October 2024 - Gas change over, Internal water tank & Garage cupboards
Finally finishing off bits this month that I've been putting off.
I came up with a proper way of boxing in the electrical kit and building a bit of a cupboard/store compartment for the camp chairs, table & outdoor stove etc. Oh yeah, we bought an outdoor stove at last. Also in the garage, we now have a winter safe water tank spliced in.
This auxilary tank is filled from the main fill point on the side of the van too. For those interested; the fill point goes to this aux tank and then out through the bottom of the van to the underslung tank. We have a rubber bung that we can use to block off the pipe down to the underslung during sub-zero temperatures. Now this is going to be rare I admit, but I do want to take this snowboarding at some point!
The aux tank connects to the vent line, has its own pick up line with shut-off valves to select between tank feeds and level sensors all integrated with the existing pumps and electrical systems. So it's seemlessly integrated and gives us an extra 36L of fresh water if we want to go off grid for extended periods. One thing to consider is weight of course, but we are in the process of getting that sorted. I have my C1 licence done and Ellen is doing hers in November, then we need to just activate the uprating process with SVTech.
Couple of extra bits, I've been agonising over what to do about gas for the stove whilst we are away. It only does the stove and outdoor stove. Fridge, heating etc all on electric so no problem there. We nearly went with a Gaslow system but even their reps thought it would be overkill for what we need. At the moment if you recall, we have a normal propane bottle, but the european ones are different and crucially, different dimensions. So we couldnt just leave ours at home and get a French one, for example.
So after some calculations around use, cost, ease of access to canisters etc... we've settled on switching the system to Campingaz for next year. Now obviously these are smaller but they are available over most of western europe. When we go east, we'll have to make sure we have full bottles or rely on the air fryer more, we'll see. But, due to them being smaller and a different adapter, I had to build a secure shelf for the larger bottle to sit on in the locker with room for a smaller one (backup/outdoor stove) underneath.
Another thing is a simple yet common campervan staple; elastic nets everywhere for holding stuff like the window blinds and some easy to grab shoes etc. Storage is at a premium so every little helps!
Next month is our Visa application for France and Ellen's C1 licence. I might even finally get the kick boards done and some doors on the garage cupboards!
