Diesel cooktop, fridge, & hot water heater?

Induction cook top, no water heater and electric freezer and fridge.

Your solar/battery setup sounds really nice, but I've never heard of a modern RV w/ an indoor shower that lacks a water heater.

Do you really need any kind of septic tank? Couldn’t the toilet just dump onto the ground as long as you only flush while driving?

I've dumped grey water while driving, but a band got a hefty fine a few years back for dumping their sewage on a bridge into a river.

I was pretty much joking. I’m guessing that dropping a fresh turd in the traffic lane of the interstate at 65 mph would be poorly received by adjacent drivers.

AFAIK, your options are: black tank, cassette (seems like nothing more than a tiny portable black tank, to me), and composting.

Due to the weight penalty and general filthiness, almost all school bus conversions I have seen opted for a composting unit (whether DIY or commercially made). Most people say that the vent fan keeps smells out, and the final product jut smells "earthy". Probably most important of all, it can be safely buried any place. The major downside about composting units is the smell of the urine tank when you go to empty that.

People in smaller types, like vans, short buses, and shuttle buses, seem to more often opt for the cassette types or "wag bag" portable units, so they plan around to not remain as far away from true plumbing.

Last night a buddy came over and we got all the edge trim out of the bus, so now I can start painting the floors with a sealer, but before I do that, I need to actually weld in fresh metal to the spots I cut out all the rot. I'll probably start welding tonight.

Sorry, no pictures, I'll take some later.


I have a bunch of 1/2" (R-2.5) polystyrene "GreenGuard" foam sheets, because when I did my garage/shop, somehow I bought 2x what I needed for the shop. Now, I have about 2.5x what I need for the bus project already on-hand. The question here is: Do I double up the 1/2" and then put the 15/32 plywood subfloor on top, or do I bring all the extra 1/2" foam sheets back to lowes, buy 1" sheets, and install that? The 1/2" sheets are about $14/ea and the 1" sheets are about $24/ea, so that means I can avoid $4/ea by returning and buying 1"... In theory at least. The lowes is a 15 minute drive each way, and then I've gotta load, unload, wait in line, explain, deal with lowes, find the 1" stuff, load, unload, then cut and install.

If I go through all of that, is it even really worth it? I figure it'd take me at least an hour, to save 32 bucks?


In other news, I received my shipment of solar cells and the solar charge controller/inverter/AC Charger. I've got 4x 250w 60-cell solar panels and a 3000VA inverter, capable of charging the 24v 200Ah battery bank at 80a (if I had enough solar to do that), but it will also allow me to charge via AC and divert AC directly to the AC output on the device. So, this allows me to use the generator to charge the battery bank and run the appliances on the bus. Think of it like a commercial UPS but with a solar input. It seems like these are the way people are going with off-grid systems, and the tech is pretty mature, so we'll see if it's worth the $700 for the all-in-one.

Here's their marketing picture-sheet.


The panels are used from a commercial farm, but still have output meeting their rating. I was shocked to see how much power they actually put out when turned upside down in the sun. I still might buy 4 more and add more to the array, just to get a little more life out of the 200Ah battery bank, before adding another pair of batteries.


So, on the agenda this week:
1. Weld floor patches
2. Paint/seal floor
3. Insulate and put subfloor down
4. Measure and mark out the floorplan with tape.

Why wouldn't an RV park or campground allow a Schoolie?

My buddy's band converted a school bus into their tour bus back in the late 90s and it was really cool.

Incinerating is another option.

To put it into arfcom terms: Apparently some RV parks are like Knights Armament, LaRue, and Geissele fanboys. They look at converted school buses like a 3d printed lower receiver with thermold magazines and a Bear Creek Arsenal upper receiver.

When we went to the RV show in Baltimore Saturday, one of the salesmen asked me what kind of RV we have currently, after I asked him how wide one of the Class B rigs was (he told me "less than 8 feet" incorrectly btw), and I've never seen someone's mannerisms go from happy to talk to me to looking like I just farted in an elevator so quickly with just words. Lots of people look down on it -- and that's fine. Whatever. They can keep making their $850/mo payments on their RV while I spend $300/mo in fuel, insurance, and wear and tear to go out and see places.

I don't want this to turn into an argument about the superiority of home-built to factory-built. There's plenty of crap on the internet about why people look down on converted buses, some of it based in fact, some based in conjecture, and some pure fantasy.

