The chair rail - what did you make of it?

[Elliot Naess]

I wouldn't dream of bothering to remove it. It would be a ton of work -- which would only serve to weaken the wall.

Use it where you can. It's a good height for mounting lots of things. Cut a slot in it where it's in the way of something. Or cut a slot in the something, if that's easier. Maybe you can use it to lay wiring or plumbing on. In other words, if that ledge strikes you as a bit of a lemon, make lemonade.

It has a huge advantage over the rest of the wall for mounting stuff: You can easily put a nut on the other side of it.

[the_experience03]

I mounted a 2x2 on top of the rail and on the floor level below it. Affixed to those 2x2's is a panel of 1/4 luan plywood which serves to cover the whole area. In that chase panel I run all my wiring and my plumbing which works out great.

By the way...I like the link to the Revisor's website in your sig line.

[the_experience03]

Hmmm

Well...my conversion happened in a flurry, actually. It took us a long time to get the floor done. Then we looked at a calender a few months later and realized we were going to need it in 2.5 weeks for Country Fest. I can show you some of the before and some of the after pictures, but there isn't much I can show you from the process. Basically, we were too darn busy working to actually stop and take pictures.

In a flash...

As the seats were coming out...


The electrical "panel"...


The living room coming together, complete with the fluorescent lights. Notice the chase panels I was describing at seat rail height...


The bulkheads, beds, and the rest of the framing coming together...


And some pre-maiden voyage interior pictures...


Temporary AC...


My bed. The water tank is under it...


And the livingroom before we loaded it down with stuff...


I have all kinds of pictures from various destinations and I can fill you in on the exact details of any parts if you're curious.

[the_experience03]

The lights are little 15 inch units that are meant to go under your cabinets or in a similar location. They come with a regular white lamp type plug in cord on the back of them. I drilled a hole in the upper chase panel and ran the wires back into there, cut the plugs off, and tied them in to my other 120 volt wiring. So to answer your question they run off the inverters which are tied into golf cart batteries.

My heaters are gone. It was just a necessity with the layout I went with. I regret it in that I have no heat now, but like I said...it was necessary. I don't do much cold weather stuff, but even late August can dip down to below freezing in this neck of the woods as you and I both know. Portable heaters work, but there is nothing that works going down the road. My plan eventually is to add hydronic baseboard heaters and tie them into the engine cooling system. MOST of the plumbing is still there, but I would have to rearrange my WVO system a little. Such is life I guess.

[SeanF]

We used it to support the wall sections.
See http://seanf.smugmug.com
Bus Conversion - 2005 - Nov through Dec

We used the space under the seat rail as a place to run wiring or plumbing, as needed. The area beaneath the rail IS a major heat sink though, so if that's important, be sure to have a plan for insulating that space.

Good luck
Sean

[the_experience03]

My bunks also tie into the rail.