A mobile home is the dream of many travel lovers, since there is no binding to one place of rest, the need to book hotels and purchase tickets. It is both a home and a vehicle that allows you to travel anywhere with maximum comfort. The price of such a product on the market is large, so many are interested in how mobile homes are built with their own hands.

Varieties of mobile homes

It is much cheaper to make such a vehicle with your own hands from an old car or completely from scratch. In addition to the vehicle itself, it is necessary to prepare a different tool. Moreover, making a mobile home will require work experience, a lot of effort and free time.

Before investing money in such structures, you need to find out from the regulatory authorities the legality of the movement of such a vehicle in order to avoid any violations. Otherwise, traveling with him will not work.

A large mobile home can be made from a van, but the price is too high. Cheaper options can be made from:

• bus;
• gazelles;
• an old but still sturdy trailer.

To build a mobile home, it is necessary, in addition to the vehicle, to make a plan for the future construction. Planning will make your caravan as comfortable as possible. It can be simply drawn on paper or designed on a computer.

RV communication

If there is no electricity, gas or water in a mobile home, then it can hardly be called a comfortable journey. For the presence of electricity in it, batteries and chargers are used. How the electrical wiring will take place in such a house must be planned and displayed in the drawing. You also need to think about where the external connector will be located for recharging the battery. They come in different capacities. It should be selected according to the expected range of travel and the load on the electrical network.

Gas cylinders are often used to cook food and heat the van. If you use electricity for this, then the financial costs will be much higher. When a mobile home is equipped with a kitchen, it is necessary to install an extractor hood with a ventilation system. This is especially important when using gas.

It is not recommended to independently install the gas system and the electrical network if there is no relevant experience. Such work should be done by professionals. If incorrectly installed, it could cause injury or death to the traveler.

Such a kitchen cannot be as comfortable as possible without a dedicated storage space for water. Usually, a special container with a pump is used to supply water to the tap. As a sewage system, they also use a container inside the room under the sink or outside. Sometimes such a motorhome is equipped with a shower. It will be difficult to make a bathroom in it, and a dry closet is used for this.

Furniture must be installed small and compact, since there will be little space in such a house. To save space, you can use folding beds, sliding tables and the like. Such structures must be well anchored to the walls to ensure safety while driving. Furniture for a motorhome can be bought ready-made in a store, but if there is a great desire to save money and learn something new, then you can easily make it yourself, taking into account the size of the room.

Sometimes car seats are used as a sofa and chairs. It is quite possible to equip a house on wheels from a trailer with your own hands. Before that, you need to prepare the room. Depending on what basis is taken - a minibus or a homemade trailer - the stages of work will differ.

Using the Gazelle and the old bus

It is necessary to start altering the minibus with a complete cleaning of the body from seats, trim and dirt. After that, you need to cut out all the holes for windows, ventilation, and so on.

The further sequence of actions will be as follows:

• Leveling and cleaning all damaged surfaces. To do this, use a metal brush, hammer or special equipment for leveling dents. If necessary, then it is necessary to weld the places of corrosion where holes have formed. Then they are cleaned and primed to prevent further rust formation.
• The interior is carefully insulated, including the floor and ceiling.
• After the thermal insulation coating, it is necessary to sheathe everything with waterproof plywood.

After such work, you need to carry out gas, electricity, water supply, install a bathroom and furniture. To securely fix the furniture, it is necessary to pre-install thick plywood on the walls. Furniture needs to be attached to it. Alternatively, you can install reinforcing strips on the floor and fix the headset to them.

If such a house is made not from an old trailer, but from a gazelle or a bus, then the chassis must be brought into working order. Then such a structure will actually be mobile.

Trailer as the basis of the design

You can also make a motorhome with your own hands from a trailer, but there will be much more work here. First you need to clean the chassis from corrosion and other defects. Then all the holes, as in the minibus, need to be welded, cleaned and primed. This is followed by painting.

When the base is ready, you need to start building the floor, walls and roof. You need to act in the following sequence:

After these works, you can start installing gas equipment, wiring electricity, organizing a kitchen and toilet, as well as installing furniture. Then you should install the headlights, license plate and fenders. The trailer is ready for travel.

Before starting work, you need to think carefully about the possibility of performing them efficiently. They require special skills and a lot of tools. But in any case, you can make a trailer house on wheels with your own hands if you have a great desire to learn how to do it.

