18 Ft Step Van Build

[wildOG]

This is still in the planning phase. Im looking to convert an 18ft Freightliner MT45 into a sort of tiny home. It's a medium term plan like 5 year sort of project that I'm just in the planning phase of. I don't even have the truck at this point, but I've been working out some ideas with the layout and features etc.

I'm getting older and thinking about semi retirement in the next 10-20 years or maybe sooner as I'm 50 now.I've worked as a graphic designer for the past 20 years and with rent in Southern California, I've lived kind of paycheck to paycheck. I've built up a pretty impressive shop as my current living situation is a bit unorthodox, a sort of artist studio where I live with a bunch of projects that I've been working on.. vintage automobiles, old arcade cabinets, a lot of home improvement, industriial design and fabrication going on in my spare time. Well my landlord is getting old, and I worry about what I would do without this place.

I have this dream of saving a lot of money (for me) and putting this on land that I would buy in the desert. I've been looking at the Anza Valley/Aguanga Valley. I think with the way lending/banks/mortgages work it seems unlikely that I could get a mortgage to do what I want to do. There's a slim chance maybe a land loan would be an option. But building the truck is core to my vision so that's what I've been thinking about and it makes me happy.

I'd like to mostly use it as a house, but with my limited income and not being able to get a mortgage for what I want to do, I am factoring in that this would be mostly off-grid at least to start. For that, the ability to move the "house" in order to fill up and empty water tanks makes some sense. I'm open to the idea of taking it boondocking though. It would be awesome to be out on the open road. Since covid, working remotely becomes more and more possible, and I would love to get away from the bustle of being in Orange County.

I'm making a 3d drawing to work out the layout. Here's an elevation of where I'm at with it.



Plannig this out, a lot of the requirements are from my partner, Carey. She is a bit more accustomed to the niceties of "normal" living perhaps. She has a lot of clothes, insists on having a freezer and a refrigerator (I don't have a freezer in my loft even presently). Currently my loft is 8 ft wide by 20ft. 2 feet of that length is a stair landing/stairs, so it's about what I've got now. But Currently I live alone, so I'm working to make this more space efficient, to make sharing that space with someone not drive us mad. I'm trying to maintain an openness in the plan that makes it feel bigger than what I have now. The planned use of a Happijac lift bed does a lot to create space. I played with the idea of reinforcing the roof and creating a sort of patio above, but I am leaning toward creating more space by having a sort of wrap around deck that would act as a sort of dock for the van.

Here are some other screenshots of the drawing as it is currently to give an idea of the layout maybe.











I'm working out the details of the plumbing. There's a lot that needs to be worked out yet. But I thought I'd post and leave this open for input.

 

[Sky King]

If you want to use it as a tiny house they make a box that rolls off with a hydraulic arm & sits at ground level. Many places require a septic system. Good luck

 

[bullfrog !]

Weight distribution with water tanks is a problem if they are of any size and if planning on being in freezing temps need to be insulated and in a heated space. The shorter and easily drained plumbing systems are the better. Putting the kitchen and bathroom so they share a wall that contains all the plumbing and is easily opened up really helps. I built a small utility trailer that has two 55 gallon tanks one with a fresh water pump, battery and solar and the other uses a macerater pump for black and gray water that way I don’t have to move camp to drain and fill and minimal plumbing is necessary inside the trailer. We have a second vehicle with a hitch so it makes it easier to drain and fill than breaking down camp. There have been some really good builds like the one you are attempting here in the captains logs and conversations and modifications forums. Tttnt.com has some cargo trailer builds you may get some ideas from as well. Welcome!

 

[wildOG]

Thank you for the responses, it's helpful.

I think the hydraulic arm is a bit overcomplicated for what I want.

Bullfrog, that's very insightful. I was relying on the heavy duty weights these trucks are designed to carry, but it is a lot of weight doing the calculations. I want at least 40 gallons of fresh water, probably 40 gallons of gray and 20 minimum of black water storage. If all that was full it would be about 1000 lbs of water.

I've been thinking about what you say about freezing temps. It gets just cold enough where I want to be to make that a factor.

Here's a cool shot of an MT45 chassis.



I have been rethinking the design to plan for water tank weight distribution and proximity of the kitchen and bathroom. Limitations that led me to that initial design were around the wheel well boxes. I have basically 6 areas — the closet, the bathroom, the kitchen, the dinette, and the living room is kind of in 2 sections, seating and a sort of additional cabinet. The living room 2 sections have to stay together on account of the bed lift needing to be clear above.

