The Land Barge ...

[Hex]

As for a progress report, I've still not uploaded the older pics, but I do have some of the thing that's currently keeping me from working on the skoolie ...

A corner vanity of oak.


There it's just stained. Currently it's got all the finish on, the glass bowl sink affixed, and the plumbing set. I still have to put the doors on and then it can go to it's new home, at my in-laws ...

(Just so you know I'm not just sitting around eating bon-bons instead of working on the bus ... )

[Redbear]

Originally Posted by Hex

. . But I can see the entrance through the shower thing too. It's a perfectly reasonable floor, and showers do tend to be pretty empty and open when not being used ...

I forgot to add that my plan would have the shower pan slightly recessed, and then add a wooden (cedar?) shower floor grate to stand on when showering or doing other business. The exposed dampness should not linger as long as being directly on the shower pan, and it would deal with any slopes designed into the pan for draining. If I could get the rim of the pan below the raised, insulated hall floor (or recess the pan) it would also help with sweeping the hall.

[Hex]

So, middle of winter thaw and all got me working this weekend; first to get my table saw running, and second to do some work on the bus floor. Saturday was in the low 50's, and Sunday's high was 28 and snowing, so the work environment was highly variable.

I got a whole bunch of polystyrene insulation that's sheathed in reflective mylar (or some such thin material), which has an R5.5 rating while being only 3/4" thick (it's a DOW product like this, but with foil on both sides).

Under the "walking area" I'll put the insulation between 3/4" x 1 1/2" pine batting strips for extra supports(like floor studs), and over that I'll be putting 1/2" plywood for a subfloor (all of that's over the steel and a layer of felt paper. I'll have more felt paper over the subfloor and then the maple tongue and groove.

And for the 'hidden' areas, like under the bench seats, under the kitchen cabinets and under the bunks, I'm using the heavy duty, nearly inch thick marine plywood that was in the bus originally. I actually got the two bench seat areas at the rear of the bus finished (except for some longer screws), with the insulation and plywood.

I also got the metal sheathed windows finished. I insulated the window cavities with inch-thick polystyrene and some expanding foam and then covered the insulation with 1/2" pressure-treated plywood.

So now I can start to put up the walls that go up mid-window for the bathroom, and work toward getting the flooring proper in. Figuring on using a pneumatic flooring nailer to get the maple down, and remembering doing my in-laws floor over the summer-before-last, not having walls in the way will be -waaaaay- easier ...

[Hex]

And actually, in looking over the post and the thread, I noticed that I missed off on talking about skinning the windows ...

My windows come out from the inside, so I decided to put the skin on the inside of the window frame instead of over it from the outside.I was going to make some thin angled brackets to fit, but then I considered what I had at hand to keep the metal stable and unwarped, and then it hit me - window frames!

I ended up getting some nice 16 gauge steel cut to fit the openings and had a Tom Sawyer happening by getting my son and one of his friends to paint them up.

I took each of the windows that I was replacing out, dismantled the frames, removing the glass (which could come in handy in the future). I then reassembled the glassless frame. In doing a 'dry run' of the fit, the frame seemed to be about 1/8th inch too thick, which seemed to be from the fact that the windows fit up against the body skin that then wrapped back over the frame, helping to seal it. This was facilitated by a thin ridge on the outside of the window frame ... Just about 1/8th of an inch thick.

I ended up grinding the ridge off the window frame and then the steel fit flat against the frame, and when I did the 'dry run' it was perfect. There was some remaining space along the outside of the frame that had space when the steel window skin came up against the bent body steel. There was enough space to take the heads of the metal screws that I used to secure the steel to the aluminum frame.

I added in some weatherstripping and silicone, and reset the window-frames in the same manner as setting the regular windows (which means that if I wanted, I could simply uninstall the steel and move it to a different window if I wanted).

So now you're all caught up!

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by Smitty

... If you plan on using the bus in the winter....3/4" of insulation won't do a whole-lot, I've got 2 layers of 3/4"....and wished I'd added a third (but didn't plan on getting stuck in this armpit for another winter)...

Our RV is (from outside in) a heavy sheet of aluminum, 1 1/2" blue foam insulation/sheathing with 1/2" plywood on top. IT'S NOT ENOUGH! Traveling down the interstates in high heat summer (interstates seem to be 5 to 15 degrees hotter than the air temps), the floor cooks. In the winter it is just way too cold (our temps have been running highs of 40F and lows of 7F). You can not have too much insulation! Insulate inside if you want then insulate outside under the bus! Based on the thickness of the frame/I-beam we can stick a good 4" of foam sheathing under there... at least. Now David thinks we need to use a radiant heat hydronic floor (that's what I get for letting him read my bus notes) so we will be insulating heavily under the bus.

[Hex]

Originally Posted by Smitty

Polyiso is generally foil-faced, about the best it gets! I'd reconsider the 1/2" floor sheeting.....matter of fact, save your $ on the furring strips, and just cover the polyiso with 3/4" sheeting and you won't be out any extra. If you plan on using the bus in the winter....3/4" of insulation won't do a whole-lot, I've got 2 layers of 3/4"....and wished I'd added a third (but didn't plan on getting stuck in this armpit for another winter).