Comfortable movement

Although such a structure is not intended for permanent residence, the need for comfort on the road and travel has not been canceled. Today, there are many techniques that can make living in a mobile home easier.

Indoor light

To ensure the availability of constant light and electricity, you can use a battery or accumulator, a charger, wires for electrical wiring, a control panel for supplying electricity.

Heating in the house

For these purposes, you can use several types of heaters. It is preferable to use a gas cylinder, as this will also enable cooking.

If the technology for installing gas supply is rather complicated, then you need to seek help from a specialist. Do-it-yourself construction of such a vehicle is commendable, but the safety of its inhabitants must be taken into account first of all.

Water supply, kitchen and bathroom

Any home will not be comfortable if it does not have basic amenities such as a bathroom, a well-equipped kitchen, and the availability of water. At the planning stage, you need to think carefully about their location for maximum comfort. Do not forget about the automatic water supply system and tanks for it.

Furniture installation

When installing furniture, certain difficulties may arise, since it should be as compact as possible along the entire perimeter. Basically, they use folding furniture, which can be folded out if necessary. This saves a lot of space. You can buy it only to order, and it will not be cheap.

It is better to make at least 2-3 windows. Due to their large number, there will be no need to turn on the light during the day.

Legality of construction

If we talk about the legality of movement, then such a vehicle will not have any special status of a vehicle. A RV in the legal framework does not differ from a conventional trailer. All that is needed is the presence of headlights and dimensions on the back side, as well as a license plate.

An additional permit is required if such a trailer exceeds the dimensions:

• 4 meters high;
• 2.55 m wide;
• 10 meters long.

If the dimensions are larger, then such a vehicle can move according to special rules: the presence of flashing lights and police escort. You can make good money on such facilities by organizing a business. There are many options for such entrepreneurial activity.

Alternatively, you can make such houses to order for summer vacations and temporary residence in the country. This does not require large initial investments, since small economical motorhomes can be made without insulation.

Houses like this can be rented out. An entrepreneurial activity of this kind is new. The market value has not yet formed, and, accordingly, you can set your own price. The number of such facilities should be increased as the client base expands.

You can also make your own car park and use it as a hotel. An important factor here is their division into economy classes, medium and vip.

This type of rest and travel option is used by lovers of freedom and independence from tickets and flights. It is a good solution to have both a car and a home on a vacation trip. Thanks to the presence of a mobile home, a family can travel in comfortable conditions and stop wherever and whenever they want, without reference to time. Camping sites gained their popularity at the beginning of the 20th century.

DIY home on wheels

Through such an independent vacation, you can see those places on the way to your destination that not accessible from plane or train... In addition, camping during renovation of an apartment or construction of a house on the site can serve as temporary housing. You can also rent a camper van when there are no travel plans.

The cost of such a pleasure is rather big, some options reach the price of an ordinary apartment, but to save money, you can create a camping or motorhome yourself.

The options for large campsites are being converted from buses and oversized vans, but this is too expensive for those who do not mind spending a lot of money on such mega-comfort.

Camping options

There are three budget options for self-taught people:

To build a motorhome with your own hands, you need:

1. Have wheels.
2. Visually draw a plan of a camping house, drawings - this is one of the main points in creating a mini motorhome.

When drawing up a plan, you need to think through all those comfort details that are in an ordinary apartment.

Internal communications of the motorhome

As in any regular campsite house too need communications- This is electricity, water, gas, toilet and possibly a shower. Without these amenities, mobile housing will not be comfortable. In order to have light in the camp, it is advisable to purchase a battery with a battery and a device for recharging. It is worthwhile to think over the internal wiring well in advance. It is necessary to take into account the external connectors when charging and the fact that they have different capacities.

It is easier to use a conventional bucket to drain waste through a hose hidden in the floor, by placing it under the body of your RV. Kitchen water can be stored in large containers by immersing pumps in them to supply it to the tap. To drain the used water, a reservoir is also used inside or outside the room. A small shower can be set up as a mixer tap, for example, above the sink.

Unfortunately, it will not work to build a usual toilet in a mobile home, since there is no place and it is difficult to drain waste constantly. A dry closet is perfect here.

The camping lighting system will require :

• battery;
• charger;
• wiring.

What is needed to heat your motorhome?.