So some RV parks are just like an HOA. Got it.

Yeah. Precisely.

Coincidently, many HOAs don't like RVs either, so they're at odds with one another. :P

Many RV parks have some, usually permanent, sites where a fixed up school bus would be an improvement over what is already there.

That's a heck of a lot of electricity or propane for an RV, isn't it?

I've mostly looked at short busses for a few reasons compared to the full-size models.. The first is size, I don't need that much interior and bigger is harder to drive, won't get in some places, etc.  The second is maintenance.  That monster's going to need the services of a big diesel mechanic if you aren't one, and good luck finding parts at Vatozone. Shit, the damn tires are 90psi!  A short bus is basically an E-350 with a box on the back.  Diesel short busses can be worked on by anyone that will work on a diesel pickup and parts are much more common, gassers are also an option if preferred.

Had my wishes dialed in to one of the dually Bluebird five window models with air con and automatic tire chains on a Ford chassis.  They're not hard at all to find around me cheap, like $500-1000 for a running model in decent enough shape.  

I think you're overestimating how difficult it is to find maintenance for a bus. School bus maintenance is actually pretty easy to find, they're medium duty trucks for the most part, and pretty much anyone who will work on anything larger than a 1 ton will have the tools to work on it.

That said, I wish you luck. The shorter buses were on the menu initially for us too, but after I measured out a queen bed, bunk beds, a toilet, small shower, kitchen countertop, and a couch, I realized we'd need more than that if we wanted to bring any motorcycles along. A five-window is going to give you about 15 feet of interior living space, so you'll probably want to do a murphy bed or something like that to save space.



Here are the pics of the solar equipment:




I'll probably put them on the center of the roof, so I can try to allow myself some additional room to add 4x more panels in the future.

The rust conversion process went OK... It's now supposedly phosphated. So, a buddy and I tore up the trim pieces, and now I've gotta weld up the holes. That's not going to be super fun, there's like 87,000 holes in the floor of this thing.




Last night I cut out a couple templates for the holes in the floor. I really wish I had measured out 24" on the bus floor before I started cutting the holes... Apparently if I want anything larger than 24" in any direction, I need to go to a metal supplier (according to both Ace Hardware and Lowes.) So I'm gonna weld in the two pieces that are shorter than 24" and maybe figure out how to stitch together a couple pieces to fill in the 26" long hole over the diff. Maybe I can line it up with the cross-bars? That'll be cool/fun.

A metal salvage yard is likely to have MUCH better prices on sheet steel - In just about any size you want.

Typically, they sell it at the scrap metal price - per pound.

Well... I might be in too far to back out, lol.

I did some welding on my lunch break today (work from home isn't all bad, I suppose.)





The wire feed keeps getting jammed depending on gun position, so I'm fighting that with my abysmal welding skills. And I'm just not a very good welder.

I plan on going all the way around each plate, then going underneath the bus and covering it with underliner, and grinding and painting inside.

Can you tell us more about how you found the used panels?

As for the welding...you should practice on some scrap pieces outside the bus a few times...or get someone to help you with that.

There's a couple sellers on eBay who sell used commercial panels. I think I paid $50/ea for these, and then more than that in shipping. I'm kicking myself for not just buying all 8 up front, because now I get to pay another $275 in shipping.

As for the "welding"... Eh, it'll be fine. I've jumped on two of them, and they're fine. As for the third... Uhm, I'm going to be re-doing it.

A co-worker bought a school bus already converted to a RV that we used for Nascar races.   It worked.  A few issues, the rear end gear maxed out at 61mph on the road.  The only way to fix it was re-gearing the axel, which he never did.   If you gear it too low, you will not have any acceleration.  It was not insulated, cold in the winter and an oven in the summer.  We tried to run three AC's to keep it cool in summer.  I think the best we could achieve was 80 degrees on hot summer nights.   Last was the plumbing was not vented very well and on the road, the toilet would vent into the bus.   It had a giant deck on top which made for great viewing from the infield.  We made a lot of friends.  He did not put much money into it and sold it for what he paid for it.  Fun times.

Yep, I plan on insulating the interior of the bus, and I've got a couple MD and HD truck yards near me, I'll check into getting some rear gears that aren't 6.5:1, even a 5.5 or 5.29 would be a world of difference. And since it's full float, I don't even have to jack it up to do the diff-swap.

