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Note: Both my Element and this site are under construction. If you've followed a link from the older version of this site, it will bring you here.

 About us
We're EJ and Florrie Bleendreeble. This web site was started around 2009, when we had Ursa Minor in San Diego convert our 2008 Honda Element ("Elli") to an Ecamper. For a few years we recorded the mods that we made to Elli, and then EJ purchased (and modified) a Honda Odyssey. It seemed that Elli was destined to live out her days as Florrie's runabout car, racking up about 150K miles. And the old hondarv.com web site was abandoned.

The Odyssey was succeeded by a 2016 Ford Transit van, which we also modified for camping. Then EJ traded the Transit for a more civilized vehicle that could tow our Aliner travel trailer - a 2018 Honda Pilot, which Florrie loved and EJ discovered that he simply hated.

The result? Let Florrie have the Pilot, and EJ can have Elli again.

As this new version of our web site shows, my aim in revisiting Elli was and is to create a small camping vehicle which will permit the following:

 Considerations
There are certain constraints on the one hand, and features on the other hand, which affect my build. These may not apply to you, of course:

  • Elli is an Ecamper, so she has an upstairs and - perhaps even more important - a hole in her inner roof to allow access to that upstairs;
  • She has an excellent awning - a Fiamma F35 - so sitting outside even on hot days is feasible for me (I have old bones, and chill easily);
  • I am old and mildly claustrophobic, so sleeping upstairs is out of the question ... which means the bed must be downstairs;
  • I am 5'10" tall, which affects bed length and whether it is possible to sit up straight on a bed platform.
For reasons which will become clear, the fact that Elli is an Ecamper is particularly important, even though - oddly enough - I don't sleep upstairs.

 Bed
An initial word about beds. The
Element Owners Club web site has countless choices for beds, some of them extremely ingenious and/or beautifully constructed. You will probably benefit far more from studying them than from slavishly imitating me, but I offer my own solution for what it's worth.

Elli is a post-2007 model. As a result, the front passenger seat won't tip forwards - it will only recline backwards. Unreclined and moved as far forwards as possible, it affords a distance of about 6' from the back of the seat to the raised platform at the rear. That is not enough for me to feel comfortable, whether on a platform or on the floor - if I can't stretch out with a proper pillow, I can't sleep.

I am not going to waste your time describing the two previous solutions I tried. Instead, let's focus on what worked.

As noted by various forum contributors, the answer lies in the assembly that locks the back seats to the side of the Element ....

(This is the assembly on the driver's side, but it's the mirror image of the one opposite.)

You'll see that the mounting rail is a flattened C-cross-section, so a bed can be secured to it. The correct way to do this is to purchase a special nut that will slide inside that mounting rail and is square so it doesn't revolve, then pass a bolt through your choice of bed platform and tighten into the nut. The incorrect way is to slide in the head of a bolt with a fender washer on it that is slightly narrower than the channel, then lower the plaform over the bolt, pop another fender washer and nut on, and hope you can tighten the nut sufficiently before the bolt tries to turn. This method was of course the one I chose.

My solution
There are all manner of platforms you can opt for. The Bleendreeble solution, chosen because it is the easiest to do, is 3/4" ply and parson's legs from Home Depot. 3/4" ply is heavy, and if I had any skill at all I would choose 1/2" ply and reinforce it in some way. But when it comes to wood, I have no skill.

The parson's legs are matched with a triangular metal plate which screws into the underside of the plywood platform; a hanger bolt at the top of each leg then screws into the metal plate. You will of course have to cut the parson's legs to the correct length. This is easy to do with the plain, straight parson's legs. If you have opted for a late Tudor or early Jacobean look in your Element and have purchased the wiggly legs, I don't know quite what you'll do.