At the ready of an autonomous heater, you can purchase a battery and a gas cylinder, because it will also come in handy in the kitchen and the operation of the refrigerator. You should not use a lot of electrical appliances and equipment for two reasons - this is an additional power consumption and a load on the wiring, since this is a small room compared to a house. The services of an electrician should be used when working with gas, since it is extremely risky to do it yourself if you are not an electrician.

Interior arrangement of the camping

Ventilation system.

It is also important to deal with ventilation so as not to clog the room with odors.

The location of the holes is important as it is best not to expose them in plain sight for reasons of beauty. It is best to place them at the bottom of the walls above the floor, you can also put a gas cylinder there.

Furniture.

Practicality and compactness when arranging furniture is a guarantee of comfort in a camping, given the small space, as well as the layout. Folding or pull-out berths, tables with attached stools and everything in this spirit will create the necessary comfort and the desire to relax in a self-made motorhome. There are special compact headsets on sale, but if there is a desire and time, it is quite possible to make furniture on your own using old boards, tabletops, and for a sofa and chairs, you can take seats from the same car or old wheels can also be converted into chairs or stools.

Carpenter at the campsite.

In such a dwelling, if it is one-story, it is recommended to make two windows so that you do not have to consume electrics during the day. It is better to make the door double-winged so that it does not sag and the wind does not blow into the room.

Minibus or caravan, let's look at the principle of transforming each one.

To start transforming a Gazelle minibus into a camping, you need to clear the body, remove the seats and upholstery, make holes for windows and a valve for gas supply:

Body preparation

To process the body you need:

• against corrosion, a primer is applied inside, and then you need to insulate the walls, floor and ceiling with thermal insulation;
• cover with plywood or carpet;
• what glue and plywood need to be of good quality so that the insulation will serve you for a long time;
• after the stage of warming, you can proceed to electricity and gas, then go to the kitchen, think over a place for the sink and oven, install water tanks, a bathroom and at the end arrange the rest of the furniture for rest, beds, chairs or stools, cabinets and shelves, depending on what is available space.

A house from a trailer is different in that there are only wheels and you need to do everything from scratch, like on a plot, first build a box - the future room.

Lodging from a trailer is done as follows:

To make a roof for a motorhome, you need :

• assemble a frame from supporting structures - beams, if you want a triangular roof;
• further, we sheathe it with plywood;
• you need to cover it with a water-repellent material.

After that, a rain gutter can be made and attached to the back wall from the outside and from the inside to drain waste. You also need to veneer the outer walls. Internal wiring and thermal insulation must be covered with fiberboard and then the stage of manufacturing one or two doors.

To protect the tree from drying out, and pests, you need to cover the outside and inside of the wall with a primer, apply a layer of paint on top. For an aesthetic look, you need to close the threaded holes and also paint. All these procedures will reliably protect the house from the influence of external harmful factors. At the end of the work, since this is a trailer, you need to install the headlights and fenders.

This kind of mobile homes fall into three categories:

Travel in your homemade RV, of course nice and comfortable... However, you need to decide for yourself whether you can independently master all the work on the construction of a motorhome.

Tom Grantham, 29, and Kylie Barnes, 30, spent $ 2,000 to buy out an old shuttle bus - and turned it into a posh mobile home for a family of five with all the amenities and even a fireplace!
How did they do it? Let's get a look!


When Tom Grantham and Kylie Barnes bought a 23-year-old shuttle bus for $ 2,000 in 2011, probably no one except them believed that this purchase would make sense. The couple had to invest many months of labor and about $ 15,000 to turn it into a super home on wheels, equipped with everything necessary for a family with three children.


The spouse has personal memories associated with this bus: as it turned out during the purchase, for many years he had been running on route 51 from Grimsby to Loot, passing by the spouses' house every day. Now he's turned into their very own luxury travel van.


Tom and Kylie have three children - Henry, 3, Poppy-May, 7, and Logan, 8. They will not be cramped in the former bus converted by Tom's forces!


The RV's main living room has two wide sofas. You can sit on them with the whole family, admiring the views, and if necessary, they are decomposed into two wide double beds. "This is the perfect car for a weekend trip as a family!" - says Tom. He was mainly involved in the technical part and the manufacture of furniture, and Kylie became the interior designer.


In the mobile home, Tom has built all the necessary amenities, equipping it with a stove, oven, gas fireplace, sink, toilet and shower. From the previous bus, only the traditionally decorated driver's seat remained.


To fit a bedroom for three children in the car, I had to try hard, using all the space vertically, from floor to ceiling.


