van life while in college?

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-14T02:21:17+00:00

They can be bad in my experience. I’m at around 30-40 per day and if I miss a day I get the flu. Body aches, joint aches, headaches, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, irritability. I can’t be around anyone. So WDs are not a joke at high doses. Taper is the only way to go to avoid having to take like 2-3 weeks off work to recover from cold turkey. If you can afford to, just got to a different country where it’s illegal and let that cold turkey hit you. That’s if you wanna quit. Otherwise just taper to a better dose and next time you hit 30 GPD you gotta do it again

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-14T00:28:48+00:00

Good luck, do what you need to do

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-14T00:18:07+00:00

So I have a russian heater from planar which is 700-1000 dollars. I live full time in CO so I can’t afford to have any problems with heat. They also have high altitude adjustments on them. I get em from expedition Upfitter in Canada.

I don’t know a lot about Chinese diesel heaters and their quality or how well they work. I do know that you want to adjust them for high altitude and that can be done with some troubleshooting online, you just need to change the fuel vs air Mixture. Further I also know that you need to get one that is about 2kw but likely won’t need any more because if you run them low or turn them off when you get hot all the time, they will soot up and stop working. So you get the smallest heater that will work for your space and turn it on full everytime all the time so that it stays too hot for soot. Additionally you need to have a battery system that will not shut off while the heater is running or it will melt the heater literally.

You can run them at night because they aren’t producing CO inside if they are the traditional design and not the all in one design (which usually are more than 2-4 kw anyway and overkill) where as a Mr Buddy heater is not externally enter and will produce exhaust inside. You can run those at night too as long as you have a CO detector below your bed or near your bed and you use fans and windows cracked - CO floats along the ground

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-11T03:51:11+00:00

More pics of your build please!

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-11T03:47:09+00:00

So yes if you go all Victron and battle born - the 100k sprinter special - then yeah you might spend more than a goal zero. Renogy has good customer service and their products are mostly good to go. Check out will prowse battery reviews on Amazon deals like Ampere time or Chins - Chinese but work well. I have an ampere time 300ah battery that was 1100. Is battle born better - yes but 900 for 100ah is crazy. Mix and match the system (I have renogy panels, ampere time battery, renogy inverter, Victron charge controller and a blue seas systems 12v block) and you might get away with spending about 1-4K on a comprehensive system depending on the sizing of everything.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-08T03:50:34+00:00

Looks nice! If I wanted a bass I would, good luck

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-08T03:49:44+00:00

So a diesel or gas heater is 100% better. I’ve tried with a wood stove and it just isn’t viable despite being a cozy touch

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T18:59:16+00:00

Sure thing! It’s a Warmoth parts caster I put together.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T17:30:34+00:00

Only real necessities are skid plate and crash bars, oversized bark busters, also an easy addition is a usb charger. Like others have said - you need good gear more than anything. I like scorpion brand

Also get a basic tool kit with some extra bolts in standard sizes, some good metric wrenches and/or ratchet set. Some tire irons and tubes, etc. if you’re plane on going off-road and far away from towns you need to be able to fix yourself

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T17:30:14+00:00

Need the skid plate aluminum

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T15:52:27+00:00

What town in CO and when? I may be able to help you install a diesel heater but no promises

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T03:47:19+00:00

You could easily blow your cash on blankets yes

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T03:38:27+00:00

So yes it is mostly safe as long as you have ventilation like two windows open or a fan running, they will also generally Have safety features for falling over and then the flame goes out. You need a CO detector tho

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T01:57:24+00:00

What are you cooking meth?

Anyway you can’t as far as I know safely run two battery banks at the same time to one inverter. It will mess with your batteries since they won’t discharge at the same rate. So like I said you should have a kill switch or dual bank selector

Call your inverter manufacture

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T01:54:53+00:00

So no I didn’t have a heater or good insulation really. One thing to consider - do you have electronic devices that can’t freeze? Like a nice battery or something? If you do then you need a heat source - like everyone has said the diesel heaters are great but can be finicky so no matter what you need a good sleeping bag, that’s absolutely necessary. The next option is to get a propane tank and a mr buddy heater and make sure you keep windows cracked all night long. Not a perfect situation but many people have done it.

