HOW TO BUILD A CAMPER VAN:

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In this section we’ll cover :

How much a van build costs
Camper van layouts
How to choose a good base vehicle

Let’s get started.

Questions

Before even thinking about buying a van there’s so many things to consider, and asking yourself some of these questions will help you gain a clearer picture of your ideal outcome:

Will you be living full time or part time in your van?
How many people will be living in there? Any pets?
How tall are the occupants?
What will you be using the van for? Working? Travelling? Surfing? Climbing?
Do you need to carry gear such as surfboards, bikes or kayaks?

Do you want a fixed bed or a convertible one?
Do you want a bathroom, a full kitchen, or a garage?
Would you prefer windows for natural light, or no windows for added security?
Do you need a van that can get around width and height restrictions on car parks?

The answers to these questions will determine what size and type of van you should buy, how much storage you’ll need, what facilities will make living easier and more comfortable and so many more.

Our top recommendation if you don’t know where to begin with choosing a van is to hire one out, or hire a few different types even! (Try Quirky Campers, or Goboony for camper hire). After a few days of living in a van you will get a good feel for which facilities and layouts work for you and which don’t. We’ve learned so much since building our LDV back in 2015 that we have been constantly modifying it and improving it since and adapting it to our ever-changing lifestyles.

View on Airbnb Campervan/Motorhome in Cornwall · ★4.88 · 1 bedroom · 2 beds · 1.5 bathrooms

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Choosing a base van

The next step is a rather exciting one- choosing the van that you will be converting into a home. Your choice will ultimately depend on factors such as distance, price and availability, but there’s a few things you should keep an eye out for when committing to buy a van, even if you know nothing about vehicles.

A good place to start is to check the van’s MOT history on the gov.uk website; keep an eye out for advisories regarding rust around the chassis and anything underneath the van or any recurring problems. Do your research online and find out what common problems arise with the type of van you’re looking at. Check out things such as the fuel consumption and availability of parts. Check the mileage too; this is a good indicator of the actual age of the van.

*The MOT checker on UK government website is a great tool for checking any UK registered vehicle’s history.*

Avoid ex-fleet vehicles like delivery vans as these are typically abused by their drivers and rack up a high mileage very quickly; minibuses can be a good choice if they’ve had regular servicing which many do. Tail lifts can be dismantled and sold on to generate cash for your build. Cargo vans are also a good choice although they don’t typically come with windows, which can be a positive or a negative depending on your aims.

*Fleet vehicles are often serviced regularly, but will usually have high mileage and issues further down the line.*

When it comes to actually viewing the vehicle in person, don’t be intimidated! Have a good visual inspection for any areas of rust and whether they seem manageable, feel the gears, the brake pedal and clutch; if you already drive a car, you should get a sense if the gears feel clunky or the brake pedal feels spongy. Listen to the engine for squeaking, rattling or rough idling.

If buying an LDV, check that there’s not a broom pole holding up the roof like ours had. Or a makeshift drawer filled with tins of German stew and soiled ladies’ underwear.

Common problems to look out for with LDVs are rust around the steps, sills and roof join, leaks in the foot wells, windows and roof if it’s fiberglass. Don’t be deterred; most LDVs come with water in the foot wells (we’ve covered this topic in detail over on our rust and leaks page).

As a general rule we wouldn’t advise paying much over £1200 for a base LDV Convoy, or any more than £2500 - £3000 absolute most for a converted LDV; they are simply not worth much money as vans, and are more prone to rust than many others, although they do seem to be on their way to gaining status as a modern classic, mostly owing to the large numbers of them appearing in scrapyards.

There’s often a debate between LDV owners about the best engine in an LDV Convoy as they were produced with many different engines: there’s the Peugeot 2.5L engine, the Ford 2.5 Di “banana” engine (from a MK5 Transit) and the 2.4L Ford Transit Duratorq “Durashite)” (MK6 Transit). While the two Ford engines are largely superior, and the banana engine fanatics claim it goes on forever (although slowly), we’ve stuck happily by our Ford Duratorq engine and it has done us exceedingly well over the past five years.

For more information on LDV-specific problems and comparisons, head over to our Mechanical page.

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Budget

Budget is another one of these things that can easily run away. We’re guilty of trying to balance our van build budget with our travel fund and cutting corners as a result.

A basic van build will cost significantly less than one with all the mod-cons and gadgets, and there will always be a budget mid-range or top of the range option to choose from. Try to balance budget with quality, spending more on materials that will last for many years instead of having to replace them every year (like batteries) while scrimping more in areas that aren’t as important. This is all down to personal choice, though.

