Talk to anyone about their selfbuild camper and you will quickly discover two things.
1. They can talk and talk (and talk) about their vehicle
2. It was stressful, a lot of hard work, and very time consuming
So why then, you might well ask, would they have ever wanted to embark on such an endeavour?
Here are my answers to that question:
It’s (often but not always) cheaper. Lots cheaper
I bought my van as an empty, unclad, uninsulated standard “builders van”. It was big enough for me to stand up in without banging my head, lie widthways across, and cartwheel from the driver’s seat to the back door (true story). It had seventy-something thousand miles on the clock and was free of rust or any major mechanical issue. It cost me the princely sum of £700.
Look for a motorhome or campervan anywhere, even something of a much smaller size, and you're talking thousands.
There was the additional cost of converting the van. I did this to my own specification (we’ll talk more about that in a minute) and to plans I daydreamed up. Unfortunately I didn’t keep accurate records of how much I spent, and what I spent on which exact parts of the build, but I estimate that it cost me about 2 to 2.5 thousand pounds. So near enough £3000 all in. For me that’s a no-brainer.
But there are two sides to every coin, and there are certainly selfbuilds out there that cost far more than I spent on mine, but there are many that also cost less.
You can make it exactly how you want it (sort of)
When you buy a motorhome it's already a finished product and comes to you "off the shelf" as per the manufacturers spec. I’m sure its possible for you to ask for it to be tweaked and altered to some extent to fit your needs and tastes, but at additional cost. When you build your own you’re making it with yourself, your needs, and your requirements in mind. Need it to sleep a growing tribe of children? Design some bunk beds. Want to fit a motorbike in the back? Build in a garage. You get the point.
Something I’ve realised, and that I really love, is that you could give 100 people the same base vehicle to convert, and you’d get 100 totaly different vans back at the end!
The slight snag with this is that if you’re doing all the work yourself then there may well come a point that the skill required is greater than the skill that you possess! But, with a bit of perseverance, by the end the vehicle should ultimately be able to do pretty much everything that you need/want it to. Which leads neatly on to my next heading...
Learn new skills
This is a massive one. When I see people talking on forums/Facebook groups, or read messages and emails people have sent to me, one big recurring theme is that people are afraid to embark on a selfbuild because of the skill required. And yet, if you look at the vans out there that inspire you, I’d be willing to bet that most of them were built by people who started off with little or no knowledge of the technical skills required to convert a van. The ability to put up a shelf can be stretched a long way!
Try and think of it as an opportunity to learn! but it's totally natural to be daunted; I had never fitted a woodstove chimney though a fibreglass roof, so when I was cutting a big hole in a perfectly watertight roof, it was incredibly intimidating, but it was fine. In fact, during my selfbuild I improved massively in my joinery skills, developed a rudimentary understanding of very basic vehicle mechanics, learnt a bit about insulation, but am still absolutely clueless when it comes to electrics! On top of this I also learnt how to manage a long-term project, how to buy cheaper materials without compromising on quality, and how to motivate myself to go out in the gloomy British winter and plod away at a seemingly endless task.
On top of all those new skills being learnt, what you find is that once you have researched something, put it together, and really understood it, you can easily fix it yourself if anything goes wrong with it further down the line. You're just investing in youself
Feeling of satisfaction
For me this was the biggest lure, and the one I’m the biggest believer of.
“I built this with my own two hands.”
How amazing is that to say!?
That thought never stopped making me smile no matter how many road trips I had. There’s a real sense of pride when you set out to do any daunting challenge and succeed through your own efforts. I’d say that probably more than half of the enjoyment I got out of my van and the places it took me stemmed from that feeling.
For me this is perfectly summed up by Yvon Chouirnard in the film 180 Degrees South (I highly recommend it). When talking about people climbing Mt Everest he says that you can effectively just pay someone to hold your hand and walk you up, but that it should be about the experience and “..if you compromise the experience, you were an asshole at the beginning and an asshole at the end.” In short, you get out what you put in.
But my cautionary advice would be to not get too caught up in this; I became borderline obsessive in trying to do all the work without the help of professional tradesmen. So when it came to sorting my 12v electric system, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, I ignored it, and eventually had virtually no electricity in the van, anything I did have was just battery powered or charged through the cigerette lighter. My life would have been far simpler if I’d just paid someone to help in that one area.
I’m not trying to force the idea of selfbuilding onto anyone, or knocking those who don’t take that path. We all have different goals in life, and different resources to achieve them with. But I do think, as I’ve said already, that you get out what you put in. In the 21st century western world it’s virtually impossible to be 100% self-sufficient, but that doesn’t mean we need be 100% dependent… if you’ve got an off the shelf van why not make your own curtains? Or build your own storage cupboard? If you don’t have a van at all, and have no desire to ever own one, there’s still unlimited scope for you to get creative in your own space and really get a bit of that feeling of “I made this with my own two hands.”