And as I was typing this, I looked up parts for the rear end:
https://truckpartsinventory.com/parts/details/82814473

That seems like an OK deal.

Are you going to re-use the batt insulation in the walls and ceiling, or are you going to use spray foam? It's kind of expensive but I understand that it's got but better r-value per inch, and you can get DIY kits from Tiger Foam or other places. There is a bit of a learning curve, and the surfaces need to be warm, but it doesn't seem too hard (although freaking messy).

BTW regarding your earlier post, I don't see what you'd gain by going to the store to get a bunch of 1" foam board, over using what you have on hand. Although, the coolest thing I have seen was in-floor radiant heat with PEX under the floor, and they routed their own channels into their foam boards, so that would require thicker foam to begin with.

I'd imagined ww2 naval style pipe racks.  The five window vs the 4 gets a few kayaks inside usefully.  Snuggly? Nah, workable? Yep.

With the magic of seam sealer, last night I finished up the welding and got it all buttoned up. :D

The weather finally warmed up for a few days so I can actually paint things again!

I primed the floor on Saturday morning, and it finally dried completely last night.





Tonight, I plan on hooking up the backup camera, sealing the floor holes, and painting the floor with the top coat, then starting the insulation/subfloor.

Then after that's done, maybe later this week I'll get the ceiling panels out, old insulation removed, escape hatches removed and sealed off, and new insulation installed.

I'm really upset I don't have any framing done yet.

Why seal the escape hatches?

Some builders keep them or rehab the seals if they are lucky, but a lot of people on YT describe having a lot of problems with them, mainly leaky seals. I suppose the plastic could get quite brittle after years in the sun. The most popular replacement seems to be clear hatches from the sailboat world.

If OP doesn't plan to do a roof raise or add a roof-top deck, then maybe he doesn't need any roof hatches.

Personally, I think you are going to wish for more space OP. A roof raise is a lot of work, but you can supposedly just buy hat channel and weld that in. With so much space devoted to your garage, I think you're going to find the total usable volume with a normal height roof to be pretty limiting.

https://www.kampco.com/collections/posts-stakes-tubing/products/1-1-2-hat-post

The smartest idea I have seen for roof top decks (or back porches) is used aluminum bleacher planks.

https://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com/aluminum-bleacher-planks/

Lighter overall than wood, uses standard hardware, requires almost no maintenance.

The rear one leaks, and while I tried replacing the o-rings on the handle shaft, it still leaks. I don't really want it in the garage area, and if I do decide I need a vent, I'll just add a 14"x14" RV vent/fan unit.



I'm not doing a roof raise, and I don't really want a rooftop deck, since most of the roof will be covered with solar panels.

Is the roof 6'?

It's arched, like in a school bus.
I honestly don't know how tall it is, but I know it's tall enough that I can walk with shoes on, with all of the insulation and flooring without banging my head, I did some testing immediately upon getting the bus to see if I needed to do a roof raise. I don't.


In other news, before dinner I got some insulation put in. Next layer after dinner, then maybe plywood afterwards. :D

Can you explain the seam sealer?

You welded plates in to replace the rusted areas, then the seam-sealed over the welds?
What does it do?  Seal any holes?

Is it a two-part epoxy type stuff, like JB Weld?

Yeah, basically it seals any gaps and makes it air/water right.


I finished the floor insulation. Talk about a tedious job, especially after I sliced my left index finger on cut #1, lol. But, it's all done. Gonna have to figure out the orientation of plywood to minimize cuts and seams and so I can actually get it into the bus. The issue is there's a slight lip on each wall, 8" up from the steel floor, now 7" with the insulation, so I can't fit a 90" piece of material into the bus floor without some significant bending and I'm not sure it'll bend enough.

I got the rest of the solar stuff today, so I'm good to go on that, once I get things framed out.

I still need to figure out water. How much, how to run it, where to put the tanks, etc. I'm thinking a 30 inside and a 30 under the bus for freshwater, and a 30 for grey water. Electric hot water heater, and a small-ish shower.

Kitchen will probably just be 48" of countertop, a small sink, and initially a plug-in induction cooktop. If the induction cooktop doesn't cut it, I'll figure out where to go from there.

