Improvements 2022

Our van was working well in 2021 but there's always room for improvement. Here's what we've done this year and why:

We installed struts on all of our upper cabinets. Now we don't have to hold them open with our heads anymore. We could have used these instead of the magnets to keep our cabinets shut too but since we already have the magnets, we kept them.

We put a few more holes in our van. The first one was to solve our sometimes stinky grey water tank problem. This vent is small but mighty.

This is the up/down switch to raise/lower our roof top tent. We moved it inside for easier access. We used to have to do some acrobatics to reach this switch outside. It's also nice to be out of the weather to set up or break down camp. The decoupage maps were also added because even though we liked the wood paneling under them, the planks were getting jiggled too much with travel and were coming loose. This make shift wallpaper helps secure and seal the space.

The second hole we cut in the van this year was for another window in the dining/ lower bunk area. This window opens and with the new eye hook for a fan, it helps bring more air into the lower part of the van.

The third hole in the van this year was for the max air fan.

If the roof tent is down, we run it in the pulling air out direction with the little windows open. It pulls the air through the van like a champ. If the tent is up, we switch the direction to blowing air in and put fans in the windows below. Air circulation has vastly improved with this set-up. And if there are strong winds or storms, sleeping in the lower bed will be more comfortable, even with the tent down.

An added bonus: when putting in this fan, we had to rearrange our solar panels and they are now mounted stronger but with less weight.

The last improvement we did this year was to lengthen the bottom bed by 18". We now have 5' 6" length- which is still pretty short but our feet can hang over the edge of the bed and longer legs can be straight. We will always opt to sleep in the roof top tent- which is a queen sized bed with a comfortable mattress that feels like sleeping in a treehouse- but if bad weather prevents us from sleeping there, this bed is a good back-up. It's also much nicer for our daughter who is 5'7" and sometimes travels with us.

We still have more improvements our list. Making the max air fan more secure (it bumps around a little bit on our aluminum tent roof) with a few pieces of steel is a near future task.

We'd also like to put a drain on the underside of our fresh water tank and maybe get a better filtration system for our water.

And we're looking at more energy efficient (dc powered) fridges. They're much more expensive but our refrigerator is our biggest energy consumer- it eats more than half and sometimes nearly all of our power over night.

The learning continues.