You may be thinking that you will need parson's legs along both sides of the bed plaform, but you don't - provided, that is, that you have secured your platform as suggested above. The platform will rest on the side of your Element pretty much all the way from the back to just short of the rear side-door. So you only need legs on the inner side. However, you will see that my platform covers that convenient storage space at the rear of the Element. If you cut away your platform to allow access to that space, an additional leg is recommended.

Those bed legs
If you adopt my approach, you will want to think about where you locate the legs. Three legs is enough if you use 3/4" ply, but I suggest you play around with whatever under-bed storage solution you've chosen to make sure that access is not blocked by the legs.

You'll also want to think about access to the spare-tire compartment below the floor. Since my bed is bolted to the wall mount for the back seat, I can lift it slightly to unscrew the two rearmost legs. The platform will remain in place as you open and remove the panel for the spare tire compartment: it's supported by the front leg and the wall mount (another advantage of using 3/4" ply).

The extension
Aft of those beefy-looking hinges, my platform is 4' long. Forward of the hinges, the extension is 27" long. Those are sturdy 7" strap hinges: they need to be able to handle the slight movement of the extension when it's unfolded and in use. The outside edge of the extension needs to be cut away slightly to allow it to fold back without fouling the wall.

OK, now here's the surprising bit (it came as a surprise to me, at any rate, though I suspect many Element owners will be way ahead of me). If you lower the back of the front passenger seat all the way down, then when you unfold the 27" section it will rest on the padded sides of the front seat and be almost level with the rear section of the platform.

Furthermore, if you take the headrest, turn it sideways, and wedge it as you see in the illustration below, it will give additional support for the extension. (You can see the bottom of one of the parson's legs on the other side of the bed with - alas! - a chip in the paint.)

Let us stop and meditate on this for a while. Can it be total coincidence that the reclined front seat back is almost in a plane with a platform that is bolted to the assembly that locates and holds the back seat? Or did the US-based design team think to themselves in 2007, "As a consolation prize for preventing the front seat back from tipping forward (because of the new seatbelt design), let us put a little Easter egg in there for those conversion freaks"?

Unfolded, my platform is 6'3" long. I tested it in the wild recently, and it worked like a charm. I slept with my head at the rear of my Element. That meant that the extension only had to support the weight of my legs.

Covering the bed
Once again, check out the Element Owners bed list for options from basic to luxurious. Here is the stuff I used: it's from Home Depot and it's about $14 for a 5'x2' mat. The name is TrafficMaster Utility, IIRC.

Why did I choose it? It's cheap. It's two feet wide and so is my bed. It doesn't smell - some of the stuff at Home Depot smells, and continues to smell for ever. It doesn't fall apart when you cut it, because there's nothing to fray, and it cuts easily with scissors. And it is easy to staple. It looks pretty good, and if I'd managed to source black rather than silver staples it would look even better....

Even if - like me - you always take the easy way out, you will want to cover both sides of the extension so that it looks reasonable when it's folded back.

Accidental chaise longue
Having created this bed, I discovered quite by accident that it will convert into a chaise longue for day use.

Simply move the passenger seat, complete with headrest, to a normal upright position. Then, when you open the bed, the extension will rest against the back of the seat, offering a pleasant way to laze in your Element and enjoy the view through the open rear hatch. You can adjust the angle of "lean" by moving the front passenger seat backwards or forwards.

 Space
Inevitably, space is an issue in any Element-based build. Horizontal, or floor space. Vertical space. Storage space.

Let's begin with ....

Vertical space
Putting the bed on a platform offers the possibility of storage below the bed. Choose an under-bed storage solution that is a reasonable height (e.g. crates) and you'll be able not only to store stuff but sit on your bed platform during the day to work or to cook ....

Or will you?

The default height of the roof means that, if you make a bed platform that is the right height to sit on, you will not be able to sit up straight. If you make the platform lower so that you can sit up straight, your knees will be bent and your under-bed storage space severely compromised.

