Rolling Motel Room

[pipopak]

Very interesting!. I have been planning my own for like a year, with partitions and all, but I like more your "open" approach, so I guess I will head back to the drawing board and see what I will came up with

[wtd]

Oh sorry! went back and reread your earlier posts on the Frig, and you did mention you only used it for eggs, and dairy. Do you think it would be feasible to just have an icebox for all your refrigeration needs??

Sorry, might have been a little confusing there - I only use the icebox for refrigeration - I started out with the frig and after I built the icebox the frig was too good to throw away, so I just use it as a cabinet.

Probably if I was starting with no sinks, I'd put a kitchen sink in the bathroom. By the time I decided on just one sink I already had the bathroom done, so just left it as it was as I had other things to do rather than take out the bathroom sink and install the kitchen sink in it's place.
If I were to do it again I'd probably still put a single sink in the bathroom for a coupla reasons - I'd still want a cabinet in there for towels, paper, cleaning stuff, and other junk normally found there. Also, for the uber hygienic if the sink's in the kitchen, leaving the room to wash your hands after you go may pose a problem (touching things, doorknob to get out, etc.) Not something I'd lose sleep over, but some might, to each own. My water heater is under the left side of the cabinet that's there - I'd have to move that, which just adds complexity - more plumbing, etc. with little benefit. If the cabinet's there and the sink's not, then I just have a piece of counter area that would see little, if any, use. I just find that the extra counter space is a greater benefit in the kitchen than the bath, but - that's just me .

Sorry I overlooked your replies here and thanks for the kind words.

[wtd]

Just a heater shot -

I've got a Big Buddy heater and Buddy heater, smaller version of the big one..When the big one went kerflotz (be sure to use a filter if you're using propane from the big tank - took 5 years but I found out why ) I just switched over to the little one and took a look at the two.
The only real difference was the higher heat setting of the big one, which I never use and the fan 'feature'. Well, I never really cared for the fan anyways, if worked good to move the warm air sround, but it used 6 D cells that last a night or two - gets expensive - or an AC adapter, which meant I had to run the inverter all night just for that. Didn't care for that option much either. i had a couple of 12 volt computer fans mounted to the shelf about 10" from the ceiling that moves the warm air around fine, used less juice and ran off the normal battery bank.
I took the fans down when I was painting and rather than put them back up I decided to see if they'd work mounted on the little heater, just like the fan on the big heater. So I lashed 3 of them together with a piece of aluminum strap across the bottom in the back and screws in the regular mounting hole on the fan to attach to the handle of the heater and it wound up like the picture.

For those with visions of Mrs. O'Leary's cow, I didn't just slap all this together, light it and head for the mall ..
This is even more boring than my usual tripe, but -
In operations the heater/fan combo is in one of 4 conditions, all easy to test for to prevent grisly morbidity and immolation -
1) Heater off, fans off
2) Heater off, fans on
3) Heater on, fans off
4) heater on, fans on

The first two conditions present no hazard and can be ignored.
#3 Before I mounted the fans I felt the spot where they would touch the heater (in the mnorning after the heater had been on all night) and it was warm to the touch but not hot.
So far so good.
#4 Mounted the fans, lit the heater, plugged in the fans. Over four hours, checked the fans from time to time to see if anything got too hot that wasn't supposed to. Nothing did.

Months of use, no problems.
Oh, just an additional thing - the big heater was a 20 buck/30 minute repair, the regulator was full of oil, stuck in a new one. Good customer service at the Buddy heater place.

Tom

[Diesel Dan]

Great heater hack. I've copied and pasted that one for future reference.

I have the bigger size Buddy Heater right now, but who knows what may happen. I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse at not having bought the smaller one just to save space; but at least I know the bigger one will keep me warm. Does that little one you have heat the whole bus pretty well, or do you have to section off half the bus with that fabric to keep warm?

[pipopak]

I was pondering about you decision to do away with the kitchen sink. While I agree that 2 sinks 4' apart does not make a lot of sense, I would leave the kitchen one and replace the bathroom one with a full height cabinet. Usually there is a lot more activity in the kitchen, OTOH the bath is used to spray some water on your face and brush your teeth...........unless you get REALLY creative!. You know, more storage never hurts.....

[wtd]

Um, shot of dullwittedness with a laziness back -
By the time the thought struck me about the sinks I already had the bathroom done. so the choice was move the sink that I'd already installed and redo the bathroom vs. leave out a sink. The laziness won.

