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Hi, I'm Matt Sanda and this is my van Ruby.
I just wanted to adventure more and save on rent.
Living in West Seattle paying twenty six hundred a month for a condo
didn't really appease me so I decided to get a van and completely cut that expense out.
I found Ruby on Craigslist. That whole process took me about, give or
take, a year. Looking every day at various vans. Going from Sportsmobiles up to
Sprinter vans, non built out, built out. I chose to buy on that was already built
out because I didn't necessarily have the time to build one out and I didn't really
know what I needed. I was in the boat between like getting a Unimog, just like
a Sportsmobile or Sprinter van because I knew that the van, or whatever I was going to get,
was going to be my home for an extended amount of time. So I wanted one to fit my
needs and after a lot of research I found one. Negotiated a great price.
Probably would have come out to the same as building one out. If I were to do it
again I would have just bought the shell, put an air mattress in the back, and slowly
built it as I went along.
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So this is Ruby. She's a 2006 Dodge 2500 Sprinter van. Got it with the Mercedes logo on.
She has 180 thousand miles and run like she's brand new. So this is my Plasti Dip job.
I would have done it 100% differently. I did it in the sun, which you're not supposed to do.
I just did it in lines just straight from the can and it streaked
really bad and gave it like this grittiness from the heat and everything.
If I were to do it different I would either just pay someone to do it or just go
straight Rhino Lining, full van. The hood wasn't in that good of shape and I was
scared of little little places rusting and just gave it more of an
aggressive look with the black hood and the black rims. Accents it quite a bit.
Better than just plain white. Underneath I got a 46 gallon fuel tank. Average like
24 miles to the gallon so almost upwards of a thousand miles a tank. It's nice
knowing that you can go that kind of distance without having to worry about
running out of gas. Come around back here this is one of the doors. We've got the
propane heat shower. 100% the shower is worth getting. It's amazing. It's good for
cleaning off gear if it's salty or if you have muddy bikes or if you just want to
take a shower. It's a little one-pound tank. If you're running sometimes if it's hot enough
in the van it'll heat up the water and you won't have to run the heater at all, but
that will last, give or take, three months. How you set this up is you got the
little quick disconnect fitting and then you come over here, slide it underneath, hook it
in, turn the propane on. Turn the water on, have it prime. Hit the switch. You got a shower.
You've got different different nozzles so you can clean off your van if you even
want to. All right, it's really hot right now.
It does it's job well and then always make sure you turn off that spark or else you'll be
driving and you'll hear a spark and it's kind of sketchy cause it
might burn down your van. Then all you do is just undo the disconnector, have it
spray you in the face, and wind it back up and hang it up. Shut the propane off.
That's ideal too. Got a big seven foot deep garage.
This is 33 inches and I want to raise it more. I want to get 36 out of it so I can
fit my downhill mountain bike straight up in it all the way. Got 1800 watt
inverter, 25 gallon water tank, which is ideal. Two 240 amp hour batteries and then
another set of two 240 amp hour batteries in the corner over there. So
in all I got a 960 amp hours of battery. 500 watts of solar on the top - two 250's.
And, there we go...golden. Here's the engine. Turbo diesel. Here's the
isolator that charges my house batteries. Here's the AC that they just, oh, it's
melted to this now, but they just zip tied it off and put some electrical
tape on it. I tried to charge it. I went to Auto Pros and I bought the little AC
charge and I put it on there and I was holding it for a good five minutes
before I actually looked down and realized it was just all shooting out of
this hose right here. I texted the guy who I bought it from and I was like,
"This doesn't have AC?" and he was like, "Oh no we took it out for increased power." I was like, all right.
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So inside I've got my little cutting board here that pulls out and my double propane stove.
This is just a drawer that holds pots and pans with a beefy magnet
that pulls it back, but we just use the lock for extra safety measures. After I
went off-roading and everything kind of shifted and flew to one side of the van.
Got some more storage down here. I've got Pop Tarts and then in here is my 12 pound
propane tank. Underneath here we got the diesel heater that's pulling straight to
the gas tank. I can run that for 24 hours straight and it will only use like half
a gallon of diesel and it, it's like an oven in here when you turn it on. Here's the
the controller over here. You just turn that on. When you're sitting down in the
morning with the table out, all it does is radiate heat up on you. You're sweating on
a nice cold day.
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Over here you just got drawers that hold silverware. And then
you've got the sink and garbage underneath. And then the sink top also
doubles as a cutting board and got the sink with a 12 volt marine grid water pump.
I have to fill up water probably once every two weeks. Got the Dometic DC
compressor fridge with assortment of food in there and this is my little
pantry up here. Ideal piece of equipment for van life is a dust cleaner to clean
off your hood or your dashboard, batteries, laptop, solar charger. Same with superglue.
Favorite part of the van is my little closet that I have right here.
These both fold up and come out and you can hang your clothes or put various other
objects in there and that's my wardrobe. Then the same thing over here.
This one's a little bit bigger, but that just holds sweatshirts and stuff.
I decided to keep these folded down so I wouldn't have to put them up every time
I wanted to grab a sweatshirt or something.
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This is the doorway to the garage. Good for putting paddle boards along or surfboard through.
Got the little cassette toilet which I would
highly recommend going away from because it is nasty dumping that thing.
I'm looking at getting a composting toilet. I'm going to take one of these sections
right here, retrofit a composting toilet in there and then cut a hole right there
for the tank to just slide out and for easy dumping and everything. It's a queen-size
bed with four inches of foam and then springs underneath for extra comfort.
Another thing I would like to change is all the siding. There's like a million
and five screws in here so I can either put some like burnt wood up
in full-length pieces or I am just going to say I'll keep it and put some little
glow paint on each one of the screws and so when you turn the lights off, it's like the
night sky. Just lights up.
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Advice I would say just go for it. Definitely do your
research. You don't want to get something that you, down the road, figure out that you absolutely hate.
Establish a budget. Figure out what your needs are and what you'd
all be putting in the van. It's okay to be different so I mean if you're miserable
at your job, quit. Just make sure you have some financials saved up. It's scary at
first and then when you transition the first week is just the most stress-free
week you can imagine. My message is just do what you want.
Don't be afraid to get off the path of being normal.
Sure, a lot of people think it's impractical and stupid to live in a van,
but they don't do it and they don't realize the kind of freedom you have and
it really helps you out with like gaining more financial freedom. If you
pay it all up all you have to pay for is insurance and cell phone and gas. Easily
able to keep it under a thousand a month. If you have a stable job that's good for
putting money away and you have a lot of money for travel. Go cheap at first until
you figure out what you really want and definitely go for it. I mean I'm 21
years old and I've never been happier than living in my van. Just having the
freedom and more financial freedom and just the drive to be able to go anywhere
and wake up at the beach and open the back doors and see the ocean first thing in
the morning or up in the mountains and see the snow-capped mountains. I mean, just go for it.