Interestingly, I don't have this problem. My bed platform is at the correct height for sitting, and yet I can sit up straight. How? You'll remember that I have the Ecamper conversion, so there is a hole in the roof. I don't sleep upstairs in my Ecamper Element, but that means that there are several useful features available to me.

My Ecamper came with two beautiful plastic panels which closed off the access space to the upstairs (sadly they got marred almost immediately). I leave these at home. You will see from the pic that if I am immediately below the access area, there is enough extra headroom for me to sit up straight.

Space upstairs
Ah, that wonderful upstairs space! It came fitted with mattress pads and covers to fill in the space above the plastic panels. All those now remain in my garage, so what I am left with is an empty space a few inches high running the entire length and width of my Element which accommodates the following:

  • An ancient REI air/foam mattress pad, which no longer can be inflated but which is just fine on my downstairs bed;
  • An ancient Coleman sleeping-bag;
  • A more modern down-filled Marmot sleeping-bag;
  • A pillow;
  • A robust folding chair, which can be used both outside and inside Elli (there is just enough room to use it at the back of Elli, beside the bed);
  • A curtain-rod with curtains, which I use across the two front grab-handles if I want more privacy at night ...
... and there's still some space left over. In the pic you'll see that I've left a gap beside the air mattress for headroom when I'm sitting.

Space on the roof?
If you don't have an Ecamper, what about storage space actually on the roof - roof rails, or even a storage compartment mounted up there?

That obviously is a solution, though I have no personal experience with it. The great advantage to using the roof space afforded by the Ecamper conversion is that it is inside the Element and is accessible from inside the Element. For me, getting the air-bed down to sleep at night is a far different proposition from having to go outside - perhaps in the rain - to retrieve it.

Space under the bed
There is enough room under the bed for a microwave oven and two crates. When the bed is folded back and the front passenger seatback is upright, an additional crate can be placed in front of those two crates.

If you are traveling by yourself, you can put a fourth crate in front of or on the front passenger seat.

Appliances tend to take up horizontal space. I have several appliances, and they are nearly all chosen on the assumption that I will have shore power.

Heater
This tiny Lasko ceramic fan heater is good for 750 or 1500 watts and is an almost exact fit (just push it a little) for the tray on the rear part of the center console. If you have the optional armrest for the driver's seat, it will also fit under that. It warms Elli up in no time. I've had a couple of these over the years and encountered no problems.

Microwave
This is a Wally-World special. It too is just about indestructible, but it can be permanently busted by connecting it to a cheap modified sine-wave inverter (don't ask). The design of the control panel is an object lesson to manufacturers of far more expensive devices.

Fridge
The fridge is an old Engel MT17, bought long ago enough that it cost about 2/3 of its present price. It's outdated now: it can be either a fridge or a freezer but not both at the same time, and it doesn't have pretty flashing lights or digital controls.

People are fond of saying that these fridges are noisy. They aren't, but they do vibrate, and that will set up resonances all over the place unless they're carefully placed in such a way as not to transmit those vibrations.

Endless Breeze fan
Another antique from previous builds. Often known as the "Fantastic Fan," our model was bought back in the days when the original manufacturer not only priced it ridiculously low but often supplied spare parts without charge. Ours has suffered significant abuse: its feet long ago broke off and were replaced with rubber pads from some mysterious source. And the fan itself is damaged: the interior frame is cracked, so if the fan isn't vertical it makes a terrible clattering noise. There seems to be a moderately priced substitute for it on Amazon called the "Boundless Breeze."

In its traveling position, as shown, it blows directly onto my face at night. But the bungee cords that secure it are easily removed, and its long lead means it can be placed anywhere. (In fact, its default location against the wall reduces the airflow to some extent, but I find it works for me.)

Incidentally, the seatbelt that you see doesn't secure it: that just happens to be where the rear seatbelt is located.