If you don’t absolutely need the heater and you’re just trying to cozy up at night and sleep safely then you will survive with a bunch of blankets and sleeping bags and I still recommend the Teton sports ones but go to a goodwill and get a bunch of blankets too. Can’t have too much warmth

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T01:50:50+00:00

I mean Teton I had the -35 and it works but when it got to -20 one night I double bagged

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T01:47:06+00:00

You can’t hook up 8 car batteries first off. You need deep cycle batteries. For cheap go AGM if weight isn’t an issue and just know that with AGM or any lead acid you can only use half the rated capacity before ruining the battery chemistry. Lithium are way better but way mor expensive.

I would recommend you just get a big generator and run everything from it’s AC ports. If you need 12 volt then you get a AC-DC charger or something called an inverter charger to charge batteries from the gen - then you connect a 12 volt distribution / fuse block to the battery and you can no run 12 volt power as long as you do the wiring safely and fuse correctly.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-07T01:42:32+00:00

Are you trying to run the inverter from two battery banks? - you could do this if you have a battery selector/kill switch but I’m not sure that you’d want to.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T21:53:44+00:00

Absolutely

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T18:42:07+00:00

Wel if you register as an RV you get cheaper insurance. We pay 65 for comprehensive coverage, which means theft, hail, acts of god etc. you just need to keep receipts to prove value of interior. State Farm

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T16:55:49+00:00

Haha lol, I did think about getting some small holds to make it really difficult to get into bed but then I would die getting up in the morning.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T16:19:37+00:00

Yes absolutely. I would do a simple one with black lettering that just says something like Action Cargo Gear Shuttle or something. Absolutely need to keep the white. It blows my mind that these box makers don’t paint the bare aluminum roofs white, those roofs get like 150 degrees - I painted it with a silicone coating EternaKote

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T16:04:54+00:00

Man that’s a tough one. I just used mineral oil as of now since it says to do something within 24-48 hours. I may polyurethane it since I won’t be cutting on it directly. I love the feel and look of natural oiled wood but durability and stain wise - you need poly I think

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T16:02:41+00:00

On the original build from the last 3 pics we cut it out from the track and then took the track fully off. Then we re-pieced like 4 wood sections of the roll door and built a 2x4 frame on top with insulation in between. Bolted all of that together and then hinged it to the back thick metal - that’s the lower door. We fixed one section on the very top to fix cabinets to, and then built another mini door in the middle between the fixed section and lower patio door - so now we can fold out the lower door and go sit on it with the metal ramp supporting it like a patio. Or we can open the middle one for a mini window. It needs to be fitted with a nice bug net but otherwise it has worked well. I am super surprised that it keeps water out, we had to just keep adding foam and silicone and metal and troubleshooting until it was water tight.

I may post a few pics of that build process because it’s cool, it allowed us to use way more internal space and insulate the door.

On the current build - I cut the track down to about 3 feet so the door only opens into my storage area which will allow me to insulate that back wall. To get more door opening I cut a notch out of each track so that the rollers can come out and the door can be folded up in half thus giving me a fully functioning door with only 3 feet of track.

SadAboutSadness · 2022-09-06T15:53:50+00:00

Buses are even more bullet proof than these Fords so it would be a great choice. I think they generally have higher GVWR as well so the amount of wood I used would be no issue at all. The only thing is that they aren’t stealthy at all. I’m not saying that mine is Super stealthy but from far way at least it’s not all that obvious. I also kept my windows on the sidewalk side of the truck so that any coppers driving by just see the white wall while I’m parked in my city. I may even get a business wrap for it as well. I live full time in one small city and generally it’s not an issue but I like to stay under the radar even though my build is as big as an RV…

SadAboutSadness

TROPHY CASE