So, noodling around with the drawing, I'm thinking to raise the floor up to the height of the wheel well boxes in at least the middle area. I've shifted the bathroom and closet from the back to the front of the rig to make the plumbing all adjacent. It is nice to have the living room/lounge area near the back doors. I'm thinking of building stianless steel tanks that would be about 8 inches tall by 14.5 inches (to fit between 16 inch centers of floor supports). They need to be about 80 inches long to be 40 gallon. I am thinking about whether to raise the bathroom and closet and hallway in between. I do see the problem of the shower drain being lower than the gray water tank how it is here. Possibly I could have a step up to the bathroom and the middle section from the hallway and closet, but it might be simpler to raise the whole front.

To make this feasible with the plan for the roof, I am looking at MT55's instead of MT45's as the interior space is 4 inches higher.

I'm still tinkering though. I raised the arms of the couch and the cabinet by 10 inches to match the floor drop as the bed wouldn't need to come down as much if you step onto it from the raised middle section, but then hitting your head on the bed when it's up is not good. I can move the bed back and lower the cabinet and couch arms I think to make that work better at the cost of some storage space.

 

[wildOG]

Thinking more.. the sink will need to be at the front of the kitchen to be nearer the bathroom. I wasn't keen on having thee bed so close to the refrigerator, but I am going to move the bed back some anyway. I'll need to make the upper cabinets shorter to accommodate the floor raise. Still working on it...

 

[tx2sturgis]

It looks good overall, and I admire those who can make use of the 3d CAD software. I could never figure that stuff out. I just used graph paper and a pen!

Two comments regarding your design:

One: you will almost never have all 3 tanks full at the same time. Water moves from the fresh tank to the other two tanks. Often, those holding tanks will be emptied before you have a chance to refill the fresh tank, for example, by using a 'blue boy' at a remote site. So you will (usually) end up with less onboard weight than you started off with. Under some situations, this can get flipped, as when you don't (or can't) break camp to dump the black and grey, yet you are adding fresh water to the system thru the use of potable water refilling with bottles, jugs, etc. Even in this rare situation, we would not expect the rig to haul this much weight for hundreds or thousands of miles.

Two: The dinette table and opposing bench/chairs is (in my opinion) a bad design as it's used in most small RV's because it lets a couple of adults or 4 kids sit in terribly uncomfortable seats for meals and the space is unusable and wasted the other 23 hours of the day.

There are options for that area that make better and more comfortable use of the space. A nice comfortable swiveling barrel chair with a flip down table or desk mounted to an adjacent cabinet comes to mind. But you are free to imagine the space as you see fit.

Good luck and thanks for sharing this with us.

 

[Sky King]

I was curious as to the 18' box. In my experience with box trucks we bought 20' boxes as they came in 4' increments same as building material sheet goods come in 4' increments. 2' extra might come in handy. Just a few thoughts.

 

[maki2]

Overthinking layout solutions before you have purchased a vehicle really gets things into a muddle and can become wasted money. You might start spending money on materials you will end up deciding won’t work once you have the actual vehicle. You won’t know for sure what vehicle you will end up with until the time comes as the best used vehicle that comes along when the time to buy is right might not even be a step van.

If I was buying a property to live on I would want a truck that pulls a trailer. The trailer provides the living quarters, the truck provides the transportation. Reasons for that separation of functions are an open truck bed can haul materials needed for improving the property such as loads of gravel for muddy spots, fencing, solar panels, posts, firewood, bags of concrete mix. Plus a bulk water tank and waste water tanks if those functions are needed. You can get water pumps and macerator pumps for transferring liquids. If you have never owned land then you have not yet begun to understand what owning a rural property requires. So you need to shift mental gears and do some more research for not just where you will sleep and cook but also what it takes to live on a piece of land at least part of the year if not year around. Of course I would suggest you look into using a composting toilet system and have strict water conservation methods for your other household needs for your imagined future lifestyle. You have to change your whole approach to living “off-grid”. Right now you are modeling it on the RV lifestyle of how commercially built motorhomes are setup. That is the wrong model for cheap rv living in rural locations either part time or full time.

 

[LargeMarge]

g)
Where are your wheel-wells?
How high are your wheel-wells?
.
14)
I see first-time converters investing thousands of hours and millions of fedbux imagining the ideal perfect consummate flawless perfectly perfect etcetera etcetera etcetera.
.
I see their subsequent builds using this formula:
.. acquire a suitable candidate
.. toss in some car-camping gear
.. go have fun.
Where might you find said car-camping gear?
Yard sales.
.
G)
Suggestion from my hero Barbara 'Big-Brains' Bonzongo, a 'well-regarded' 'rocket-surgeon':
Build your first rig, admire it from afar, park it, abandon it to the elements.
Do your second rig.

 

[wildOG]

It looks good overall, and I admire those who can make use of the 3d CAD software. I could never figure that stuff out. I just used graph paper and a pen!

