How much does it cost to build a van conversion like this from scratch?
Going into this I had a guesstimate of £3-£4k to go from start to finish and have a fully completed van. Capable of staying in for longer periods away and being pretty much off grid apart from the odd campsite every few days to top up water/empty waste and wash gear.
This is keeping the build basic and as inexpensive as I can in keeping with my intentions to keep it light and functional for a mixture of work and personal use.
I need to keep the total weight of van and build below 3.2t so that we can also tow the 2.75t event trailer legally and not go over the 6t maximum Gross Train Weight (GTW). If not towing we can load a bit more up inside to the 3.5t max legal Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of the van. The van will be about 2.5t empty so we have around 700kg max for the build. The plan is to try to keep this down to around 500k to give a good buffer.
At the time of writing this post I think £4-£5k is more realistic and maybe more as I keep adding things to the build. At the time of writing this I have ordered and had delivered the vast majority of the more expensive items.
So I have been listing everything I have bought from tools I need to carry out the work right through to the screws and fittings, Everything I have bought for the van conversion will be listed below on the screenshot of the costings spreadsheet which I will update every week or so when I buy some more stuff.
Spreadsheet below up to date as of January 21st 2021.
Feel free to let me know what you think and share your costs and how they compared to your original estimates?