With the base of the van a good way to being ready, it was time to turn our attention to the furniture side of things. Thus far we’ve avoided buying much in the way of interior bits or appliances, as things often seem to change at the last minute and we don’t have masses of storage at home. In order to progress past this point we needed to firm up our choices of appliances. Armed with a comprehensive list of suitable items we sat down together and set about checking up on the latest prices. Shortly into this exercise we found that we ran into a couple of problems. I’d created our SketchUp model of the layout based around specific appliances that had been thoroughly researched and vetted. To our dismay we discovered that both the hob and fridge/freezer we’d ear marked had been discontinued. This was far from ideal, so we proceeded to spend a few days looking around in search of suitable alternatives.

The Fridge

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We started by looking into the fridge as we felt that this would be the easier of the two problems to solve. After a lot of research into power efficiency with the fridge and freezers currently on the market we settled on a fridge/freezer from a company called Dometic. They specialise in motorhome, car and boat fridges. The fridges are rugged and able to cope with inclines, an important feature, should we find ourselves on less than level ground at some point. Another notable feature is the top opening which will be beneficial in making sure things do not roll around whilst in transit and fall out once the door is opened at the other end. The fridges are also extremely energy efficient, using only 192 watts of power over the course of a 24 hour period, when the ambient temperature is at 20C.

The Dometic CoolFreeze CFX 75 DZ

We had originally picked out the Dometic CoolFreeze CFX 65, which is duel zone and able to function as a fridge and freezer at the same time across the two compartments, it had a total capacity of 53 litres. Finding that the CFX65 was now unavailable we decided that we wanted to stick with the same brand and looked at other sizes within the range. Unfortunately we found that the smaller sized 46 litre fridge only operates as a fridge and does not have duel zone capability. Having had a good few hot days in the van already we’ve grown quite fond of an ice lolly in the afternoon. In addition to our previous travel experience, and the searing heat of some of the states we’d visited, it would be nice to have an ice lolly to help cool us down as we wont have any aircon. We also feel that having a freezer area will allow us to stay off grid for longer with more food reserves and more options. This left us with no real choice other than to step up in size to the Dometic CoolFreeze CFX 75 DZ. Along with duel zone capability we will also have 70 litres of space across the two sections, more than enough space to keep our tummies full!

The Hob

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This was unfortunately the trickier of the two items to find a suitable alternative for. Our original plan was to use an alcohol stove to cook with, we hoped to be able to remove it from the van and take it outside to cook in the summer. We’ve been adamant since the beginning of this build, that we did not want to use gas in the van. This decision was made early on and our layout was designed accordingly, which unfortunately leaves us with a bit of a problem now. We do not have space for a gas bottle and nor do we want to have the worry of trying to find places to buy or refill gas on the road. In addition, and most importantly we do not have space for the locker that the gas bottle would need to go in and therefore we have no means to incorporate a drop out vent, which is required for safety.

This kind of left us with our backs against the wall a little and reluctantly I went back to the drawing board with the layout in CAD software. After having a play around with the design we found that with the new fridge now larger than the previous one, we were left with even less room to play with and it just wasn’t possible to re-arrange everything to allow for a gas hob. Part of us was a little relieved as we are still dead set against gas, however it did mean that we needed to find another option.

Thinking some more I remembered back to when we were researching our heating system, we’d come across a few different diesel hobs that could possibly be the solution we were after. It all seemed like the right way to go given that diesel would be on demand from the van’s own fuel tank and our heater will also be diesel powered, meaning that when we tap into the vans fuel tank it would not be much more work to add an additional fuel line for the hob. The only downside to this was the hefty price tag, a £800+ difference, more than we’d envisaged spending. The unit is slightly bigger than the alcohol stove and the install is also trickier, as we’ll need to create spaces for the fuel line to come through and for the exhaust gases to go out.

The Webasto X100 Diesel Cooker

Despite the additional costs we still think this is the right way to go and are pleased with our decision. I had a good look into the three main diesel hob contenders and we settled on the one that we felt was a good compromise between budget and usability. In the end we decided to go with the Webasto X100 Diesel Cooker, with it’s ceramic two hob cook-top. We purchased both items straight away to avoid any further disappointments and I shall now begin the task of re-arranging the furniture in SketchUp to accommodate the new bits. Watch this space…