I have a long external power cord for shore power. On all the previous vehicles I've owned, it has been easy to run that cord through some gap in the rear bodywork which is large enough not to "pinch" it. So far in Elli, I've used the tiny gap at the corner where the tailgate and rear window meet, but it's a tight fit and I'm not happy about it. The Element may be the first vehicle where I'll need to create a dedicated plug.

Shore power runs the fridge (when it detects 120 volts, it automatically switches from 12-volt power), the microwave, the fan heater, and (hopefully, someday) the air-conditioner. It also charges my little Jackery 240 portable power station (of which more later), although I do have to manually switch that between 12-volt power (when driving) and 120-volt power.

Internal extension cord
My shore-power cord enters Elli at the rear on the passenger side, but only the microwave is on that side of the vehicle. I was a little flummoxed as to how to run an extension to the other side without tripping over it all the time.

Luckily, I had a long three-pin extension cord with a flat cable ... and Honda thoughtfully provided a channel along which I can run that cord - the channel around the cover for the spare tire.
Because that cover flexes as I move around, the cord tends to work its way out, so I'll be getting some of those clips that consist of a short, flat piece of plastic with a small screw in it, which can turn to keep the cord in place until I want to remove the cover.

There are two additions I made to Elli to accommodate my 12-volt requirements.


The first is a 12-volt distribution unit with several 12-volt and USB outlets. This fits exactly in the little storage compartment below the single-DIN radio and is powered from the sole 12-volt outlet above the glove box. It powers the Bluetooth module for the phone/radio audio link, and charges both the phone and the Jackery portable power station when I'm driving. There are plenty of USB outlets for front-seat passengers to use for their various devices.


The second addition is the Jackery power station itself. This is the second smallest Jackery unit, and there are plenty of competing products you can use instead.

It has two broad purposes. The first is to provide 12-volt power when Elli is parked and connected to shore power. Thus, it acts as a transformer to charge mobile devices and drive the Endless Breeze fan. Its second purpose is to provide 12-volt power when Elli is stopped but there is no shore power. It can run the fridge and/or power the fan for several hours. If you look carefully at the top of the pic, you can see the three power buttons on a little distribution unit, to which the 12-volt output of the Jackery is connected.

My unit is nowhere near powerful enough to run the microwave; nevertheless, it is still surprising to me that such inexpensive units have pure sine-wave inverters for 120 volts. As already noted, when underway it's charged from the distribution unit on the dash.

Elli has had this old awning on her for most of her life. It spent some time on the Honda Odyssey, attached to a roof rack, but when the Odyssey was sold Elli got it again.

It's a Fiamma F35 awning, and not for the first time I am moved to remark how much more expensive an item is now than when we bought it. It has also proven to be bullet-proof. The pix show how well it works, with the addition of weights to hold it down in windier weather. The weights are from Golds Gym, and in the center of each weight is an epoxied bolt with a wingnut, which attaches to the bottom of the poles through a thoughtfully provided hinged tab.

The only problem has been that it remained unused for many years, and inevitably water seeped inside and green gunge grew on the patterned vinyl fabric. Attempts to clean it off recently revealed that it has actually dyed the vinyl: the only way of getting it off was to scrub so hard that the pattern started to come off too. So I stopped: better a working but ugly awning than an awning with a hole in it.

It does not require the eye of an expert to see that much of what I have "installed" in Elli is in fact located and/or secured with bungee cords. Exceptions are the heavy stuff: the bed (bolted to the back seat mounts on the wall) and the fridge (fastened with turnbuckles to securing hooks and floor mounts for the back seats).

Always in the back of my mind is what might happen to all this stuff in the event of an accident or rollover at speed ....

Reasoning
There are three main reasons for using bungee cords. The first is that it allows quick installation with ready adjustments for positioning and securing. The second is that stuff that is secured this way can move a little: attaching it rigidly can give it a rough ride.

The third reason comes from seeing YouTube videos or other information sources from people who have built out larger vehicles (like our old Ford Transit van) after much thought and careful planning, using best practices and true craftsmanship. The videos I like to watch are the ones that are titled "What We Wish We Had Done Differently," and usually appear about six months after their builds are completed.