With no pics....we're not feeling caught-up

Smitty

I know. I'm bummed about not having pics. I'll work on that ...

But we're only planning on using the bus in the spring/summer/fall, and only really for boondocking, so the insulation's mostly to keep road noise down. And since I'm not going to be raising the roof, I'll be brushing the roof with my head as it is when I move about. I'd rather not stoop any more than I have to ...

As for the 3/4" strips, I'm using those so that I can try and keep the maple flooring from having too much flex when folks walk on it ...

[Hex]

Originally Posted by jak

that is a nice paint job
nice freaking work there
very inspirational
keep up the good work and keep the pics coming
take care
JAK

Thanks muchly.

This spring, I'll have to repaint the rub-rails, repaint the brown on the hood, and give the roof a good washing, but otherwise it's holding up well.

I just wish I had more time and $ to put into progress ...

[Hex]

Originally Posted by lornaschinske

Our RV is (from outside in) a heavy sheet of aluminum, 1 1/2" blue foam insulation/sheathing with 1/2" plywood on top. IT'S NOT ENOUGH! Traveling down the interstates in high heat summer (interstates seem to be 5 to 15 degrees hotter than the air temps), the floor cooks. In the winter it is just way too cold (our temps have been running highs of 40F and lows of 7F). You can not have too much insulation! Insulate inside if you want then insulate outside under the bus! Based on the thickness of the frame/I-beam we can stick a good 4" of foam sheathing under there... at least. Now David thinks we need to use a radiant heat hydronic floor (that's what I get for letting him read my bus notes) so we will be insulating heavily under the bus.

I was considering that, especially since I haven't put any tanks or anything under the floor yet. I'm wondering how hard it would be to put in and work around ...

I had looked at doing a radiant heat system with one of the Aqua-Hot systems, but with the base burner unit being up over $8K, I'm not going there. As of right now, we're doing no heating system at all.

We're figuring the big thing we'll need to worry about is cooling ...

[yankeflyer]

about the pics - before I post a pic to my thread these days I have to reduce its size by 75% - The tool is in bitmap - click on image then click on - then click on stretch/skew and in the box type in 25% in both value windows and then hit enter. You pic is now 25% of the size it was before and will up load quickly and you should be able to see your results.

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by Hex

... I had looked at doing a radiant heat system with one of the Aqua-Hot systems, but with the base burner unit being up over $8K, I'm not going there...

You can use an LP tankless water heater OR a standard LP RV water heater (for a 40 ft bus you need a minimum of 40Kbtu's based on what I have read for 500 sq ft space). Do it as a dedicated closed system filled with anti-freeze and use something else to heat your potable water. I would go a little higher BTU's if possible as that is for a well insulated house.

A Webasto 2010 will easily take the place of an Aqua hot style boiler (and do it far cheaper). According to the stuff they sent me years back, one of their systems used to use one... don't know if they still do.

The following info & links is just for a little reference... you would really need to research water heaters to use. A great deal depends on how much insulation you have, how cold the winters are that you will be staying in and what supplemental heat sources you will have (we are moving the rear fan forced bus heat exchanger to under the bus and ducting the air into the bus... it will share the water heater with the floor system... we are also putting a LP heater in the front "living room" inside an old mantle that I have... a small LP Wave 3 type CAT heater will be put into the bathroom hallway so we can heat up the shower area when it's not really cold enough to heat the whole place). You also need to think about where you will be staying. We stay in campgrounds with full hook-ups and in parking lots. Flexibility in our systems is important to us.

Tankless units.....
Specs for an RV500 (about $1K) 53,000 Btu input - 42,500 Btu output at maximum burn at 8.5 WCI manifold pressure.15,000 Btu input - 9,600 Btu output at low burn at 1.2 WCI manifold pressure. (85°F temperature rise per gallon per minute continuous flow at high burn). one source... http://www.gaswaterheaters.com/boats...V500/index.htm very compact

Specs for Takagi TK-2 (one of the most efficient ones on the market) LP Min19,000-Max175,000 Btu's
http://www.gaswaterheaters.com/takagi/tk2/index.htm

Specs for Paloma (one of the most efficient on the market) http://www.gaswaterheaters.com/paloma/index.htm I know it says not to install in RV's. But many have been with no problems. To be come "approved" for using in things like RV's Boats, etc required years of expensive testing. The Takagi folks told me, via email, that the testing was too expensive for such a small market. But the Pres, VP, most of the engineers and a good deal of their workforce had put the Takagis in their RVs and had been running them for years.


