new to buses

[chev49]

a 750 watt inverter will run some small things, you will need more than that, depending on what all you run on 110v. I think the first thing you will need to do is to design your basic floorplan, after determining exactly how you are going to use your bus. Generally you need to plan your bathroom/kitchen areas first, as that is where all the water lines, etc are gonna be, as well as part of the electrical, food storage etc. if you don't have a lot of funding, you can normally get a used camper, or trailer, etc really cheap almost anywhere in the usa, and use the appliances, etc.

As far as the rear heater, removing or moving it elsewhere in the bus would mostly depend on if you were going to need it while driving, as it only works when the engine is going. most people remove them entirely, and rely on the front heater/defroster and use propane or electric heat for the house part of the bus.

There is a lot of good information on this and other bus bbs sites, as well as a wealth of information in the photo sections.

[lornaschinske]

A 750 watt continuous inverter will run a few lights, computer, TV & DVD player. You need to add up the running watts to see. Double running watts for ref/fzr. I have a 750 watt inverter that will be wired in to provide "clean" power to my desktop computer & printer as well as a 2nd TV & DVD player in the bedroom and all our fluorescent lights. All our other AC stuff will be powered directly from shore or generator. I'm in the "multiple" inverters camp as opposed to using one big converter. I like knowing that if I lose one inverter I haven't lost it all.

We kept our rear heat exchanger & fans but will use an old RV water heater (instead of the engine) to heat anti freeze as the heat source. We disconnected & closed off the hoses that ran to the engine. Then relocated the exchanger to under the bus, cut an air return hole in the floor and will add ducts plus tie an air chiller into the antifreeze loop. This will give us heat in the winter and "air conditioning" in the summer. We think our setup will give us decent cooling with low power draw. I'm also going to build two modified "Heat Grabbers" based on the one from Mother Earth News. I figure that I can hang them in the windows for free heat on sunny winter days.