hello everybody and welcome back to our channel where Eamon and Bec and we've
been living full time in our own self converted Sprinter Van for over a year and
a half now we have the 144 wheelbase ...Eamon's distracted by a dog and we're
often asked about upgrading and how to choose the right van for you so today we
have two friends and their vehicles aka their tiny homes who are gonna help
us through this video all different lengths of vans when it comes to the
right van to buy there are a lot of different options on the market for us
we weren't interested in anything that didn't come in a high top our first
taste of van life was in a low top camper van and boy oh boy there's a huge
difference between camping and having a little house on wheels Eamon and I are
really tall humans I'm 5'10 he's about 6'1 so as you can see
there's lots of room for us to stand up and move around so for the purpose of
today's video we're only going to be talking about high top vans about to
meet up with a couple of friends of ours who live or are about to live in vans
and the reason why we thought we'd bring them into this video is because they're
very very different yeah so we're strictly looking at size of the van and
not the make and model and also what you can do within that within the space and
we're gonna have an open discussion with some of them treinen Ally have been
living in it full time and so he'll and arm Rita are not even converted yet but
they're planning on their layout so be interesting to see what people doing and
how they live in their life we live in a 144 Sprinter van trying Ollie live in a
158 Promaster row master and our friends are about to move into a 170 extended
Sprinter van so three different vans very different sizes basically from as
small to as large you can get within a high-top Sprinter and let's explore what
that what these homies say about it first our friend Trenton
Ali and we can't forget their dog Frank we're gonna go into their Promaster have
a look around at what they did for their tiny home on wheels its frisbee Frank
we've changed his name sorry frisbee Frank frisbee Frank are you here oh
these guys have invited us inside their little house we've been here before
it's a beautiful self converted Promaster what year 2017 the easy way to
compare that you guys have the 144 inch wheelbase Sprinter this is the 159 inch
extended promess tur which is about the same living space as 170 inch Sprinter
hmm and then there's 170 extended which is like the extra-large one so we had
136 inch wheelbase Promaster which is like three feet shorter than this one
for our first build which was great it was so much easier to drive it really
was just a minivan yeah but the living space is so much
more condensed that we definitely didn't feel like we could live in it full-time
all four seasons for people that don't understand what we're talking about is
the wheelbase and that's the distance between the front and the rear axle and
the longer that distance gets the harder it is for you to make a turn or a u-turn
or maneuver through any obstacles so with this being 159 inch I noticed it's
like a pain in the butt to do like a lot of sharp corners and like tight city
driving and the premise or the the Sprinter 170 is 11 inches longer yeah so
it's like literally that much more of a pain it's literally a bus you guys had
the smaller version of a Promaster yeah and what was it that made you want to go
bigger so I think really what it came down to was we're big into mountain
biking we're big into outdoor adventuring and we had a hitch rack for
our bikes before so the bikes were mounted to the back of the van and that
was just a little unsettling if we're at night or away from the van to have the
bikes out and exposed bikes are very expensive yeah and so with a longer
wheelbase now we're able to incorporate a more permanent fixed bed where the
bikes are stored under the bed will ask us all the time now if we would change
anything about our current build and I think it's because we had a
before this that we learned so much from and knew exactly what was important to
us and what our priorities were joined up now we don't we wouldn't change
anything if we could go back and rebuild this band I would still do it exactly
the same because I have that experience so I'm we're not gonna give you a tour
here today their van basically is they've got a
full functioning kitchen hot water shower toilet bed tons of storage
there's a van tour on their channel they make youtube videos as well you can go
over there and check that out our friends who are arriving are the 170
extended sprinter and that is completely layout free at the moment so it'd be
really fun to chat with them and see what they're thinking and they have
never lived in a van before so just kind of offer up our insights and help them
prioritize what they want for their belts that you can do two cartwheels
inside their van so much in a row okay so I'm pretty sure I just heard them
roll up let's go bang on their door why not we said don't write the side door
let's go to the back go to the back I
love the lighting in here guys I'm real shiny vibe this is like a disco party
are you very slowly the world is your oyster at this point
yeah why not we said because you technically said why not to this
lifestyle so yeah that's that's it for now till we build it we were working on
layout so actually 1 million different layout because you don't have a sliding
door so it's kind of like yeah it's very different than other people so maybe we
can all sit together with some experienced van builders van lifers and
chats really oh yeah you're battling with the natural elements of the light
so we're gonna quickly just run through what their van is what size it is and
what options we could possibly do are we too far before their mind they
have blueprints we got so many of those alright we've all decided that this is
weird so we're gonna go sit down so we've transitioned from the cold dark
and stormy windy outdoors and we've come back to the office to just chat things
over with why not we said essentially they're in a
state of paralysis at the moment because they have so so so many options so we're
gonna hear from Trenton Ali Amon and I and figure out what we would add to our
van if we had the space so yeah our meet I have a empty shell of the van at the
moment it's a 170 black which is unusual the black canvas maybe we should start
with just us okay because we're actually at a point where we've got the smallest
van possible we definitely want to live this lifestyle long term and we're
starting to feel the itch to maybe have a toilet and shower and I think mainly
the showers brought on by these and it was like oh my opener like this is so
possible yes so possible toilet so for us the next move would probably be a
step up like that
like one of the biggest steps I think that changes it from like a roughing it
in a vehicle to like this is we could survive and just and as long as you have
somewhere to fill up water you and I only have insight into what we would add
should we go to your size yeah so that's why I think it'd be
interesting okay that's a we dice chop tower and toilet
yeah we're touring toilet shower enjoy like I don't know let's go on it either
night to have all that room what would you guys add true who's next
I mean you mean like in addition or in addition to what you know besides like a
sauna
obviously those are things I would love to incorporate um I don't know have you
thought of this if our van was 2 or 3 feet longer a washing machine that could
wash your Wow it's like one of those yeah there is so much it's something
that it looks really cool for water I would probably do two water tanks back
then so probably like 60 something gallons and liters oh please probably 67
gallon and really it would probably not be much more as far as like the the
spaces or the functionality that we have in our van but it would just be more
spaced out yeah I think storage is a big thing like you have your bed you have
your kitchen you have your washroom those are like the necessities that
you're looking at right and then I like that point it's like not about adding
more to it necessarily it's about having the luxury of the space you guys are
interested maybe we can meet up with you guys when you're you know ready to tour
it yeah I can't wait for that day so let us know the comments below if you'd be
interested in that but I think just for now maybe you guys can leave everyone
with some of your priorities and they can also help give their ideas in the
comments about things and layouts and different things like that well we
definitely gonna have the showers yeah anyway we have a little dog so she needs
a space she's the priority she has to have her I'm sorry I don't think I intro
her properly that's what she deserves I feel like we're on one of those HG TV
shows feel like you what's your priority in the house like the dog need to space
but we are open to have the kind of two benches and then make it a bit place we
want to be able to have space to sit down and work and you know invite people
yeah host yeah people basically so that's the key I think if you have that
fixed path which has its own advantage I think we'll lose that yeah definitely
okay well the fix that gives you some storage underneath as well which could
be beneficial if you're like me my club started but you're so right about the
paralysis stage there was so many times during our build where Trent was just in
the sphere of decision making stage where you just stand in there with an
empty shell you don't know what to do first because the opportunities my
question is how many hours have you guys spent just staring at this if you guys
enjoyed our little sneak peek into what life would be like in all three types of
sizes of van they're not types of sizes they're just bad I know it's a little
bit different but if you did enjoy it smash that thumbs up be sure to
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kisses and love alright until next time guys
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