Most non-RV LP water heaters require either a standing pilot light or electronic ignition. Our RV uses an AC/LP electronic ignition
Atwood water heater. They have gone up in price since we bought it (replaced really old unit back in 2007). The ability to use the park electric is very handy. TX was the first park we stayed in that did not include electric in the site rental. Both TX parks we wintered in had metered electric (we paid by the kwh) but worked out cheaper than running the propane. Last winter, our metered electric was $0.14/kwh. We heated lots of water (David pulls hot water for the food cart from the RV) and ran electric heaters (our LP furnace pooped out on us while in TX... didn't get it fixed until we got back to NM this summer... I had a flat tire just as we left Socorro for Corpus... the tire was directly under the furnace so it got beat up a tad... knocked debris loose from the LP tubing inside the heater and blocked the orifice... it was a simple fix but we couldn't pull the furnace out in the first campground and simply didn't bother in the second campground... runs great now). Our (suspiciously) highest electric bill was right at $100. It usually ran about $25 to $35 per month. In our current campground, we pay $350/mo and that includes everything. So far the max we have ever paid for any campground (monthly) in over 30 years of camping was $400 per month w/s/e/cable included (Chattanooga.... one of the coldest winters they had and we were in an uninsulated pop-up running electric heater -- unmetered). I made up a little OpenOffice LPvsAC spreadsheet that will tell me when it is cheaper to run my LP or to use the parks metered electric. Basically, you take the cost of LP per gallon and divide that by 22. If that # is higher than the metered electric, you use the metered electric. If that # is lower than the metered electric, you use the LP. In TX, LP was the same price as AC. So we used the AC. No having to hassle with LP tanks more than we had to (we cook with LP).


To find out how approximately how long your LP will last... http://www.rverscorner.com/rvpropaneusagetip.html

[Hex]

Well, I did work out a neat (I think) system with two heat exchangers and a 'sealed' system for the floor. It involved several pumps and some solenoid valves, and when we got down to it, I thought the Aqua-Hot quite a nifty system.

But anyhow ... PICS!

First, a current interior pic, looking aft, with wall footers in place (but not cabinet footers yet).


Here's what one of the port insulated/skinned windows looks like - the plywood comes up nearly flush with the original aluminum frame level.


Here's the port bench flooring. That's the original bus flooring cut to fit in the footer. Under it is the insulation.

[Hex]

And more:

The insulation looks like this (4' x 8' x3/4"):


Nice scores from our local ReUse place (Salvaged & resold):

The $10 enameled, cast-iron corner sink (that I can bolt directly to the wall studs!)


Lights!





And, of course, the Yule decorated bus!

[Hex]

Oh, and the skinned windows from the outside ...

[Seeria]

Did I miss the skinning? Is that plywood showing on the outside? How'd you seal it? Keep us updated on how that holds up, eh. I might need to do that on a couple windows (hate to cover windows... I like to see, See).

[Stuff]

looks great! and those are some VINTAGE lights!! might want to re-wire them though to be on the safe side!

[Hex]

Originally Posted by Seeria

Did I miss the skinning? Is that plywood showing on the outside? How'd you seal it? Keep us updated on how that holds up, eh. I might need to do that on a couple windows (hate to cover windows... I like to see, See).

It's skinned from the inside. I think it's 16 gauge steel (might be 1 that I got, then there's an inch of a nice pink foam insulation and then the 1/2" plywood you can see on the inside. I used some silicone sealant for repairing gutters as the main sealant, though I did use some 5/16 x 3/8" weatherstripping inside the lip of the bus skin just in case ...

So far, with snow and melting, there's been no leaks, but I'll give updates if I have any issues ...


Icicles to show that the snow does thaw in Buffalo ...

[Jarlaxle]

Yeah, definitely...an electrical fire would be a BAD thing!

If you haven't, I suggest tinting your windows. I don't necessarily mean limo-black (though you may want to for some), but clear glass will turn the bus into an oven in the summer!

[Hex]

Originally Posted by Stuff

looks great! and those are some VINTAGE lights!! might want to re-wire them though to be on the safe side!

Thanks! And yeah, best guess is that they're from the 1930's, and the sconce at least as been (badly) rewired. I figured on making sure they're all safe before installing.

[Hex]

Originally Posted by Jarlaxle

Yeah, definitely...an electrical fire would be a BAD thing!

If you haven't, I suggest tinting your windows. I don't necessarily mean limo-black (though you may want to for some), but clear glass will turn the bus into an oven in the summer!

Yeah. I was hoping for a minimal tint reflective coating, but I'm going to have to check with the DMV about that. I've been told that NY doesn't accept -any- reflective coatings except on the rear of the vehicle.

But it's absolutely true. We've had a few days where we've not broke freezing and used the bus as an overflow freezer, and have had stuff do the thaw and re-freeze-into-a-block thing, even with minimal amounts of sun.

Summer should be fun ...

[Hex]

Okay ... So the winter is being mild enough that I'm still getting some time to do work on the flooring.

I got in the re-used old bus floor in (over insulation) under where the bunks will go, and got some of the 1/2" subflooring in under where the maple will go.

All the shiny insulation & firring strips for the area cut, with the felt paper underneath ...


With the wood in place ...



And, just an FYI, I'm using these self-drilling/tapping screws for the job. The silver ones are #12, and I'm using them for going through the plywood & insulation/firring strips, and the grey ones are #10 and just for holding the firring strips down. I've had no troubles (knock on wood) with them drilling through the metal floor, though I do use an impact drill ...