Blog 4 – Let’s Go Shopping!

Well a girl loves a good shop!  Actually I don’t, in fact it’s one of my least favourite things but I gotta say shopping for your new home is very satisfying.  Expensive, but at least you feel like you are ticking things off the list and you know me and lists.

One of the obvious and most important things are the panels for our new home.  Fred’s research skills kicked in and it wasn’t long before he had made a selection. We are getting them from DIY Caravans.  Before ordering we had to finalise the floor plan, work out where lights, power points etc would go. This is to allow for the internal cabling as this needs to be prefabbed in the panels.  We also had to confirm the exact size that we could fit on the truck and I wanted to make sure we were utilising every available legal centimetre.  We have purchased the panels as a full panel and we will decide and cut to fit the windows and door ourself once we have it on the truck and can see what works.   The panelling is a prefab layered setup, fibreglass skin/pvc foam core/fibreglass skin.  

DIY Caravans offers heaps of other stuff as well and we are able to get our moulded shower, hot water system, windows, door and the roof vent.  We were concerned because the initial lead time to pick up was 4 – 6 weeks which then was amended to possibly 2-4 months.  Winner winner chicken dinner – we have been advised that the panels will be ready end of this week – Road Trip!

The next item ordered was the urine separator.  We had to get this underway early as they come from the UK.  As we are continuing with a compost toilet, it is essential to have a urine separator.  Bottom line, pardon the pun, if you don’t keep the number ones and number twos separate it’s not going to end smell – oops I mean well.

Another big item is the power system.  Big in bucks and big in what is needed.  It seems easier second time around, experience is priceless.  We have ordered and received the 48v/5000 Victron Inverter, a Cerbo GX with a 5” touch screen, a 500 amp smart shunt and we already have a MPPT Solar Controller 250/60 left over from the De Busta build.  We still need to order a Victron Lynx, a Safiery Scotty (DC to DC), the Solar Panels, Lithium Batteries and various switches, fuses and wires etc.  All nerdy tech talk to me but Fred assures me that this is the bomb.

After having the hydraulic levelling system on De Busta, it was a no brainer that this was a must have.  We ordered and received it from Red Foot Levelling, bonus of purchasing another set means we got a 10% discount.  Fred has installed the legs and is waiting on the storage boxes to fit the hydraulic unit.  Once that is done we need to measure and order the hoses required to finish the job.

Water Tanks – We always knew we would have 3 types of water tanks, black, grey and drinking/fresh water and just needed to decide on capacities.  This was influenced by the space available in the under body.  The black and grey water tanks will be housed in the centre of under body and we have decided to mount the fresh/drinking water tanks in a false floor.  This allows us to use as much available space underbody for storage and the fresh/drinking tanks will be protected and insulated.  Tanks have been sourced and ordered but won’t be available until mid January.  We will run a 240v pressure pump and filter system with an ultra violet filter.  After much discussion, we have agreed on the capacities of black 110 ltrs, fresh/drinking 600+ ltrs and grey 285 ltrs.

Storage Boxes – we have ordered and received our tool boxes from Red Flag.  2 x 1200mm and 2 x 800mm.  Fitting these now.  One of the 1200mm will house our outdoor kitchen, another project currently on the drawing board.  We have ideas but are yet to finalise and fabricate.

Last but not least, we needed to organise the stuff for the inside.  Over the past few months we have made several trips to Harvey Norman checking out bits and pieces.  It allowed us to check out and try for comfort lots of different items and they were prepared to allow us to order what we needed and store it until we are ready to fit.  Winner for us as we don’t have a lot of storage area while constructing the habitat box.  End result is we have ordered the fridge (check out the pics – amazeballs!), recliner chairs and mattress and have purchased the induction cooktop and convection microwave.  We haven’t used induction before and soon discovered that you need magnetic based kettle/pots for it to work.  Good thing I hadn’t thrown out my Baccarat cookware!  We have set up the microwave in De Busta to get used to it.  It seems to be working out well and offers microwave, convection oven cooking, steaming and has an air fryer setting.  In the words of Hamish and Andy – it must be nice!

Something I have found during this process is don’t rush in and buy the first thing you see.  Research and be patient.  An example of where this paid off is on the mattress.  We wanted a mattress that was reasonably light weight and with the dimensions we needed to be compact as well as being comfortable and robust.  We found what seemed to tick all the boxes but the one box that it didn’t tick was the price.  Originally priced at $5199, yep it’s not a typo, this is what they actually expected people to pay for a mattress.  For me it was a “tell ‘em they’re dreaming” moment and we walked away.  A few weeks later when in there checking out stuff again, it was on sale for $3299, again yep, $2k less but still crazy.  After weeks more of indecision and constant research, we found it was the one that suited our needs best and we decided to go back to try it again and order one.  To our utter disbelief we get there to find it is now priced at $2199 due to the Black Friday Sales.  WTF – don’t get me wrong I’m grateful to not have ordered it earlier and to pay much less than I could have but I still can’t get over the mark up.

Catch you next week, stay tuned……..