Modifications and repairs to the Krystal
Today’s the day we move back into the van, hooray! (Some of us are more delighted than others…)
Such a headache, getting everything sorted, though. But it’s a good opportunity for (another) clear-out.
Over the summer while we have been out of the van, we took this opportunity to get some repair jobs done and a few upgrades and modifications. We’re delighted with the results.
When you live in a van, things will of course break or stop working as you go. In our case, the fridge has been the troublesome item although, thankfully, it was only an issue when we are in transit.
This pic shows the open panel giving access to the fridge electrics from outside.
Fridges in campers/motorhomes tend to be ‘three-way fridges’ which means they have three methods of running, depending on what the van is doing. (1) If you’re in a site that has electric hook-up, and you plug into that, the fridge runs from the electricity. (2) If there’s no electric source, you can switch your gas supply on. In our van, we have a cylinder of LPG. However, this must be switched off when the van is in motion, in which case, (3) the fridge should run off the engine battery. In our case, this is where we have had trouble. The fuse had blown due to a fault and it took several attempts over several weeks at replacing parts before this issue was finally resolved – not helped by worldwide shortage of parts and delays with delivery! But all was well in the end.
Another issue was our grill: once the gas had lit for the grill, it would then go out again if you took your hand away from the knob! A part was needed there to give us a grill that functioned without us needing to hold onto the knob the whole time.
Yay! cheese on toast!
An ongoing issue we have is the seals on some of the doors – our habitation door and also the seals on the garage doors, where Morgan’s bed is. This issue still is not resolved, as we have to date been unable to source the correct seals, so that’s one for the future. Moisture is not entering to any significant degree, but we’ll need to get that sorted as soon as we are back in northern Europe.
For vanlife readers, James at Camping Technik Algarve in Armação de Pêra was fantastic for repairs.
Camping Technik Algarve (camping-technik-algarve.com)
James lives in a van himself and knows everything there is to know about motorhomes! He doesn’t work on engines, but on the habitation side. Inga, whose shop it is, made us custom-fitted external shades for our windows. Currently, Camping Technik Algarve are located at the site of Camping Praia de Armação de Pêra.
We made a couple of short videos earlier today, to show the inside and outside of our van and some changes we have made over the summer. We’ll upload those videos now and leave you with our best wishes 💕💕