I also need to figure out how much "garage" I need. I'm thinking that only mini bikes, Grom, Trail 90, and Navi, sized things will be feasible to transport.

I'll post some pics when it's daylight.

Looking good, are you going to keep all the windows, or patch in some sheet metal to get rid of some?

What's the end goal? What happens in 10 years?

Yeah, I'm going to keep the windows, just going to tint all of them and block a few with reflectrix and plywood.

I finished the second layer of 1/2" foam, and started on the plywood yesterday.



I got the plywood subfloor mostly cut and in, I still have to do the front two sheets, but it started raining and I didn't want to risk getting the plywood too wet before I installed it.



I started to mock up the floorplan using masking tape, so I could visualize it, then I used a chair and plywood to block out areas on those lines to possibly see any hard areas to move through or general awkwardness. I did make a few adjustments, the bunk beds are going to be 36" instead of 38" and I did flip around the bathroom to make it closer to the sink.




Once it stops raining, I'll probably mark out the sheet of plywood to cut the complex curves/areas and get it figured out how I'm gonna do the floor to stairwell transition.

How wide is the walkway going to be?

Also meant to ask, what did you actually pay for it, and can you show us the data plate so we can know the MGVWR and so on?

Right now, 24" but I'll finish blocking it out and then make final assessments. I can always make the bunk beds narrower I suppose... 32x75 is a size that's relatively available, I could probably even go down to 28" if that doesn't work, or make the bathroom and closet smaller.

The floorplan picture is misleading, it's a wide angle lens, taken at an odd angle to get the whole thing in frame.



I paid $4500 for the bus. Here's the data plate:

Thanks for sharing that info; I heard the market for uses buses was hot due to this being a recent trend, but it's nice to know that the prices are still reasonable.

I think you will be fine with a 24" walkway, I would guess based on all the YT videos I have seen, that is pretty typical. I can only remember one case where it was noticeably smaller, and that was a guy who had 3-4 kids (on a bus with wife and pets!), so he had to take drastic measures to recover usable space.

I don't think you're in that bad a need of space based on how you describe your plans to use the bus, but one of the (also rare) clever work-arounds I saw on one bus, was someone who put duck boards and a drain in the hallway outside the toilet and sink, and made that space as the shower. It also worked well because at the center of the bus, they had the full height to stand up, and people could rotate through the facilities. Might not be optimal when the shower floor/hallway is wet, but it seems that dedicated showers end up being used as broom closets much of the time anyway.

I don't know anything about the "standard" RV mattress sizes, but I have also heard many times where people bought a regular size foam mattress, and just cut it into two or more pieces and re-upholstered them.

You may also not to want to reduce the bunk size too much, just in case you ever need to sell the bus. I am hoping to do this myself one day, and I actually plan to buy more bus than I need and make the format less specific to my needs, just in case I am ever in a rough spot.

Not that your bus is that way, but I see a lot of buses on YT where they do some CRAZY stuff that no one is ever going to want (100lb bin of dog food for your TWO great danes next to the driver's seat, anyone)?

There are a bunch of smaller mattress manufacturers that will do custom sized mattresses.  They are not crazy expensive either

@awptickes why not go with a butane cook top like this?

lots of hotels/restaurants use them in banquet service because it burns clean indoors. You can even throw it on a fold up table outside to cook out of the bus when the weather is nice.

Can you not put in a bottom vented BBQ tank holder for a propane stove?

Well, the sub-flooring is down, and the seat takes up more room than I thought it did initially... So, yeah, gonna have to get creative with the dinette setup, which may not be dedicated anymore. We may use a table in front of the seats and/or couch.

The stove/cooktop I'm looking hard at is this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HUOEGM6

It's small, high output, and I can always take it outside to cook, which may be useful in the summer when it's hot/warm inside.


Here's the seats I'm using:



I just need to cut out the subfloor to install steel spacers to run the seat bolts through, then I can bolt the rails for the seats in.

Looks like there's an awful lot of room behind the driver to the seats.

Yeah, unfortunately the way the heater is laid out, if I had a sane amount of space on the right seat on the bench, there'd be next to no space on the left seat. Sooooooo, I think we might do a little flip down or inserted table there, so my wife and daughter can do things while we're driving.

Might flip the couch to that side & put the seat where they can see ahead like a normal VIC, particularly if they're prone to car sickness.