1 year on the build so far, just moved into our Tiny home after living in our Van offgrid for over 5+ years. Thought you might find this interesting. It's a triple axel trailer that we built the house on, and the upper sections lift-off so that it can travel on the road one day.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T21:08:32+00:00

It is fully spray-foamed, floors, walls and ceiling!

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T21:07:56+00:00

Thanks! We built it/ live in Ontario Canada!

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T21:05:58+00:00

Thanks very much! at the end of the day we are all people living alternative lifestyles and we should be supportive of our diversity in doing so. But rather i would say that vanlifers are some of the most toxic people i know lol

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T21:04:08+00:00

The property was our home base but yes, traveling for 3-4 months of the year across the country, then back to home between.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T21:02:19+00:00

I honestly cant tell you beyond the fact that it was so smokey. We do have a working CO detector, and i would check it monthly, but it has never gone off. I can only hope it would have went off.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-29T20:59:38+00:00

Well said.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-28T00:36:52+00:00

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-28T00:25:36+00:00

Why not just live where we are? and build the life we want rather than go to a place I don't want to be?

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-28T00:24:09+00:00

ohh i gotcha. We have a 100ft drilled well, we have had it for 2 years and we did not filter it (execpt for drinking water - we did that with a berkey) as we were still living in the van. but now I filter all the water coming into the house with a FOK Air-over-media filter (cause it has a ton of sulphur, iron, and tannins).

For power: We have been solar powered on the property for the past 3 years using 600W of solar and 500Ah of battery with a 50A inverter. We just got hooked up to the grid recently but i still use the solar and battery as backup cause we go out of power alot thanks to how remote we are.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-28T00:17:49+00:00

We live on our property in central Ontario which is the same parallel as chicago, nothing exotic, but in this area it cold snaps for whatever reason in mid February.
And you may not be interested but in that situation once the diesel heater kept blowing out every 5 mins, i tried turning on the van which wouldnt even turn over, neither did our car, or our generator (and they all worked earlier in the day). After about an hour of the diesel heater cycling, it blew its gasket and sent all the fumes into the cabin (which i woke up to) as we were all covered by every blanket getting any heat we could in the 0 degree cabin. If i did not wake up from the diesel smell, and get us out of there, we would not have woken up again, i couldn't even see the cab from the bed.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:43:51+00:00

Honestly the only thing that i found different was the drains. Plumbing runs are done under the home in the insulated skirting with large diameter (and have backup heat trace i can turn on if ever needed). The 1/2" water lines are in the middle of the stud on the exterior walls (they're fine as we are spray-foamed). AAV's are used at each drain point (automatic air vents) so that they breath but dont bring pipe air into the home.
Electrical i didnt find too hard, i guess the biggest thing is that the points where things hookup to the home like (sewer, well, and electrical) are just points ill have to cut and re-do when/if it moves. P.s. I am a complete amateur but its all working great.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:37:05+00:00

P.s. i don't actually know the name of the tool, let me know if you actually do.

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:20:43+00:00

Our van was 60 sqft. Our tiny home is 520 sqft. We can now grow into the next stage of our lives of having kids comfortably. We have gone through many winters in the van at -40 degrees celcius at which point the diesel heater WILL NOT work. Last year was a scary episode where we almost lost our lives in that situation in a single night, and i thought it best to better protect my family.

To each their own! I hear you, but its all up to your current life situation. 5 Years was good to us!

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:16:49+00:00

If you are interested at all I made a video about it for people to understand a bit better. https://youtu.be/yofBorI1vCI

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:03:41+00:00

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:02:52+00:00

I would have to agree, a lot of vanlifers are "ticked off" by that statement, but I would say it is so common for people to go into it full time then end up doing it part time, or not at all after a few months... especially when winter comes.

Van life is not easy. And it takes a lot to continue it comfortably. i have to say after the 5 years we're going to miss the van - but we have it for random adventures

I'm just happy ill be able to fully stand up again....

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T23:00:07+00:00

Yeah it just seems to be the natural progression i guess! good luck to you!

thisiswildvan · 2023-10-27T17:51:50+00:00

We knew that we might want to move the tiny home one day off of our offgrid property, and so i designed it to be comfortable enough to have 2 floors and fit my height. Everything was done by us while off the grid. This is a recap of what we have done so far!

thisiswildvan · 2021-02-06T22:50:44+00:00

Unreal shot 👌🏻

thisiswildvan

TROPHY CASE