Turning My Cargo Van Into An Off Grid Tiny Home

This post contains affiliate links, which helps support more projects on my website! For my full disclosure policy regarding affiliate links, click here!

Want to see this build in action? You can watch my build video here (+ make sure to subscribe to my channel)!

Tools + Materials + Products

Tools

MAterials

Products

Van to Tiny Home Series

If you want to see how we got to this place in the build be sure to check out what I’ve already done. It’s been a journey friends!

To start things off strong I cut my hand in the lamest way ever with a box cutter and had to get stitches. So that set me back a week until my dad could come assist.

1. Framing

This van has some pre-threaded holes so we’re going to thread some bolts through here in order to frame it out.

The unit that I’m using is called the EcoFlow Independence Kit, it ain’t cheap that’s for sure. But what I like about it is it’s pretty much plug and play. So it comes with all of the wires that you need to plug into the actual unit, and it’s like our power hub, inverter, and everything all in one. Basically we get this on the wall, plug in all the things that charge it, there’s also a separate control panel, and we should be good to go. As I said before, electrical is not a point of confidence for me so that’s why my dad is assisting, he’s going to make sure we get it done correctly.

I’m really grateful my dad is here for this portion of the build because I have so much to learn about electrical. But here we spaced out the kit to see where we needed to build shelving around it.

Then we marked it out, pre drilled some holes, applied adhesive and got framing.

I used my Kreg Rip Cut to cut down the material for the backer.

And then we pretty much immediately took it down because we realized we couldn’t reach the wires. So I decided to make a custom box.

And we also had dad run the tentative wire so we could bundle it and thread it through neatly.

I took over the framing while he worked with the wires.

So, after a day of working in tandem we had some framing done and my dad got some of the wiring done and we had a plan for the next steps.

We took a moment to make sure we really had everything planned out, which was good because we totally forgot a few things.

2. Build Custom Housing for the Electrical System

I originally thought I had way more space than I do, so I decided to put the batteries next to each other and put the inverter hub above so it has room to vent, and the fuse box next to it.

Even though I am totally out of my element here I am lucky enough to be able to use YouTube to find tutorials on how to do things. Dirtbags on the Road made some really cool plans for their housing system, so I used theirs.

I used a hole saw and my jig saw to cut out holes for the wiring.

Then cleaned up the holes with the router.

And made some pocket holes.

Then I assembled it, it was cool to visually see how tall it was, because that’s how high up our bed will be so we can store bikes in the “garage”.

I decided to edgeband the exposed plywood edges to give it a finished look. This is going to be our home away from home and I want it to really reflect us and our aesthetic.

I used halcyon to finish the inside of the cabinet, but I wish I had decided on a cabinet color before installing it into the van. It would’ve been way easier to stain cabinets before they were installed, so please learn from my mistakes.

3. Back to Framing

You all know I always talk about how houses are not straight, well a cargo van is definitely not straight. I ended up cutting notches into my pieces so I could contour them into the ceiling. And although most of the van had pre-assembled threaded insert things, the ceiling did not. So I ended up using a lot of self tapping screws and construction adhesive. There’s some controversy on using self-tapping screws in vans, but they worked for me and they work for some other professional builders out there, so I’m just going to go with it.

After I finally made some good progress on the framing it was time to get more wiring done.

4. Wiring

Thank you Brooklyn Camper Vans, they let me come in and see how some of their vans were wired up so we were able to use those as reference.

While dad worked on getting some of the wires inside the van organized, I worked on getting the wires outside of the van hooked up, including the shore power.

The shore power outlet is how you can plug the van in and charge it up and I kind of had to put it in a weird spot on the outside of the van because of where the components are on the back of the van.

Luckily it lined up perfectly so that even if the side door is open we can still be plugged in and charging.

So I took a hole saw to the exterior and installed the outlet.

Once I wired it up, and plugged it into a surge protector we had power!