I have never gone in for permanent installations. First of all, I'm incapable of doing a decent job on them. Second, I've never yet created a temporary solution that satisfied me for very long - there's always something that can be improved. So when the inevitable day comes that I want to change something, I'm not reduced to ripping out something that was built to last.

I'm not pretending that this is the way everyone should do things. It's just an explanation for why I do it.

Note: This section is long on talk and short on proven solutions. You may want to skip to the pix and see if they are of any interest to you.

I promised when I resurrected this web site that I would see if it was possible to have air-conditioning in Elli when she was shore-powered. This section explores that possibility.

(I did once use a window unit in Elli, many years ago. It sat on the tailgate, with the door above closed, and a piece of plastic tarp blocking the space around the unit. It worked, but it didn't work well.)

About air-conditioning in hot and humid areas
I've written about this many times, and yet I still get comments from people who (I assume, anyway) live north of the Mason-Dixon line, stating there is no such thing as having too large an air-conditioner. If you know that this statement is nonsense, you get an A+ and may skip the next section.

A delicate balance
Air-conditioners do two distinct things. They cool the air, and they dehumidify it.

If an air-conditioner is too small, it can't cool the air sufficiently, so it will run constantly. Good for reducing the humidity; not so good for attaining a comfortable temperature, not to mention the problem of wear and tear on the unit.

If an air-conditioner is too large, it can reach your desired temperature too quickly, while the humidity is still high. Having reached the temperature you chose, it switches off. The only way to reduce the humidity further is to turn the thermostat down as low as possible. As the temperature plummets, you are left perspiring while hunkered down in your sleeping-bag shivering - a strangely unpleasant feeling.

So an air-conditioner must, like Baby Bear's bed in the Goldilocks story, be neither too big nor too small but just right: the perfect balance of cooling and dehumidifying for a given area.

Got it? Good. Now let's rejoin the southerners and continue ....

Floor area of the Element
I'd estimate the floor area of the Element at about 50 square feet. Whether you opt for a window unit or (like me) a portable air-conditioner, the smallest size you can get is about 5,000 BTU, and that is probably too large for 50 square feet.

But the only way to know for sure is to rig up a proof-of-concept system and find out. So my new experiment uses a portable unit (left over from the Ford Transit van days).

Lower-end portable a/c units come with a single hose and a piece of plastic - a spacer - that the hose clips onto. That spacer is placed at the bottom of your home's sash window - as shown here, in a pic of our older unit.

Here is what I have done and discovered so far.

Problems to solve
We need to take into account that ...

  • A small portable a/c unit needs to vent outside, as seen in the pic above;
  • There has to be a pathway for the flexible vent hose, which is about 5" in diameter;
  • The unit will take up floor space (but only about a square foot);
  • It condenses water, which needs to be drained somehow;
  • It weighs quite a lot, so it needs to be secured or restrained in some way when on the move.
Where to vent
Unless you want to create a large hole in the wall or the floor of your Element, the obvious place to vent the unit is through a window.

I considered the rear side windows, but there is a problem with them. If you unscrew the latching mechanism, there is nothing (as far as I can tell) to stop the glass falling out. If you don't remove the latch, you can't mount a "mask" for the vent unless you also make a hole to accommodate that latch. So we are left with the front windows.

OK, so we can wind down the front window (on the driver's side, in my case) and hang the end of the vent hose out of it. But how do we make this arrangement waterproof and reasonably air-tight?


You might be thinking that you could fashion a thin piece of wood - a wooden spacer - that pushes into the window channel at the top of the window and the sides. Cut a hole in it, take the plastic spacer I mentioned earlier, chop the ends off it, and mount it with caulk and screws over the hole in the wooden spacer. Attach some sort of weather strip along the bottom of the spacer which will overlap the partially raised window. I was easily able to make a spacer for my Ford Transit, as shown in the pic, but that was because the top and side window channels were more or less square.