Two comments regarding your design:

One: you will almost never have all 3 tanks full at the same time. Water moves from the fresh tank to the other two tanks. Often, those holding tanks will be emptied before you have a chance to refill the fresh tank, for example, by using a 'blue boy' at a remote site. So you will (usually) end up with less onboard weight than you started off with. Under some situations, this can get flipped, as when you don't (or can't) break camp to dump the black and grey, yet you are adding fresh water to the system thru the use of potable water refilling with bottles, jugs, etc. Even in this rare situation, we would not expect the rig to haul this much weight for hundreds or thousands of miles.

Two: The dinette table and opposing bench/chairs is (in my opinion) a bad design as it's used in most small RV's because it lets a couple of adults or 4 kids sit in terribly uncomfortable seats for meals and the space is unusable and wasted the other 23 hours of the day.

There are options for that area that make better and more comfortable use of the space. A nice comfortable swiveling barrel chair with a flip down table or desk mounted to an adjacent cabinet comes to mind. But you are free to imagine the space as you see fit.

Good luck and thanks for sharing this with us.

Good advice on the way the tanks will be used typically. My calculation is just for a worst case scenario to give an idea of what to design for.

I thought about what you say about the dinette, and my initial plan didn't include one for those reasons. Dinettes in RVs are always meant to convert into beds in order to check peoples' boxes about what they need, and because of the they make uncomfortable places to site and to sleep. The seating surface and the back pads are flat and not angled, and back pads are made to fill a space in order to complete a bed and fall short of the height to make a comfortable seat. Also since the cushions are meant to move they seem likely to slide around. For reason of cost, they seem to be made of low density foam. The table is meant to be lowered/moved so it ends up rickety.

It was this video that led me to a train of thought that brought me back to a dinette.



His critique of swivel arm table surfaces seems spot-on. Also his input that he'd wished he'd made work areas for both himself and his wife.

I did a lot of research of anthropometrics and how it bears on construction of a comfortable seat/table area in laying out the dinette here. By having adequate angling of the seat bottom and back, higher density foam, a table that is rigidly set and dedicated as a table/booth, I hope I will have made a comfortable area for 2 people to work on a laptop for an extended period. I hope to be able to work remotely from this space.

 

[afblangley]

I have this dream of saving a lot of money (for me) and putting this on land that I would buy in the desert. I've been looking at the Anza Valley/Aguanga Valley. I think with the way lending/banks/mortgages work it seems unlikely that I could get a mortgage to do what I want to do. There's a slim chance maybe a land loan would be an option. But building the truck is core to my vision so that's what I've been thinking about and it makes me happy.

Your artistic skills are clearly evident in your renderings. To the extent that creating them makes you happy, they serve a purpose, but don't let it distract you away from the more critical issues, like those maki2 mentioned. Living on a piece of land in box truck is not the most practical way to achieve a low cost lifestyle, especially if your significant other isn't on board with the necessary discomfort/lifestyle adaptions required.

Living in a remote rural area isn't idyllac for everyone. Living in a vehicle isn't great, unless travel is important to you. Giving up the convenience of unlimited running water, electricity on demand, flush it and forget it sewage disposal, must be offset with a compelling reason/vision, or it leads to drudgery instead of freedom.

 

[wildOG]

I was curious as to the 18' box. In my experience with box trucks we bought 20' boxes as they came in 4' increments same as building material sheet goods come in 4' increments. 2' extra might come in handy. Just a few thoughts.

Initially I was leaning toward use of a box truck, an Isuzu NPR or similar, but for reasons of the height of the box being so great, they're being more difficult to work on the mechanics, and the seperation of the cab and living area, I am favoring a step van. Choice of motor, the Cummins Deisel was what put me in favor of a Freightliner chassis.

Something I haven't talked about which has guided a lot of my reasoning with my plan so far is my current situation. I am thinking of this as transitional from where I am to what I want. Currently an 18 foot box is the limit of what will work where I'm at. My plan is to build the truck here and then it will be a means of moving forward, and also a backup plan if things go south before I can do what is the ideal dream... The plan involves a medium term and a longer term, and we will see how things pan out.

Freightliner makes an 18 ft box on either a 178" or a 190" wheel base. The current plan is based on a 178" MT55 chassis.


Like others have said, sure it would be nice to have the truck already, but planning ahead, even the train of this thread is guiding me to requirements (MT45 vs MT55 for example) that are good to know in advance. I've been working out some details of the drainage aspect of the plumbing. I was looking at a very low profile shower trap, the McAlpine STW4-65 and refining sink/shower/tank layouts to minimize floor raise and maximize head space. There is still work to do but will post soon.

 

[LargeMarge]

July, 2024.
We acquired this for a couple grand.
1999 Bounder, Cummins pusher, 53,000 miles.
We use it for storage.
In a few years, after we get tired of looking at the dumb thing, I am pretty sure we can dump it and get our money back.
.
Something like this has everything you need, already done, no need to fiddle with drawings nor cardboard mock-ups:
.