So full disclaimer, I purchased this entire electrical system out of pocket and it was not cheap. But I stand by this choice, it was completely worth it. Everything was labeled really clearly so I knew exactly where to plug everything in and it came with this really great diagram to make sure everything was working properly. In hindsight I’m glad I spent the extra money on an all-in-one system, so if something goes wrong on the road I will actually know how to fix it instead of trying to troubleshoot a million different DIY electrical components that I know nothing about. Serious peace of mind.

We plugged in the batteries and they were officially charging!

My dad was done for the day but I continued working so we could get the fan powered by the end of the day.

But when I tried to power it on I got a notice on the display that the fuse didn’t have enough power.

5. Power it Up

Unaka Gear sent me solar panels for the van and they sent me 400 watts of solar and I actually was able to hook up each solar panel individually to the power system so that if one solar panel is in the shade and the other one’s in the sun I’m still able to get full max charge from the one in the sun.

I am super grateful to them for sending me both of those solar panels because it actually ended up charging the rest of this battery system all on its own without me having to plug in the van or start the van, which is huge.

Next was wiring the AC and DC power. AC is just like wiring a house, so I found my groove there.

It was super exciting to be able to plug in and charge my phone.

When it came time for the alternator cable install I had to FaceTime my dad and I was really wishing I had just asked him to do it because I only had one wire and it would be an expensive one to replace.

This was one of those things that I put off for so long because I was intimidated by it. But then once I finally did it, it really didn’t take me that long. Which is always annoying.

So I apparently did it right because I turned on the van and the alternator was charging the batteries, we were officially off-grid!

6. Not Framing or Wiring

A lot of the electrical had to kind of stay as it was for a bit. Most of the wires are for appliances or lighting and they couldn’t fully be finished until the walls went up. So I put a cover on this box to start to finish it and also to keep the dust from falling into the system.

I also wanted to build some of the other cabinets that would go in the “garage”. This is when you could really start to see my vision come to life and maybe get as excited about the next portion of this project as I was.

The van’s window’s let in a lot of natural light but because it gives a perfect view into where we will be living I wanted to create as much privacy as possible.

So we tinted the windows. It actually made working on the inside a bit more difficult because I don’t have lights set up yet, but we’ll fix that soon.

I really wanted to give Vanna White a proper garage for all of the cool things that she’ll be toting around, so I built out a couple of shelves to go next to the electrical box and I also built a box for the plumbing system but we’re not going to go too in depth with that quite yet. We’ll get there friends.

7. Closing in the Bed + Garage Space

While I was waiting for some lumber to be delivered for the electrical system cabinet doors I kept building for the rest of the bed/garage.

I finally decided on a finish, Rubio Monocoat’s Precolor which still let the grain of the wood come through but is strong enough to handle all of the gear that will be going into and out of the garage, like bikes and shoes, etc.

I’m not going to lie, getting stain on a couple of cabinets really helped bring my vision for this van to life.

Then I wiped the finish over the prestain.

And then I also stained these cabinets.

And then it was official, we closed up the garage and no longer had an open concept floor plan. Things got tiny real fast!

8. Finishing the Cabinets

Once the lumber came in I put in this shelf to store different cycling accessories.

I did not love installing these cabinet doors, I probably should’ve cut grooves into the plywood before assembling the boxes but oh well…I did finally get them installed.

Let’s Review

You guys! I could not be more excited about being finished with the garage! It makes me so excited to keep working on the van, which is good because we are on a very tight timeline and there is a lot still to do. But I am finally starting to see my vision come to life and I can’t wait to share the next parts with you all. Doing the electrical was such a big hurdle and now that we are over it we can start to work on the parts of this project that feel very me. We’ll be doing the plumbing, which includes the shower, the bathroom and the sink, as well as some other fun details. I can’t wait to really turn this van into our tiny home! Stay tuned so see how it all turns out, and until then Happy DIYing Friends!