VAN LIFE BUILD_ Insulation and Electrical Prep

Hi, we're Stephen and Jess and this is our baby Hunter. A goal of ours for 2021 is to see more of our beautiful home country of Australia. So we decided to pursue this dream and buy a van to convert it into a tiny home on wheels. We just bought a van. Welcome to our new home. So after a couple of hiccups and a slow start to the build, our empty cargo van needed a couple of windows. One might be in the wrong spot. We then placed our flooring down, got a chair put in for our newest adventurer, before stopping work for a couple of Christmas festivities. It's now the first week of 2021, and the van build is officially going full steam ahead with insulation and electricals going in this week. No more distractions. You guys need to say it again. What are you guys doing? As I was watching that vlog, couldn't be away from Hunter anymore. Dad's on the phone. He's booking tickets to come over. We'll be there in two days. Two days. And you've already booked the flights before you even told me? Hunter, do you want to see me, mom, granddaddo? So this morning I got a call from my parents asking us, you know, how we're going and stuff. And then they just like to mention right at the end of the call, oh, by the way, we've booked flights and we're coming to your house in two days to stay for 10 days. Um, didn't even warn us. They've already booked the flight. So now we're trying to wrap our head around how are you going to fit all these people in our house? Because currently my brother also lives with us. Hello, Dobby. We're here to steal your bed. Is it bedtime? Stealing the bed. See that mattress right there? That's Jake's new home. This feels very strange because if I told myself two days ago that I'll be right here right now, two days later, waiting for my parents to come from the airport, I wouldn't believe them. Like this is like the best way to start 2021. It's a surprise visit from Meemaw and Grandaddo. So we've been turning this house upside down to fit them all in. Oh no, it smashed the front thing. Finally, our guest room has actually been being used lately. So we've kicked Jake out. Meemaw and Grandaddo, they're going to be staying in here and we've set them up like a little basket of all their favorite things for them when they arrive. And then we've kicked Jake into Hunter's room. So we've chucked a mattress in here and Hunter, she's currently having a nap, but we're going to be having a slumber party with Hunter for the next week. Hello, Hunter, who's here, come in. Hello. Remember at the 41 second mark when Jess said, no more distractions. And then we got a little bit distracted, but now we are heading in to do the van build. Well, this feels very weird right now. Today, we are working back on the van and we've left baby Hunter with her Meemaw and Grandaddo. And to be honest, I think Meemaw is pretty happy to get one-on-one time with Hunter. And I'm so excited because this is my first time that I get to dig my hands, get them dirty and start building this van. There's Cooper, how are you? Well, happy New Year 2021. Yeah, is it? My parents went out, they're looking after the baby. So I was like, I'll come down today. How are you? Oh yeah, another year. Yeah, did you have a good Christmas? Not too bad, not long enough. Yeah, never long enough. Alrighty, it's 2021. It's a brand new year. The van build is in full swing. Today, we're working on insulation and electrical. So lots gonna get done. All right, one of probably many trips to Bunnings. Today's insulation day. So we need to go and get a couple of bags of insulation. Short people problems right here. So see, I did say I wanted to get my hands dirty. Oh my gosh, tearing down Bunnings. Do you reckon we need gloves? Do you reckon? So I'm starting to think that I should have probably worn long pants or long sleeves because I'm about to jump right into insulation. Let's mask it up, goggle it up and glove it up. Oh yeah, cuts are easy. All right, first piece, let's do this. So we went to Bunnings. There's a couple of different options. It was roof, there was floor and we've gone for the wall R2.7. Australia gets really hot in the summer. So gonna make sure we pack this in tight. So we can be cool in the summer and warm when it actually cools down a bit. The wall's great because it's so malleable because there are so many different shapes here. We've got a triangle here. We've got a bit of a square over here with bits of metal coming in. So being able to just kind of shove it because you want it as compact as possible. But it actually works, you know, on any like holes so that warmth and cool can leak through. It's the middle of summer here in Perth. It is hot in here. Underneath this mask and goggles is a swimming pool. It's like 35 degrees today. Have you been working on this for like not even half an hour and you've done so much? I don't know, look at you. I think I did some of that as well. I should get to work. Yeah, and when we do those ones, we'll put, when we put the sheets on, we'll put them on. So it'll really fill that gap. Okay, because it was hard to get them in. So I'll just do that for the moment, okay. Pretty much we'll put the sheets on there Yeah, that's cool. It's all poking out, that's fine. Okay, cool. Awesome. Alrighty, bunch of goodies that we've ordered has come in. We've got power outlets. Oh, converter. More fans to try and keep us as cool as possible. LED lamps, fresh water pump. And this big boy is our lithium battery. That is heavy. Oh, so you can lock it off too. Oh, look, it even comes with a little hot and cold water tap. That's awesome. And you pretty much hang it in there. Oh, and then you can hang it on. So you can stand underneath the shower. Yeah. That's awesome. I didn't know what that was going to look like. Yeah, neither. Sure, you might be able to get like another holder. Okay. Because that'll be right there. Depending on where it's going to go, you might have to have one up higher. Yeah. I bet you can actually probably get one that has a suction cup or something. And you can suction cup one higher up and pop it in. Yep. Nice. So cool. I like how you can lock it off too. So people aren't going in. Oh, it actually says shower on it. That's so cool. All right, already one bag down. Another one in. What a job. Crazy thing. It's like such a small hole, but you're shoving so much in there. Alrighty. I feel like we've done as much insulation as we can today. And yes, I'm currently very itchy. We've, well, we've done most of it. It's just these bits are so thin that I feel like we're going to put them on and then quickly put the walls on and same as the roof. But now seeing as insulation is kind of done, we are