Bed height & garage calculator
Raise the bed and you gain a garage but lose the room to sit up in it. Lower it and the bikes stop fitting. This solves the squeeze from both ends and tells you when your roof simply cannot do both.
Pick your van and the numbers below fill themselves from a database of 197 variants.
Top of the deck, above the floor.
Sitting on the floor, bum to crown. Leave the default if you don't know it.
Room to sit up in bed
780 mm
you need 935 mm
Clear height in the garage
930 mm
your load needs 950 mm
This roof cannot do both. Either the load goes elsewhere, the mattress gets thinner, or you need a taller van.
Sit as low as the load allows: headroom over the mattress is worth more day to day than empty air under the bed.
Planning figures, not certification. Standards are summarised for builders; your inspector, your van's plate and your own measurements always win.
How this is calculated
- Room to sit up = interior height − (platform + mattress). You need your sitting height plus about 25 mm.
- Garage clearance = platform height − 70 mm for the deck and its frame.
- The workable range is the gap between the lowest platform that clears your load and the highest that still lets you sit up. When they cross, no height works.
Sources
- Sprinter-Source bed-height polls and build threads (the 36–39 inch consensus)
- Build A Green RV — bed platform construction
- VanPlot's own headroom design check (85 cm to sit up straight)
Questions builders ask
How high should a camper van bed be?
As low as the load underneath allows. Room to sit up is interior height minus platform minus mattress, and you need your sitting height plus about 25 mm. A 1,900 mm interior with a 1,100 mm platform and a 150 mm mattress leaves 650 mm — short of the roughly 910 mm most adults need.
How much height does a bike need under a van bed?
With the front wheel off, about 850 mm for a road bike and about 950 mm for a mountain bike; an MTB with the dropper post down needs about 900 mm. Upright with both wheels on, or a motorbike, needs about 1,100 mm — and the bed deck and frame add another 70 mm above that.
Can you have a garage and still sit up in bed?
Only if the roof is tall enough for both. The workable range is the gap between the lowest platform that clears your load and the highest that still lets you sit up. When those two cross, no height works: the load goes elsewhere, the mattress gets thinner, or the van gets taller.
Keep reading
Plan the whole van, not just this number
VanPlot is a 3D layout planner for camper conversions. Place real components in your real van and watch weight, axle loads, power and cost update live — this calculator is one panel of it.
Who makes this
I'm Vladimir. I'm planning my own conversion, and none of the tools I tried could tell me whether a layout would fit or what it would do to the rear axle, so I made this one. I work on it alone. If something's wrong or missing, write to me — the address goes to my inbox.
Vladimir Šterjoski