And now to the million dollar question: How much did our van conversion cost? In this post I will break down the costs of our entire van conversion, as well as give you the grand total that we’ve spent on the van.
Because we live in Sweden all our costs are in Swedish Krona, so I’ve also added a rough estimate of every cost in EUR to make it easier to convert to your currency.
The van
So, let’s start with everything that we’ve spent on the van itself, including the cost of building the van. You know all the things we altered with the van, such as installing windows, ceiling fan, repairs and services.
| The van itself | 65 000 SEK (€6500) |
| Windows | 6 076 SEK (€600) |
| Ceiling fan + sunroof | 5578 SEK (€550) |
| Service + repairs | 12 000 SEK (€1200) |
| Other costs | 8 546 SEK (€850) |
| Total: | 97 200 SEK (€9720) |
Electrical system
We knew pretty early on that we wanted to have an electrical system that could power up a lot. Since the plan was to be able to work from the van once we moved in we knew that we needed to be able to charge our computers on a daily basis, charge camera and drone batteries as well as powering everything inside the van such as the refrigerator, fans, lamps and diesel heater.
| Solar system | 7 990 SEK (€800) |
| Batteries | 12998 SEK (€1300) |
| Cables | 2 362 SEK (€230) |
| 2000w Inverter | 2 200 SEK (€220) |
| 40A DC-DC charger | 1 500 SEK (€150) |
| Other costs | 6 454 SEK (€650) |
| Total: | 33 505 SEK (€3350) |
Water system
In this category I’ve included all parts related to the water system, such as the shower tray, mixers, drinking water tap and the water tanks. Note that I haven’t including other building elements such as the shower walls or kitchen tiles here. This is only water related stuff.
| Kitchen | 5 663 SEK (€570) |
| Shower | 5 003 SEK (€500) |
| Water tanks | 3 600 SEK (€360) |
| Other costs | 8742 SEK (€880) |
| Total: | 23 009 SEK (€2300) |
Building materials
In this category, I’ve gathered all the wood, insulation, screws, adhesive and other things we’ve used during the build. There’s a massive amount on “other costs” here, it’s everything from hinges and the floor to countertops and paint. There are a lot of small costs that I didn’t feel was big enough to put in a separate category, but together they really add up.
| Insulation | 7 775 SEK (€777) |
| Plywood | 6 148 SEK (€615) |
| Wall panels | 2 497 SEK (€248) |
| Other wood | 1898 SEK (€190) |
| Screws | 1018 SEK (€100) |
| Other costs | 18 602 SEK (€1860) |
| Total: | 37 940 SEK (€3794) |
The bed
Because we get so many questions about the bed, not only how it works, but also the about the costs, I decided to put all of this in a separate category. In the beginning we talked about a happijack, but we didn’t want to spend $2000 on only the lift mechanism (with shipping and taxes), and it’s also pretty heavy, 190lb.
That’s why we decided to design our own system with an electrical winch, wire and ropes.
| Mattress | 4000 SEK (€400) |
| Lifting mechanism | 2 829 SEK (€283) |
| Total: | 6 829 SEK (€683) |
Tools
This is the only category that turned out to be way less than what both of us thought it would be. And looking back, we probably could have spent a bit more here to have good tools from the start, that would have saved us a lot of time. This is also the only category where spending more now, means spending less if we decide to do another build.
| Total: | 12 971 SEK (€1297) |
Other
This is all the costs of things that didn’t fit in any other category, such as refrigerator, the toilet and other stuff that might be interested to know the cost of.
| AirHead Composting toilet | 12 000 SEK (€1200) |
| Refrigerator | 4 894 SEK (€489) |
| Stove/Oven | 7 595 SEK (€759) |
| Diesel heater | 1239 SEK (€124) |
| Other costs | 26 838 SEK (€2560) |
| Total: | 51 327 SEK (€5132) |
The total cost of our van conversion
We’ve finally come to the part of this post that you all have waited for, the grant total of what our van conversion did cost.
Please bear in mind that we’ve never done anything like this before, so there are some things that we’ve had to redo just because we weren’t happy with it the first time. If we decide to do another build, we think that we can make it both faster and cheaper.
| The van | 97 200 SEK (€9720) |
| Tools | 12 971 SEK (€1297) |
| Building elements | 57 515 SEK (€5751) |
| Electrical setup | 33 505 SEK (€3350) |
| Water system | 23 009 SEK (€2300) |
| The bed | 6 829 SEK (€683) |
| Other costs | 31 732 SEK (€3173) |
| Total: | 265 484 SEK (€26 484) |
Do you want to read more about our van conversion? Check out the category “The Build”!
I hope this information was helpful if you’re thinking of ( or already has started to) convert a van. Please know that this is our costs, and it doesn’t mean that this is how much your build will cost. I’ve read about people that spent a minimum amount of money and still managed to build a beautiful van. Remember that you are the one pulling the strings in your conversion!
