We have hot and cold running water to a sink and faucet inside the van, and a shower at the back doors. We use electricity to heat our water. All our water tanks are inside the van so they don’t freeze in the winter.
We built the sink cabinet using 80/20 aluminum extrusions. It holds our grey water tank.
The electric hot water tank squeezed in next to the passenger bench seat. Behind that on the same wall we put the cold water tank and the shower controls by the rear doors.
The shower head and mixer valve are made by Scandvik. If we were doing this over again, we might use the Ambassador Marine mixer instead. The Scandvik one works fine, but the Ambassador looks like it would be easier to control.
You can read a full description of the components we used, the layout we chose, and the plumbing schematic.
We chose to keep all of our tanks inside to help prevent them from freezing during the winter. That meant we had to be creative with how we store and dispose of grey water.
We chose not to install a toilet. A bucket and some special poop bags work well for us. Pooping in the wild is made a little bit more civilized with a toilet tent we can put up and take down in less than a minute.
Update: We installed a composting toilet. We chose the Nature’s Head but there are several others to choose from. It’s great! And no, it doesn’t smell.
Plumbing news
- Why we tried not to make holes in the outside of our van
- Do composting toilets smell bad?
- Installing the Nature’s Head composting toilet in a Sprinter
- Choosing a composting toilet
- Hot water options in an electric van
- Grey water really is grey!
- 80/20 sink cabinet build details
- Sink cabinet built with 80/20 aluminum extrusion
- Toilet tent for the modest van camper
- Pooping in the wild
- Disposing of used water
- Hot and cold running water
- Hot water tank safety switch and LED indicator
- Air compressor and tank install