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Old 05-08-2013, 10:32 PM   #81
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Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Thom, my business is 2 blocks from Greg and Laurie and I have enjoyed watching your van progress. They speak highly of you and are proud of your rig. FYI

Brad

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Old 05-09-2013, 10:17 AM   #82
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Hi Brad, thanks for the kudos and sharing the kind words from Greg & Laurie!

Spoolin... here are some long overdue pictures of our bath-closet set up...and thx for putting a burner under my arse, this is something i should have done long ago for the gang.

DISCLAIMER! Your millage may vary!!
I am BLESSED with a McGirlver of a best friend/wife that comes up with some (IMO) elegantly simple solutions to life's daily _stuff_. In this case, our van's bathroom/shower concept. She designed the whole get up and is much happier with this than when we had the thetford cassette in our prior setup. We use either Wag Bags, or bio-bags/kitty litter depending on local regulations. (we will leave that conversation to other threads!).

So this is how it all looks going down the road. It is a cabinet that goes up to just below the stock roof line, and is about 16 to 18" on the floor out from the wall, and ~24" wide:



Here is a shot of it opened with the bath/shower items under the rugs:



And here it is with our preferred 2 gallon sized plastic bucket from a local bakery (cake frosting, they just toss them in the trash when empty) with a lug-able-loo toilet seat cover on top. A small trash can with lid & lined with a bag takes used hand wipes. Additional kitty litter (arm & hammer is our preferred brand) is in the bin behind the toilet with hand wipes on top. TP is on the hanging rung thingy.



You can see our REI camp towels, soap and other toiletries on the upper shelf ready for use during showering. The privacy/shower curtain clips toward the front over-cab area but is open for these photos. Shower curtain is an insert and surrounds the area for no-splash showers. No the TP doesn't get wet...the shower pan was found at our local Home Depot and is simply a mixing basin found near the concrete supplies area of the store. We purchased a battery powered insect sprayer _like this one_ We pour a kettle of room temp water into the sprayer first. Then we bring a kettle to boil and pour that in. We get a 5 to 10 minute warm shower with this setup, and get a week's worth of showers out of a set of "D" batteries no problem. We used a manual-hand-pump sprayer for 3 seasons though we got tired of having to add pressure to the setup mid-shower, so went with this battery powered unit.



I hope that sheds some light on the mysterious Bath-Closet in our setup.
Feel free to ask any questions for further clarifications.

Happy Trails,
Thom
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Old 05-09-2013, 02:36 PM   #83
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Wow that is really neat and well thought out Thom! Very cleaver and still allows for compact storage when not in use!
Thanks for the pics and description of everything!
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Old 05-09-2013, 06:42 PM   #84
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Happy to help out Spoolin, & you are most welcome.
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Old 05-10-2013, 02:19 PM   #85
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Ha, that's a pretty good idea for the shower set up, using a common sprayer like that is cheap & effective. Would have never thought to do that.
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Old 05-22-2013, 12:38 AM   #86
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

8inch lift and 35s I would buy 1
Buck:grin:

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Old 05-22-2013, 11:51 AM   #87
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Quote:
Originally Posted by buckkiller
8inch lift and 35s I would buy 1
Buck:grin:...
My wife would need a ladder!
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Old 05-31-2013, 05:26 PM   #88
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Cari & I had a great memorial day-week adventure. Spent 4 nights in two favorite spots in the Pacific Northwest. . . pretty much alone. After waking up Monday morning during the first break of pretty much continual rain through the night we looked outside and this is what we saw:



Guess that insulation job we did inside the van really helps with deadening outside noise... we didn't realize all our neighbors left until we poked our heads out of the van at ~10am!

and looking toward camp with the van and trailer:



and looking outside our windows of the Parkliner dinette area...it's a great view rain or shine!


and the other side...


(link to a thread i will update on our trips).

Happy Trails,
Thom
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Old 05-31-2013, 06:20 PM   #89
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

McGirlver. Lol. I just now noticed that, and had to think about it for a second. Need more coffee.

Good stuff and I love your bathroom ideas. The new baby is pretty neat too! Nice to have his and hers toilets in different rooms, makes for a long and happy relationship!

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Old 06-05-2013, 11:08 PM   #90
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Re: Accrete's 2010 Chevy Express AWD project

Today's project was dropping the headliner that van specialties had installed and check the wiring. Somehow i managed to blow the 30 amp fuse in the main fuse box under the driver seat when i swapped out the Fantastic fan they installed with the MaxxFan i purchased last month.

While we had things down we also put up some more insulation and cleaned up the area above the headlining. All is back and working properly (lights and maxxfan) and i was able to take a reading on the A/H draw for the fan. It has ~10 settings. We will typically use setting 3 for ~5 to 10 minutes to just blow any stale hot air that accumulated while down at the river. This setting draws .5 amp/hr. At setting 5 it draws 1 amp/hr. Anything above this is starting to generate vortex turbulence inside the van so we don't use them

This was a good test as the fan is really all we would use on occasion...and it seems if we use it conscientiously we should be fine for our ~5 days of camping in one spot. If not, we do carry an emergency jump-start-station.
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