Here is a pic of the bus mostly cleared out. Since the previous owner had taken out the seats and wheel well covers then it was pretty easy - just a couch, a la-z-boy, a mattress and some lumber. In the pic I am seated atop the engine, where our beds will eventually be. You can also see some plywood and paneling leaning up at the front of the bus, this we are planning to use on the ceiling once we put insulation up. The plywood on the floor is covering big holes which will be fitted with sheet metal and welded shut. We have put some masking tape on the floor to play around with different floor plans.
Since our last post, there have been many questions as to our plans once we move onto the bus. We will be parking the bus in town here and Benny will continue working at the family business. By doing this we intend to save money as we look for property to build on. We are currently looking at building a structural yurt made by Solargon (a local company). They are constructed using SIPS panels. There are a few other companies we are exploring but we will be visiting a Solargon structure first. In the future we do hope to travel with the bus part-year, but have some other priorities before we can focus on doing that.
Warmly,
Marissa
I'd love to know your thoughts on why you chose a bus instead of building something on a trailer. Also, include more photos! :)
ReplyDeleteWell, there are a whole bunch of reasons why we like the idea of a converted school bus... We were open to motorhomes, trailers both vintage and new, shipping container.... anything! We decided that we needed at least 8'x~40'. When we started shopping we found motorhomes and trailers (even old rough ones) to be out of our price range. If we bought a trailer we would need to buy(or borrow) a truck to pull it anywhere. I only drive air-cooled VW! Motorhomes and rv's are hard to repair and replace cosmetic things without completely gutting. I.E. fake wood paneling and cabinet doors that are impossible to replicate once the rv is a few years old. We also like to be able to design the floorplan and interior finishes around our preferences and priorities. Performance/safety wise it made sense for us to. RV's are built ultra light on RV specific frames and sometimes cheaply. They are more likely to be blown around on the road and in an accident they are likely to be smashed to pieces because the body is constructed from 2x lumber or light metal and sheeting. A school bus is built with a heavy duty, real truck frame (our Freightliner chassis is rated for 34,000 lbs.!), heavy gauge steel body and is built with safety in mind from the ground up(for the kids!). I found out a school bus is engineered to support its complete weight upside down on its roof in the event of a rollover! It is built to stop quickly too. Another interesting fact is that Wyoming commonly shuts down the highways to RVs, semis and even passenger vehicles because of high winds while the school district doesn't pull the buses off the road for high winds! Many motorhomes are notoriously under powered and our school bus is powered by a Caterpillar diesel with a transmission geared for the Rocky Mountain region, once again, rated to tote around 17 tons! We really liked the idea of a turn key option as we really don't need another project, but this bus kinda just happened like it was meant to be. We found it pretty close by, the owner sold it to us for 1/3 the value, with the seats stripped out, included water tanks, parts and had it serviced. We have the family salvaged building supply business and I have been saving off grid and motorhome parts.(just in case I get the chance to use them) We also like the character and culture that comes with converting the school bus ourselves. I guess we feel it just really fit us like a glove.
DeleteThanks for your question! We look forward to sharing more pics as the project comes along. I will also try to organize my blog posts so that the Skoolie pics and posts are accessible in one place. :)
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