doing electrical. So we just had a big meeting and told them where we kind of want to do our lights and our power sockets and everything. And then I'm guessing some above the bed, but then the air con will be there. So we'll have to do more back. And we still got that one. Yeah, that's true. And now we're going to start, I guess, learning today how electrical systems work. We're going to be starting to run wires. And I just feel like the van build is in full swing now. It's crazy when you actually come and see it on a kind of commercial kind of massive scale because you just have these insane wires. Alrighty. So first up with electrical, we're going to be doing our six down lights. So we've got two at the front, two in the middle and two white above the beds where I'm standing. Now, because we have little Hunter, we want to be able to control the lights separately. So just say she's sleeping. We want to make it dark, but we want to either do work or we want to, you know, cook a meal down towards the front end of the van. We want them to be running separately so we can switch off lights individually. So that's what we're doing right now. This video is brought to you by Skillshare, a massive online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people. You can learn new skills, develop on your existing interests, and even get lost in a bit of creativity. With over 30,000 classes, you can easily find something new to learn made by professionals, teachers, and even fellow content creators. If you don't know where to start, I always get asked, how do I stay so motivated and productive? Well, you definitely have to check out Real Productivity, How to Build Habits that Last by Thomas Frank. Wanting to learn to cook? Check out Inspired Cooking by Paul Lebrant. And then once I'm done there, I think I need to check out Plants at Home by Christopher Griffith. This definitely needs some TLC. So for the first 1000 people to use the link in our description, we'll get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership. And then after that, it's just $10 a month. Now let's head back to the van build. Alrighty, everybody. It's the next day. You've just got me. Jess is currently hanging out with her parents just while they're still here for the next few days. I think they sent me a video that they were just chilling on the beach. Such a nice day here without Stephen. It's lovely. Gone down to Mullaloo Beach. Daddy's free. This morning, Andy's gone through and he's pretty much placed all of the wires through the van. So yesterday when we planned out where we want power, he's gone through and actually just placed the wires and then they've all kind of just lent through. He's found little places he can kind of put them into and it's going to go down to the fuse box. I think the thing I'm most excited about this van build is actually learning all of these things. I'm 30 and I know nothing when it comes to electrical, water, any of this stuff. So it's kind of cool. I didn't realise you just unwind the cable, just snip what you need, make sure there's more than enough slack on there. See, power light one runs all the way through there and then we chase it down there. Power light one. I remember Andy saying day one when I came in here, he said building a van is just simply problem solving. So we don't have a water heater in just yet. So he's looked up the dimensions online, just made a little makeshift box, going to move it around, see where it's placed and then run the electrical to it. Also real quick, this is when you realise, oh you have heaps of space in a van but when big boxes like this start coming in, you're like, wow, this space is going to get filled up so quickly. It's really cool just starting to walk through here and even though you feel like a little bit of a kid with the cardboard boxes, it really helps you visualise the space just by spending five, 10 minutes just to pop it in to see whether you need a bigger or smaller size. This fridge is about 670 by almost 1200 mil. So it's definitely a bigger fridge. This is a really cool idea. Make a couple of cardboard boxes up so you can really just see what you're working with. I think before we go into the next spot, it's pretty warm in here, I think we need to cool down. Wow, look at all this mum. Welcome to our new home. Oh, it's gorgeous. It's looking a bit under construction at the moment. But at least you guys can see it. So when we drive to Cairns... That's it. You can see the... We can see where all the wiring is. Yeah, and then you'll know when we switch on that light. That's the very light. Alrighty, last day to work on the van for the week. What I've actually done now is, I don't know if you guys can actually see but the paneling just here where you can kind of get windows cut out of. As you can see, there's a bit of a lip. So you almost want to have these ribs that Andy's kind of measured up, cut up and put on there. So it's a bit more stable. So when we do put our wall on, it's not gonna wobble in the middle there. So that was a really good idea. We placed it here, just towards the back here. And then also where all the electrical are. As you can see, this one here at the back has way more stability on here because there's gonna be a bunk bed there for Hunter when she gets a bit older. So this one definitely more stability because we would hate for the bunk bed to fall on us at night. Seriously, today's episode is about learning so much stuff. So I didn't realize, so this is the 240 volt. As you can see, it's way thicker. Now the 240 volt, we can run like laptops, fridges, everything that's way more powerful. 12 volts is what you'd expect like phones to charge on. But because this can either get hot, there's also metal here. You wouldn't want it to be rubbing up against it. So genius idea, got some, we call it like concrete, I think it's called. I'll put up the name, got it wrong. And then he kind of just got a wire to just sift it through there so that it's in extra protection because it already has this one over the cables and then double protection as well. And then he's just gone and just put it straight through to the other side. But that kind of brings us to the end of this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. It was really awesome to finally get started on the van, get our hands dirty. We're pretty much going straight forward till this van is done. Make sure you check out our Instagram, CooperTheVan to see little snippets, updates as it goes. But thanks so much for watching guys and being part of this dream journey of ours, building this little van into a tiny home. We really appreciate all the support. Thank you guys so much. We will see you next time. Bye.