower base breaks there is much work required to repair and most people (including us) decide to bodge the repair whilst leaving the baser in situ.
And so we looked at more substantial domestic ones. Lots of domestic ones are really heavy which of course is not what we want. But at Wickes we found just the right one. Its made of plastic and foam. Its 1200 x 760 x 45 (all mm). We purchased a straight bath outlet with a fancy gold drain fitting and being 40mm it fits onto a straight 40mm pipe enabling us to get the waste water out. It has got an overflow outlet which we will not use and need to be able to block up but its all looking good so far
We have been to Essex this weekend, around trip of 400 miles. Jessica loved sitting in the front between her mum and dad so that confirmed it, we are keeping the three seats. We were all impressed with her and remarked on how smooth and quiet she was. We did a MPG check and she returned 31 mpg, more than either of our cars lol. As we travelled down we talked about where we wanted to go in her, the lakes, the mountains, Scotland, France, Spain and of course Euro Disney were all mentioned
We had a good day today. Shona dropped me off at Norms at 9.15am and we started work straight away. The foam we had “stuck” to the roof fell down. We have got the ply now and will restick them but immediately plywood them below. The big work today was on the side walls. One side has been totally done with between 32mm and 64mm foam board, rockwall stuck in all gaps, then silver bubble wrapped and finally the plywood that came with her screwed back on. This will then have another layer of silver bubble wrap, this time the reverse way to reflect heat in summer and then a final finish of 3mm maple wall board. We have left two panels on this side without insulation at the moment as this is where the windows will go.
On the other side the front panel is complete and tomorrow we will finish the insulation with the side and back doors and the final back panel
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Before we boarded them up Norm placed some carefully placed strutts. These will really be handy when we fit furniture
This was the scene as I walked out of the door at 8am, white, white and white everywhere, it was cold. Before I start another van conversion I will have a workshop big enough to get a van inside lol. Set off for Norms to get working and just as I turned into his drive the car felt more like a heavy weight tractor than a smooth car, the drive belts had snapped, darn. Called the Caistor mechanics and Jack said to get it over and he would order the belts in. Called the breakdown who said they would be there within the hour. We waited and drank coffee talking about how this could be done and how that could be done.
90 minutes later I called them to find out they were going to be another half an hour at least. I was not plexed by this as we were sat in a lovely warm room and I felt for others who were sat in a cold car on the side of the road but I wished that we had started work on the van straight away. So we got to work. Breakdown arrived and we went over to the garage with them. Jack was waiting and took the car in straight away suggesting it was only going to take an hour. We went off for a cornish pasty from Morrisons and then on to Magnums to get a roof vent. I decided to go for a slightly more expansive type which has a completely clear lid and a silver screen. I think we are both a bid concerned about cutting into the van but its getting close.
On route we dropped the fridge off at the house, really just to release a bit of space in Norm’s garage. We noted how silent the van was with the flooring in place, no knocks or bangs, we felt proud, I think of our work.
Back to Caistor to find out a pulley had gone on the car and the part would not be in until the next day. So back to Norm. It was now 3pm and we really had not got a lot of work done. Sho was collecting me at 5pm so we had 2 hours.
In those two hours we scrapped the edges of the cross beams, bonded the first foam to the ceiling, holding it in place with Lidl stretchers which norm had previously purchased for a bargain £5 each and got stuffing insulation in the lower body panels. We are trying to adhesives and will report on our findings later when we remove the supports this morning. Shona arrived and was really impressed with the amount of work we have done. Its hard when you are working to realise what you have achieved. For Norm and myself, although between us we have loads of experience of motorhomes we have never done this sort of thing before so its a big learning curve. I am finding that I cannot wait to get at it each day which is great
Just as I thought we had decided on two rotating captain seats we saw this
. We spotted it on Steve of Herefordshire’s website
The thing is that there will always be three of us including little Jess so it would be really nice if we could all travel up front. Then again its nice to be able to step out of the cab into the back without leaving the van.
Looking forward to three days of building starting tomorrow. First thing in the morning I am going to pop and look at a couple of seats. The van has the usual three seats in the front at the moment and we want two revolving ones. Replacing the seats is not a cheap process. Then its a quick look at O’Learys of Hull to see what they have and then bck to the build. I want to get the ceiling up tomorrow and then the walls in by the weekend. A tall order and one we probably will not meet
lol, not wanting to put pressure on but we have booked our first planned events, a weekend at the end of March at The Newark motorhome show and then immediately afterwards at maplethorpe with a group of friends from motorhomefacts. By then we need some form beds and heating, everything else we could wing it. But heck we are looking forward to it. Its actually been sometime since we have had a break. I think since it was before we went fulltiming. Fulltiming seems like a holiday in a way so you forget its good to get away, even from that.
The floor is complete. It is now all battoned out and covered with 32mm gyrock foam. Around the edges, in the gaps we then used the sort of stuff you use in the attic. The plywood floor has also been screwed back down and we are now ready to do the ceiling. Its started to take shape.
As a reward we all treated ourselves to a meal at The Yarborough Arms
Introduced this new layout last night and I think I like it. It always takes a few days before I really know if something clicks but high hopes. One of the nice things about the software I use for fulltiming is that it is totally free. Its called wordpress. It takes a little bit of getting used to but once you have it cracked its great stuff.
In essence you have wordpress itself and then you use a layout – or theme as they are known. This theme is called scarlet and more detail can be found using the link at the bottom called web2feel.com. Talking of the web I watched a great program last night called The Virtual Revolution The Great Levelling. It was all about the web and where it came from. It featured Tim Berners-Lee who is known as the inventer of the web. I watched it in HD on the Imac and was totally blown away by the graphics. I am going to download it from the BBC Iplayer do I can play it to Jessica. I am sure at 4 years old she will not understand it but she will love watching it and in a few years time she can watch it again. Her life ahead is going to revolve around the web, as if ours does not now.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventer of the web
If you are interested, and I guess if you are reading this the web is as important to you as it is to me then more info on Tim can be seen on wiki ( see below). Wikipedia was also featured in the program, another great freeby on the web and something everyone can be involved in. I have just done a search for fulltiming on wiki and guess which site is featured, its us fulltiming.co.uk, fantastic.
Today I am off to carry on work on the van. Its freezing outside and the first job of the day was to get the water working – thats on the house not the van. The pipes had decided it was too cold to work. We are hoping to start on the ceiling today but the temperature needs to lift a bit for the adhesives to work. At least we can get the timbers cut, prepared and screwed to the cross members. We also have to sort out the sliding side door as it leaks at present. Its going to be cold.
Fulltiming on wiki
Tim Berner-Lee on wiki
The virtual Revolution on BBC Iplayer
WordPress
Scarlet theme
Our first part a week ago was to strip out all the boarding that came with the van. We wanted to see what was underneath. We are glad we did that because there was a lot of space behind the boards for insulation. We then started building a frame work for the insulation starting with the floor. Its great to actually see it start
