But what about floor height (depth)?

[dzl_]

There is a lot of discussion and awareness about bus ceiling height, but I've come across little to no discussion of floor height (I don't mean thickness, I mean height relative to the rest of the bus).


I'm hoping some of the keepers of skoolie knowledge, have some knowledge to share on this topic.

I suspect, there are different floor heights (depths?), a deeper floor seems like it would offer two main advantages
(1) more interior height possibly without raising the overall height of bus
(2) Counter height might be at or near the bottom edge of the windows.


Its this counter height thing that got me thinking about this, some bus builds keep the counters at the bottom of the window, some build up to the midpoint of the window, its hard to tell if this is due to different counter heights or different floor to window heights or both.

I would also suspect flat floor buses without wheel wells would might a higher floor.


SOO what say you?
Are there in fact different floor heights/depths?
What visual cue's or rules of thumb can be used to estimate this?
What is the approximate height from the floor to the bottom of the windows?

[EastCoastCB]

Well I know with Thomas there's Lowrider, kinda lowrider, standard, and mine- 5" above standard.

This is all due to the suspension height and wheel/tire selection.

[JackE]

I think overall floor height is determined by the frame ride height from the road, which is determined by suspension, tire size, and wheel size. Beginning with that height, the placement of the windows in relationship to the height of the ceiling to the floor will determine counter placement in any one bus. Counter height can vary with who the builder is, and perhaps how tall the occupants of the bus are. For example, My wife is only 5'3" tall. When building the counters, she has requested a section of counter low enough for her to comfortably kneed bread dough, standard counter height is too high for that. I believe the window height is more of a convenience placement that anything else in the original build parameters.

[Native]

I would think (see the use of "think" here) that the height of the window is determined by the school bus design specifications that were adopted many moons ago. Someone, somewhere figured out just how high the seat of the benches need to be. From there, the bottom of the window is set based on a set height above the bench seat. If you measure school bus seat height and the bottom of the window, I would bet you would find little variation across ALL modern (1960+) school buses.

[dzl_]

Originally Posted by Native

I would think (see the use of "think" here) that the height of the window is determined by the school bus design specifications that were adopted many moons ago. Someone, somewhere figured out just how high the seat of the benches need to be. From there, the bottom of the window is set based on a set height above the bench seat. If you measure school bus seat height and the bottom of the window, I would bet you would find little variation across ALL modern (1960+) school buses.

This is a good point/educated guess. Sounds reasonable enough, I hadn't considered that.


I suppose I was/am still thrown off by the many builds with counter heights and couch back heights at different heights relative to the windows, but that look to be about the same height relative to the floor or to a person. Maybe this is not the case and is just related to camera angle or some other factor.


Anyone have an estimate of floor to bottom window sill height in their bus?

[Native]

30" from the top of the finished floor to the bottom of the widow sill.
32" from the top of the sheetmetal floor to the bottom of the widow sill.


Can you guess how thick our flooring is?

[dzl_]

Originally Posted by Native

30" from the top of the finished floor to the bottom of the widow sill.
32" from the top of the sheetmetal floor to the bottom of the widow sill.


Can you guess how thick our flooring is?

Thank you! That is very helpful to know. I believe 'normal' household counter height in the US is 36" right, and desk/table height is 28"-30"ish

[Native]

Hmmmm .... I seem to remember someone compiling and posting common household dimensions on this site. It may take a bit to find it though.

[TomA]

On the Blue Bird Vantage database the floor height above the lowest entry step and the skirt height are listed for most buses. Most of their buses list the floor height at 23 or 24 inches, and most of the skirts (side sheet metal that hangs down below the floor structure) are 14-16"

Many unusual orders (ambulances, bookmobiles, command centers etc. ) have higher floor heights to eliminate the wheel well protrusions into the floor. They typically have unusually high (special order) ceilings as well, given the intended use. The Blue Bird Commercial Series buses seem to show even more variation than the skoolie/activity bus lines.

A dead giveaway to a flat floor bus is the selection of 19.5 wheels instead of 22.5s as OEM equipment. That's worth a couple inches off the wheel well height, maybe more.

I imagine other manufacturers have similar variation, but I haven't been able to search their build databases so I don't know...

[dzl_]

Originally Posted by TomA

On the Blue Bird Vantage database the floor height above the lowest entry step and the skirt height are listed for most buses. Most of their buses list the floor height at 23 or 24 inches, and most of the skirts (side sheet metal that hangs down below the floor structure) are 14-16"

Many unusual orders (ambulances, bookmobiles, command centers etc. have higher floor heights to eliminate the wheelwell protrusions into the floor. They typicallly have unusually high (special order) ceilings as well, given the intended use. The Blue Bird Commercial Series buses seem to show even more variation than the skoolie/activity bus lines.

I imagine other manufacturers have similar variation, but I haven't been able to search their build databases so I don't know...

This is good info! Thank you.

[Native]

Originally Posted by dzl_

Thank you! That is very helpful to know. I believe 'normal' household counter height in the US is 36" right, and desk/table height is 28"-30"ish

I found the link .... https://www.skoolie.net/forums/f13/h...ign-20614.html