On the Element, as long as you are a gifted woodworker, this will present no problem at all. For me, it presented an insuperable problem ... because the wooden spacer must be carefully and precisely shaped, more or less like a boomerang. Why? On the Element the top of the front window is not straight - it is cut away at the front. So your wooden spacer must curve down at the front to match the curve in the glass and the curve in the window opening. There is no hope whatever of the feckless Bleendreeble pulling that off.

Using corrugated plastic sheet
My current solution (remember that none of this has been field-tested at the moment) is corrugated plastic sheet. On the upside, it is easily available (from Lowes, in this case); it is relatively cheap; it is fairly easy to cut with scissors (though I found a jigsaw to be cleaner and more accurate); and it compresses a little (we'll see in a moment why this matters). On the downside, it involves blocking out the entire window, not just part of it, and the sheet can bend too easily or even fold - in other words, it's not very sturdy.

Blocking off the whole window is some sort of compensation for that lack of sturdiness, as is placing the vent port close to the edge of the window. Our solution must fit in the top and side channels and in the bottom seal, and so we must use two pieces, not one (think about it for a moment). The two pieces overlap slightly, and you can squeeze the edges of the two pieces so that the overlap section will fit the top and bottom. Here, a few pictures will be worth a thousand words ....

Some sort of caulk should be used between the vent port and the plastic sheet. Installing both plastic sheets involves sizing them so that you slot each sheet all the way into the top window channel and then bend the sheet ever so slightly so that the bottom just pops into the bottom seal. Now you can drop the sheet so that it rests entirely on the bottom seal, at which point the top will still be inside the top window channel.

There needs to be some way of stopping wind-driven rain from entering sideways between the two plastic sheets. I'll probably use some sort of weather-stripping screwed to the trailing edge of the sheet at the front.

Locating the a/c unit in the Element
After you have gazed at this pic for a while you'll be able to tell what it is. It's the actual portable a/c unit (R2D2) riding between the backs of the two front seats. Since I have the driver's seat armrest, R2D2 is jammed up against that and can't move forward. Because of the (completely accidental) width I chose for the lower part of the bed, R2D2 is also prevented from rolling backwards. Sadly, the driver's armrest blocks the hose outlet on the back of R2D2, so at night when the system is set up he has to be wiggled backwards a little to make room for the hose.

However, you may be wondering why R2D2 is wearing what looks like the kind of mask favored by people who rob banks. The reason is quite simple. The "mask" is an old t-shirt stretched over the unit because - without it - R2D2's plastic sides squeak again the fabric of the front seats. Needless to say, when R2D2 is at work he removes his t-shirt first.

There remains only one concern. These portable units collect condensed moisture which has to be removed (daily, in places like Texas). R2D2 (a Hisense model) proudly carries a label saying that he blows all excess moisture out of the hose. Do not be fooled: This has never worked for me on either of the units we've had. There is a drain at the bottom of the unit. A short piece of hose running to a small plastic drink bottle will handle his incontinence. Simply empty the bottle each morning.

Conclusion (based on real life)
Well, I tried it out for real. The good news is that the concept appears to work. The bad news is that the whole business is just too fiddly. When we want air-conditioning, we want it with the push of a button. We don't want to be carrying around a heavy "portable" unit that occupies a whole lot of room even when it's not doing anything useful, and that has to be all connected up when we do want to use it.

So for right now, having a/c when stopped at a campground is off the agenda. The only remaining option might be the Zero Breeze 2, but - good heavens! - have you seen the price?

There is no doubt in my mind that - for me - the a/c solution I tried out is not practical, even if it does work. In fact, within a few minutes of returning home after its shakedown trial, I replaced the unit with the item you see in the pic. It might not be much use for cooling my Element, but it has vastly increased my storage space ....



Keep checking back here for news and additional details ....






















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