The heat is (finally) on for Tash’s new camper, Fabio
GOING SOLO
HI Winter is well under way but I’ve still been out and about in the camper. And thankfully it's been a cosy, off-grid affair, because my camper, nicknamed Fabio, has a solar panel and heating fitted at long last. It took a while because, after a busy summer of touring and delivering talks at the Warners Shows, we simply hadn’t had time to get it organised.
With the heating, the trick was figuring out where to actually fit the diesel heater unit and vents. My Nu Venture Compact is very well put together and makes good use of the limited space. The flip side to that is, when it comes to adding a component in, you don’t have a lot of wiggle room.
My husband, Jon, fitted both the diesel heater and solar panel. It took a little time to map out where the heater was going to be fitted, but he settled on a perfect gap underneath the ’van. There was only one place for the heating vents to go inside the ’van and, after what we learnt from my previous campervan, I knew I wanted two vents.
So, it was decided to fit two multidirectional outlets that fold flat when not in use, on the panel underneath my bed/sofa. The solar panel, which was fitted prior to the heating, was fairly straightforward. It’s never a comfortable experience drilling holes in your ’van but it was a smooth process. One cool thing about having a po- top, apart from being able to easily get under height barriers, is that you end up with your very own tilting solar panel.
The day after the heating was finished, I was off for a little trip. Much like when I first got my own campervan, I wanted to get out and get stuck straight in. I headed to the Doncaster area to meet some friends for the weekend, staying on a local campsite in a nice rural area. I was off-grid of course (no EHU) and it felt fantastic to be self-sufficient again. I was also super pleased that my heating was performing well.
After a lovely weekend, I hit the road again and headed down s
