Motorhome Construction

The Storage Bins.

The below decks or underfloor area is accessible through 4 hinged doors, 2 on each side. These locker doors provide access to a large storage area beneath the motorhome.

Now space is limited, and the thru-bin area in the center is lower and smaller than at the sides, so it is important to optimize the space by planning in advance.

The front center section is filled with water tanks, and eventually the rear section will be as well. The rear center is currently the storage space for the spare tyre, but we intend moving it onto a sturdy bracket above the front bumperbar eventually. This leaves the sides clear. now there are 3 areas in the side bins, (2 on the right, and 1 on the left) that are "round the corner" and do not have frontal access via the hatches, so we elected to use these areas for static items such as the house batteries, grey water tank, and generator set etc.

The left hand side will contain all the day to day most commonly used essentials, while the right side will house jerry-cans, spare water drums, water hoses, submersible pump, the filtration system, the gennie, and the plumbing etc. Basically, anything that is used infrequently will be there.

In the left front bin, there is enough space to house the outdoor cooking items like camp-ovens etc, the smaller 12 volt compressor fridge/freezer,(who wants to go upstairs for a beer when relaxing?), outdoor furniture etc etc, while the rear bin is fitted out as a micro workshop.

The left side bins

This micro-workshop is equivalent to a bloke's backyard shed, but everything has to fit into a space thats only 5' x 2' x 2'6", and be accessible! Okay, I ain't leaving home without the TransArc Junior, so the welder fits in nicely at the rear of the box, complete with all accessories.

A shelf or micro-workbench was framed out of some scrap 3" x 2" pine, and decked with a inch thick timber from an old table, courtesy of kerb-side cleanup. Wooden trays with compartments were built to fit under the left side of the "bench" to hold a sundry of various screws, bolts, nuts, washers, and fittings, and the right side was left as a compartment for power tools like drills, sanders, grinders etc.

Between the welder and the bench there was enough room to store the large and more heavy items like the 3/4" drive socket set (Bloody handy for wheel nuts) and another toolbox with mixed engineering tools on top. I then sorted the rest of my hand tools into 3 tool trays, being mechanical, electrical, and carpentry, and these 3 tool boxes then live on the top of the bench.

The small drill press will be mounted beside the welder eventually, but the heavy engineer's 6" dawn vice will need mounting on the back bumperbar, so as to be more accessible. Alas, the oxy-acetylene will not be happening at this stage, I would need to down grade the "E" size bottles to the baby "handyman juniors" first.

The right side bins

The front right bin houses a 60 litre water tank, 3 pumps and 2 filtration systems which makes for a very messy and fragile layout. I elected to do the same as the micro-workshop, and construct a shelf above the water tank from sturdy materials so as to protect all the plumbing and provide a solid surface to store the submersible pump and water supply hoses on.

To be continued....