The kitchen-living room in the central part of the van is decorated with light wood and is maximally illuminated.


In their mobile home, the family travels to music festivals throughout Britain, as well as vacations in France and Belgium.


However, when trying to go to Italy, the former bus let the owners down: due to engine breakdown, they got stuck in Switzerland. “It was a nightmare,” Tom recalls. - The police took away our passports, and we had no right to leave the bus! I had to call a friend for help and change the engine. "


However, this story did not make the family disappointed in their mobile home. Children especially love him: after all, it was thanks to him that they visited the French Disneyland!

The conversion of the regular bus into a van for travel lasted more than one year.

The floors in the car are finished with wood and covered with carpets, so that passengers feel at home.


Tom had to make almost all the furniture for the van with his own hands.

According to Tom, the kitchen gave him the biggest problem.

Funnily enough, the family recently decided to list the completely finished and refurbished van on eBay. The starting price is £ 9,100, or about $ 12,000. “The kids are terribly unhappy that we want to sell the van! - says Tom. "But we think it's time to try something else new and interesting."

Many lovers of free rest dream of traveling in a mobile home, so as not to be dependent on purchasing tickets, booking hotels and being tied to one point during the entire vacation. A mobile home is both a home and a vehicle. It allows you to travel with maximum comfort and stop wherever you want on the road. In addition, it can be used as a dwelling in the country or during the construction of a house.

A mobile home today can be purchased ready-made, although it is quite an expensive pleasure. But it is much more interesting and cheaper to make it with your own hands from an old vehicle, re-equipping its interior or making such a motorhome practically from scratch, not counting the basics. For this, in addition to the "wheels" themselves, you will need not only funds for re-equipment and a variety of tools, but also certain skills of such work, as well as a lot of effort and free time.

Attention! Before investing in the re-equipment of a vehicle, you need to find out all the nuances of its registration in the relevant authorities in order to avoid any problems during registration. Otherwise, it is unlikely that it will be possible to use such transport for travel, and it will settle as a dead weight somewhere in the country.

A decent-sized mobile home can come from a large van, but such a mobile home is too expensive a vehicle. Among the budget options that are quite suitable for those who like to craft whatever they want with their own hands, there are three most convenient. So, a mobile home can be made from:

• Gazelles;
• old bus;
• trailer with a sturdy chassis.

House from the car Gazelle

To implement any of these three options, in addition to the presence of the vehicle itself, which will be taken as a basis, a plan for the future motorhome will be required, at least in a schematic form. Such a plan will take into account all the design features and plan a living area with maximum comfort for finding there. It can be simply drawn on paper or done on a computer, if that's more convenient.

Internal communications of a mobile home

Without electricity, water and gas, life in a mobile home can hardly be called comfortable. A rechargeable battery and a charger are usually used to provide the room with electricity. The wiring inside must be thought out in advance. Do not forget about the external connector to charge the battery, which are of different capacities. The most suitable battery capacity also needs to be calculated in advance, taking into account the load and the travel distance.

Interior design of a mobile home

Gas cylinders are often used to heat a room. Gas will also be convenient for cooking, which is much more profitable in terms of consumption than a stove from electricity. The presence of a kitchen in such a house implies the installation of a hood above the stove and the organization of a general ventilation system, which is especially important when using propane.

Advice. You should not undertake independent gasification and power supply of the premises in the absence of the necessary knowledge and experience, it is better to entrust such work to professionals. The safety of people in the motorhome directly depends on how competently they are carried out.

The kitchen will not be able to function without water, which is usually stored in containers, where a submersible pump is lowered to supply it to the tap. To drain the used water, a reservoir is also used, which is attached either indoors or outside. If desired, the mobile home can also be equipped with a small shower. But the usual bathroom in a mobile home cannot be made; a dry closet is used in this capacity.

RV kitchen area

As for furniture, it is better if all of it in a mobile home is practical and compact, because there is not too much space for placing it. Variants of reclining berths, sliding tables and the like organization of space can be used. And all this must be securely fastened to the walls in order to ensure safety when moving. Furniture for arrangement can be purchased ready-made, but for a person with hands it is easy to make it yourself, taking into account the size of the room, and make a sofa and chairs, for example, from car seats.

It is quite possible to equip the interior space in a mobile home, and all this can be done on your own. But before that you need to prepare the room. Depending on which option is taken - a minibus or a trailer, there will be differences in the stages of work required for the conversion.

