You know what’s real heavy? These two big solar panels that we fused together on day 14. We had some concerns on how the heck we were going to get them on top of the van without damaging them, our van or ourselves. Luckily, it all worked out.
Dan ended up backing up the van to a brick wall which he could stand on to get the panels on the back portion of the roof. Then with ladders and my dad’s help, they slide the panels forward. We wrapped the panels with a blanket to prevent the metal feet from scratching the van up.
Once in place, Dan attached the metal step feet to the van tracks. We attached to the racks instead of using 3M VHB tape so we can remove the panels for maintenance or failure easily. The step feet were another gift from our friend. Thanks again, Marc.
Checking the voltage of the panels above. Looking good. Lost some voltage due to wire length as expected.
Last night we didn’t get a chance to finish laying plywood on these two little sections.
All done now.
Instead of leaving the plywood bare under our build, we decided to lay down some vinyl for easier clean-up, especially if something spills.
The vinyl will not be visible in the van so we went with the cheapest design they had. This one was 47 cents a square foot versus everything else close to a dollar or more.
TADA! It’s like a palace in here now. Lol.
While we were at Home Depot, I had the kid’s collect some free samples. With those samples and lots of leftover van build pieces, the kids happily worked on some art projects.
They came up with these custom tiny homes.
Good job, kids 🙂
Now that the floor is done, we can work on the walls. We ended up going with a nice piece of 1/4″ birch plywood.
It will cover the missing wall area that didn’t come with our van from factory. The wood will be painted the same color as the headliner to provide a cohesive background for our build. The bottom panel that is a bit darker in color will not be seen once we build up.
Letting these pieces dry overnight so tomorrow we can paint and install them.
Feels good to get things checked off the list.
Here’s the video to go along with the day 16 build. Enjoy!
As always, thanks for following along,
Marlene
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