Some Dilemmas but tons of fun!
My husband and I have a 2002 40' Thomas school bus. I fall more in love with it every day! Going into this conversion, was sort of a hope for the best, expect the worst situation, since we bought our bus over the phone, from a dealership while we were in a different state, on vacation. Thankfully, we are stoked with our purchase!! The bus has been very well maintained both inside and out. Mechanically and otherwise.
Got the bus home, removed the seats. So far so good.
Took out the rubber on the floor. The 3/4" plywood we found underneath looks amazing. No rot, mold, or water damage to be seen! No rust around the wheel wells that we can see, and the screws we pulled out of the floor, came out clean. We've been contemplating taking the original plywood out, but for now, we decided to leave it in, apply primer, seal up the holes from seat removal, add furring strips, 1" blue board, then new plywood on top. There is no apparent rust from underneath the bus, but the fact that we don't know what may be lurking under the wood, makes me wonder if we should take it out, as was our first intention. It's in such good shape that I'm questioning what to do now.
All of our panels (walls and ceiling) are attached with screws instead of rivets. I'm digging that part! Under the ceiling we found 1" insulation that looked pretty good, however, there's lots of space in there to put better insulation, and the inside of the panels felt damp up toward the front of the bus (but not toward the back).. so, we are taking all of the ceiling panels down, and replacing the insulation with 2" blue board, then covering that with some sort of prettier ceiling panels.
When we looked behind the walls, we found 2" insulation that was very clean, no trace of moisture within or behind on the walls. It was super clean in there. I was shocked! So as of now, we've screwed the wall panels back down and decided to cover over them with 1" blue board and some kind of paneling. We will also be covering some of the windows with insulation and paneling, after painting them black on the inside, so from the outside they look tinted, and inside they just look like part of the wall.
Speaking of windows.. none of them leak, and they are all sealed up very well, with some sort of black sealant. Originally, we planned on removing them so we could clean and reseal them, but now we're not so sure. They seem to be pretty well sealed up as they are.
Overall, we seem to have lucked out with the cleanliness of our bus.
For anyone who has read this far.. I have a couple questions..
#1- Does it seem that we are cutting corners, by leaving the original plywood, walls/insulation, and windows intact & insulating over them (even though they are all in great shape)??
#2- If it were your bus, what would you do?
Our main intention is to not cut corners, but also not to do more than necessary. We want a great finished product, and are willing to put in the work to achieve it. All opinions and advice are appreciated!
Thanks for reading!!
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