Either way would work fine, - I'm not much of a cook, (most of my recipes revolve around a cardboard box and a flavor packet of some sort) so I wouldn't use the kitchen sink for much more than washing dishes.
Putting the sink in the galley would give you a pretty good size cabinet in the bath, tho' - but I dont' need that, about half the storage space that you see in the pictures is empty. I'm not much of an 'accumulator'. I wanted the galley as small as possible, and this way makes the working area of the counter as large as possible.
If I left the counter that small and put in a sink I'd have to use something over the sink in order to get a decent amount of counter space. So if I had the sink covered to get maximum counter and was using the counter I'd have no sink at all as long as the counter was in use. Geez, that sounds pretty confusing, hope it makes sense.
Funny, I'm coming up with more reason to do it the way I did now than when I did it a few years ago
I guess it just depends of where you'd use it more, everybody's different. So this way works for me, but I could see why a lot of people would like it better the other way round, has some good advantages that way.
There are a few more details a coupla posts back - JASavage asked the same question.
How's your design coming? Have you opened it up any?

Great heater hack. I've copied and pasted that one for future reference.

Thanks, now if someone would drop me a tip on how to clean the darned fans that doesn't require Q-tips

Tom

[pipopak]

Thanks, now if someone would drop me a tip on how to clean the darned fans that doesn't require Q-tips

Tom

A vacuum cleaner with a round brush attachment. Gone in 60 sec.!

[wtd]

Thanks - I'll give it a whirl.

[Diesel Dan]

So, does that heater heat up the whole bus? Or do you have to close off the front half of the bus and just heat half the space to stay warm?

[wtd]

So, does that heater heat up the whole bus? Or do you have to close off the front half of the bus and just heat half the space to stay warm?

The whole bus for part of the evening and then just the back half at night - I leave it on low all the time and rather than turn it up I just smallen up the space.
It keeps it about 35-38 degrees warmer than outside on the 'heated' side, this morning was 40 outside and 76 on the heated side of the curtain and 52 on the unheated side when I dashed out to the galley to get some coffee going.So the has just enough leakage to let some heat into the front to keep it somewhat warm.

Also I made another 'thermal curtiain' across the back window -

Just an old bedsheet I had laying around and the the liner is the fuzzy stuff you find in a cheap box spring. It's plenty thick and insulates pretty good. Just sew the fuzzy stuff to the bedsheet, add some snaps across the top, put the other side of the snaps in the wall. Puts another layer between you and outside and stops the drafts I had with just the curtains up.

Easy to put up and take down, Folds up pretty small. I stick it behind the big chair outta the way.


I had heavy curtains up with blinds but swapped out the blinds (don't get me started on blinds in a bus )for roller shades

I got the $4 a piece vinyl ones from Walmart, got 12 yards of duck cloth in the fabric department, came home and took the vinyl off, cut off a 28" long piece off the bolt for each window - the duck cloth comes 36" wide, which gave me the length -sewed rod pockets across one end, the 28" way, attached the duck cloth to the rollers, stuck the rods in the pockets at the bottom and stuck 'em up. You can see thay make a pretty good seal the bottom, they do on the sides as well and stops the drafts I used to have with the blinds.

Kept an eye on the temperatures for the next little while and those two things added about 8 degrees to the inside temp's at night. I like the shades better than blinds, when you're driving and want to keep the window open, just put it all the way up and no string or plastic rod to deal with. Easier to clean too - just take them off the rollers and throw them in with the regular laundry.
Oh, one more thing - for those that cringed about using fabric off of old box springs - they stay pretty clean during their life, since they're under the mattress and the top cover of the box springs, but a trip to the laundromat cleans they right up. Wash 'em by themselves and throw in whatever chemicals you like to kill whatever scares ya'.

Tom

[browncrown]

Put roller shades up in mine too...much better than blinds. Really like the work on your thermal shades.

[wtd]

Put roller shades up in mine too...much better than blinds. Really like the work on your thermal shades.

Thanks, BC - never saw anyone else use roller shades, maybe it's the Kern County air, huh?

Tom

[JA Savage]

"smallen up the space"???!?? LOVE IT!!!!

[wtd]

Combination of southern herritage and latin in college -figure I can just 'roll my own'

Plus it has a twisted relational, palindromic effect, no?

[en] large || small [en]

[browncrown]

Put roller shades up in mine too...much better than blinds. Really like the work on your thermal shades.

Thanks, BC - never saw anyone else use roller shades, maybe it's the Kern County air, huh?

Tom

We have the worst air in the nation here in the valley, so yup, that must have been the cause