Installing an Exterior Ladder

[soused moose]

I noticed a few postings about installing a ladder on your Schoolies…
Here’s how I did mine

OUR LADDER PROJECT
A School buses roof is curved so when I installed the Ladder on the rear of the Bus , I had to figure out whether I wanted to install it in the middle of the roof or off to one side . I figured the easiest way to go about it was to install it directly in the middle, where the curvature of the roof was less abrupt. We wanted the Back door to still be operational so I designed the ladder assembly to work as two separate pieces.

I sent for an RV ladder …and cut through the aluminum uprights to get the right sizing for the 2-ladder sections and metal screwed the whole thing to the bus.

Here's some pics
The 1st one shows the door closed and what the ladder set-up looks like . The 2nd pic shows what the two ladder sections look like up-close . Those white rubber caps you see there keep you from scraping your hands and such on the bare aluminum ends of the tubing . I drilled a hole through the rubber caps and the aluminum tubing and pop-riveted them into place . The 3rd . pic shows the back door open . I feel pretty good about the assembly . It seems to be good and strong .






Michael & Millie...
http://www.mobilehomestead.com

[Steve]

Two questions, where did you order the ladder from.

And how much does it keep your door from opening all the way, and are you going to have to worry about smashing up your lights.

[soused moose]

Steve…I picked up the ladder through Camping World for around $81.00 + shipping.
I imagine you can find the same ladder through some of the RV Surplus places for less…but I went through Camping World because their shipping to Alaska is really fair.

Here’s the link to the ladder

http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus ... H&tcode=37

The door opens fine…. and I’ve never had a problem with it whacking the lights at all.
Our door, even when oiled is pretty stiff …so I cant imagine the wind or something blowing it into the lights..

As far as Keeping the door from opening all the way goes…
The ladder only protrudes 7 “ from the bus body ….so it opens most of the way (Less 7� )

On a side note…I worried a little that ladder wouldn’t be strong enough when I had to install it in two sections.
But , It’s really strong and doesn’t seem to move about at all when I’m using it.

[soused moose]

I just added a page to our site with a little more detailed explanation on how we did our ladder install.

So…here it is if anyone’s interested

http://www.mobilehomestead.com/projects/ladder1.htm

Michael & Millie