Electrical & Plumbing

The first step in building an electrical system is to estimate your daily consumption of electricity. We calculated these values based on the highest current pull from our various appliances. The excel sheet below helped with these calculation and provided us with a decent understand of which components we should purchase including a 400W inverter, 200Ah battery supply, two 100W solar panels, battery temperature sensor, and a 240W DC-to-DC charger. Of course, realistically you wouldn't be running all your devices at high brightness, with the fan and heater on at full speed, while the lights are glaring down on you, but it's a good estimate that you can play with in way. Keep in mind, if you have lead-acid batteries, they should never be drained below 50%.

Once we had a solid understanding of the components we needed for our lifestyle, it was onto wiring them all together. Digi-Key has a nice free online program that was really helpful for drawing up the schematic as shown below. We used 8 gauge wires to connect the main components and then 12 gauge for connecting the breaker box to the various appliances in-house.

In the garage space we installed the white water inlet in-line with a 4-step filtration process. First, there was a strainer for larger debris. Since we used public water sources, this was useful for blocking leaves or even animals that would get inside after long periods of disuse. Next, we had a 5 micron sediment filter, followed by a 0.5 micron carbon filter. The fourth filter was installed in the main living area under the sink. This was a GE full-flow filter designed to also filter at 0.5 micron, but also significantly reduce traces of lead. We used a 50 psi Flojet pump which had switches located next to the faucet as well as in the garage near the white water inlet. This was designed so that we could use the pump from the garage as a means to hose off bikes or feet along with usage as an outdoor shower. For our fresh water supply, we had a 20 gal holding tank and for the grey, a 5 gal tank, both from Class A Customs. A through-hole was drilled into the floor of the van to serve as a means of easily dumping the grey water while staying inside of the van. The vent line was 3/8", water inlet was 1.5", water feed to pump was 3/8", and the dump line was 1.5". All connections used hose barb fittings except for the interior filter which used a push to connect and a hose bib for the garage hose connection, T-ing off before the sink. All plumbing lines were flexible poly food-grade level hoses.