The following is a complete breakdown of the materials and cost for building out the van from scratch. The first table is an overview. Any item in bold in the first table has a more detailed table below covering individual items and associated costs. We spent a total of $7,354 purchasing the van and outfitting it entirely. These numbers do not include any mechanical repairs that were done to the van prior to leaving. We spent close to 5k more replacing the head gasket and having the transmission rebuilt among other things bringing the grand total of the van to approximately 12k.
insulation
The Floor is Finished… Just in Time for the Maiden Voyage!
The floor was tricky. I had a hard time finding good information on other people’s blogs regarding the best way to tackle it. The easiest thing to do would be to screw plywood directly to the frame. I felt that would not be the best solution as penetrating the steel floor with metal would likely lead to rusting issues. Further, it wouldn’t be as insulated or as sound proof as other ideas. What I finally decided to do was a bit entailed. Thankfully I had a couple buddies helping me and was able to get most of the work done in one day after substantial planning and supply shopping (big thanks to Chip and Chris). (more…)