Mobile home from Gazelle or old bus

Re-equipment of a minibus begins with cleaning the body from upholstery and seats, after which various holes are made - for windows, ventilation, for gas supply.

Mobile house from the bus

Then work on the arrangement of the residential area is performed in the following sequence:

• even out the dents on the inner surface, then primer all open metal parts of the body to prevent corrosion on them;
• the inner surface of the future house, including walls, floor and ceiling, is covered with thermal insulation;
• on top of the insulating material, starting from the ceiling, moisture-resistant plywood or carpet is laid.

Upon completion of these works, electrification and gasification of the premises, kitchen and bathroom equipment, furniture installation are carried out. For reliable installation of furniture, plywood of a larger thickness is attached to the walls than on the floor or ceiling, or separate reinforced strips are placed to fix it. And, of course, if necessary, you need to put in order the chassis and engine of the Gazelle or the old bus, then such a house will become truly mobile.

Trailer-based mobile home

Here, unlike a house made from a minibus, the work is somewhat different. First you need to protect the chassis from corrosion by cleaning and painting them. Then you will have to build the floor, walls, ceiling and roof, acting in the following sequence:

• put plywood of sufficient thickness on the frame, surround the outer edge with a bar and fasten with bolts;

Trailer-based home flooring

• lay the beams on the floor, fixing heat-insulating material between them and close it all on top with plywood;
• for the construction of walls, timber and lining are used, not forgetting in the process of work to make openings for windows and doors, as well as technological holes for the entrance and exit of various communications;
• for the construction of the roof, install the rafters, sheathe them with plywood, covering them with moisture-resistant material on top;

Building walls

• after laying the electrical wiring, make thermal insulation of the walls, then closing the fiberboard on top;
• to protect wooden walls, prime them inside and out, and then paint them in two layers;
• install a door and windows, additional interior decoration may be required.

Upon completion of these works, you can also think about gasification, water supply, organizing a kitchen and a bathroom, installing furniture. Then all that remains is to put on the fenders and headlights that the trailer comes with, and the mobile home is ready to travel.

Be sure to obtain permits before setting off in your RV

Traveling in a mobile home, of course, is very convenient. However, before starting construction, decide for yourself whether you can independently master all the work, because they will require quite a lot of effort, money and skills.

DIY mobile home: video

They are made from almost anything. Someone buys a van and marks it out according to a blueprint. Others buy ready-made versions, stamped in batches in factories and factories. Others prefer to take the trailer as a basis and layer by layer, as if collecting LEGO bricks, creates. Well, today we want to show a simple, but very memorable example of how a kind heart and a small budget can fulfill the dream of your own land "ship" on wheels. In short, it is homemade home from the bus that performs all nested functions and is able to move around as before.

Homemade caravan from the bus was the desire of newlyweds Mike and Natalie Young, who did not want to live like everyone else. Rosie- now that's the name of the old school bus Bluebird Bus 1978 year of manufacture, bought for only 3000 US $... His worst years of downtime are behind him thanks to the couple's enthusiasm and their desire to see as much of the United States as possible through the windows of their home.

The layout of the motorhome is maddeningly simple. A completely open space flows from one room to another. There are simply no partitions between the dining room or the bedroom. All previously standing chairs were disposed of and replaced with laminate flooring. Furniture was collected from various flea markets. They designed some of them ourselves, and purchased the other at a low price. Bookshelves and some tables are the most common furnishings, as are ottomans, chairs and countertops. Successfully fitting one to the other - that was the most difficult task, which skillful hands and a keen eye coped with.

At the moment, Rosie parked in one of the corners of Austin, where the guys quietly live and settle down. Amenities in homemade camper from the bus squeezing out did not work, since the sewerage would require significant financial investments. With a tiny budget, friendly help and a tremendous desire to breathe life into the school legend, the guys completely redesigned the bus before the wedding, making it, except for the above nuances. There is no well-thought-out heating system either, but the newlyweds have enough heaters. Now both work in local institutions and in fact have dropped anchor, but having saved up money, the guys are again going to go on long walks across the continent.

Rosie is not planned to be transformed into a full-fledged business, an example of which we published earlier: ““. This is a home for life and travel - this is the verdict of the owners. It remains for us to wish them good luck, and to you the same patience and inspiration, if you decide to create something similar for yourself. We are sure that an old PAZ'ik or Lvov is no worse in terms of materials, on which you just need to put a little mind and money.