We tend to use a lot of secondhand items to keep costs down, and also because reusing and repurposing used items is better for the planet. Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and Shpock are all great websites for finding bargains, but you can also try carboots, reclamation yards and industrial estates; these are particularly good for finding free wood such as pallets.

Our LDV van conversion cost us in total £1,000 initially, and then another £1,600 in improvements as we added more cladding and insulation, an oven, better batteries and more storage. Our build was done on a shoestring budget but it still turned out beautifully and the secondhand materials we used only added more quirks and charm.

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Design

A good design at this point of your plan will make the whole build run smoothly and allows you to see where any errors of judgment are or where improvements can be made before you get too absorbed in the build.

Having an aesthetic design in mind from the get-go can be important to the more structural aspects of your van; if you’re planning to include unique features like porthole windows or unusual furniture, then this may be necessary to include as part of the initial build.

Pulling together a mood board is a fun way of collecting all your ideas in one place and taking inspiration from different sources. This could be a physical scrapbook, a Pinterest page or an Instagram Collection.

*Instagram Collections are a quick and easy way to save ideas you come across.*

Sketch Up is a free program you can download and use to create 3D models of anything you can imagine, which means it’s perfect for mocking up a 3D van before you get started on the real one. It can be a bit tricky to get used to at first and you will need a physical mouse rather than a laptop track pad, but you can create models exactly to scale which allows you to gauge exactly how much space things will take up in your van before you even cut a single piece of wood.

It also allows you to refer back to the drawing board should something go wrong, and make adjustments virtually before you physically build things. This was an invaluable tool for us throughout both our LDV and Bedford builds, but if SketchUp seems a bit advanced, companies like vanspace 3D offer a dedicated van design app.

*A Sketch Up illustration of the layout for our Bedford CF conversion.*

You can draw out ideas for your van conversion layouts on paper, draft them up digitally, or once your flooring is in you can mark out where your bed, kitchen, bathroom etc will go with tape, giving you a visual reference as to the sizes of things and allowing you to make adjustments before you start building.

Camper van layouts vary by size, van type and door positioning, and also depend on factors such as whether you plan to include a bathroom, a width-ways or length-ways sleeping area, a fixed or convertible bed, and what kind of view you’d like to see from your kitchen when you cook. The internet is great for ideas, but don’t just go off other people’s conversion van layouts because what works for them may not necessarily work for you.

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Experience & time frame

If you’re wondering, Do I need experience to build a van? The answer is no!

We knew not the first thing about van building or DIY when we started, but you can pick most skills up from friends, family or if all else fails, YouTube.

Get to know your tools, practice on scraps of wood and metal before you commit to making any irreversible cuts, and always measure twice cut once. But even so, a few wonky lines on a cupboard aren’t the end of the world, and it all adds to the overall charm in the end.

ADD IMAGE OF OUR WONKY LINES

Whatever your timespan is, double it- that goes for budget too. These things always take twice as long as you expect even with the best planning and goodwill. There will always be unexpected hiccups and unforeseeable events so give yourself time, and be kind to yourself if you don’t manage to achieve everything you set out to in a day.

Our LDV conversion took us 10 months in total, in between working full time, partly due to delays caused by the cold, wet winter weather. When we made improvements to our van the second time round it was during the Spring when the weather was considerably better, so the time of year may be an important factor to consider if you can’t find an indoor space to convert your van in.

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Weight

When converting a van, weight is a very important consideration, as you don’t want to go over your van’s payload or you will be decreasing its MPG significantly, or even worse you could face penalty fines if stopped by the DVSA.

While it would be a hugely time-consuming effort to tally the weight of every piece of cladding or each of the 3,000 screws you’ve added to your van, you can visit a public weigh bridge before you begin the build to find out your van’s unladen weight, and again once you’ve finished the conversion to find out how much it now weighs (preferably with full water and fuel tanks so you get an accurate picture of your van’s max weight).

Try not to worry too much about weight, unless you’re smothering your van in heavy timber, installing an Aga oven or planning on housing a family of 10 you’ll probably come within your van’s max payload. Try to prioritise light materials over heavy ones such as solid wood, and pay more attention to weight distribution. Remember also, you will need to evenly balance the heaviest items in your van (oven, water tanks, batteries, gas bottles etc) across both sides so your van does not lean to one side when driving.